What's in a name?

It's no secret that I have been longing for a baby girl and I thought I had all things planned, including the stocking up of baby girl clothes since 3 years ago. And I even had names picked... But as THE DAY draws closer, we are no where near deciding on a name. Picking a name is such a difficult business. You have to pre-empt the nicknames that might be pinned to it. Then you worry about age-old relatives who are not be able to pronounce the name. Then you worry if the name will be too common... For example, I thought Lucas was a unique name but it turns out many other great minds think like mine.

When I was naming Lucas, I also had a hard time. But I was lucky then as I had a bunch of close-clique colleagues who helped me to pick the name. In fact, Lucas was named by my ex-colleagues and not by Vinc or family members. His chinese name was translated by Auntie S and mix-matched by Uncle G. My other colleagues had a role in preventing me from naming him some names that no one can pronounce... which on hindsight, I thank their great wisdom. It would have trully been disastrous to have called Lucas, 'Vladimir'. I still like the name but I doubt it would be pronounce the way it should be at, say a poly clinic, or childcare centre.

Anyway, back to naming my girl. It is hard to find a name starting with L for a girl, with nice meanings and not too common and not being too long or complicated. I thought I had chosen quite a nice few (Letitia, Lerrisa, Lucille, Lucia etc) until I put it to a poll with my ex-colleagues (given the success they had with Lucas). All the names didn't gel with someone. The Chinese name was worse since I want it to match the 'grandeur' of Lucas's Chinese name which means 'peak of the Universe'. That's very hard to beat...

Then I thought I'll get Vinc involved and got him to choose a name. He did. It was a nice name but one which no doubt will draw laughter amongst my relatives. When I told my parents, it brought tears to my mother's eyes... from laughing too much... they couldn't contain their laughter before giving us their blessing.

I thought long and hard about it for many weeks. Vinc and I really liked the name... and I think I should stick to the fact that I had asked Vinc to pick a name so I should stand by what he chose. We just had to content ourselves that my girl may not appreciate the trouble we went through to choose her name.

So it is decided and cast in stone. My girl will be Lyra Wong Yu Hum. Lyra refers to one of the brightest constellation of stars. It also means song, harp or lyre. Yu Han (Yu Hum in Cantonese) means possessing the universe... So I have a boy at the peak, and I have girl holding the universe in her hands.

I would have to teach her how to fend off nicknames and not let it get to her in her growing years. But if she has Vinc and my traits, it probably wouldn't bother her much.