In this post, I dish about how I went about choosing an English and Chinese name for my baby girl.
This is the title page of the brag book I made for my baby girl using Project Life mini album and Project Life Kit Baby Edition for Her.
Whole Spread
The left page is the inside cover of the Project Life Mini Album. The right page can hold 2 vertical 3×4 and 2 horizontal 4×6’s.
Left Page
On the top left pocket, I used a pink 3 x 4 title card from the Project Life Kit Baby Edition for Her. (I got the full Project Life Kit and used it on these 3 mini albums for the grandparents and for the big Project Life baby album that I am making for myself.)
The two photos on the right are from the same photo session from day 1 shot by the hospital photographer. She just did a photo shoot in the hospital room using the sofa which she pulled next to the window. She had a bunch of props such as different cloths that she used as backgrounds, head bands and blankets.
The photo on the bottom left is from a wedding we attended when she was 2 months old.
For the title card, I wrote her name in English, then in Chinese, then the Chinese pronunciation in pinyin.
My penmanship could use a bit of work though. In my mind, when I imagined it before writing it out, I had the most beautiful calligraphy penmanship. In reality, I don’t ever write anymore, I mostly type so I was out of practice.
The name Yena is just my name (Honey) backwards (sorta). I’ve used this name as my handle (does anyone still say handle nowadays?) since college so whenever I see an old online account that I have, I’m surprised how far back I have been using this name.
The name Christine is after her uncle Chris who passed away during my first trimester.
My baby girl is part American, part Mexican on her dad’s side and part Chinese, part Filipino on my side so it was important for me to give her a Chinese name.
Her Chinese name is 吴月娜 (
Wú Yuè Nà). 吴
Wú is my Chinese last name (or Go in Fookien) and 月娜
Yuè Nà is just a sound alike of her English name. 月 means moon and 娜 means graceful (or Graceful Moon).
To find her Chinese name, I used Google Translate. Because my name is Honey and my husband’s name is Brian, initially, I wanted a honeybee kind of name, but the translation wasn’t as pretty as this one. I just typed Yena in the search field and looked at the different options that sounded like it. 月 was pretty easy because it’s a common word, but for the 娜, I actually had to look up what most people use when they translate an English name like Anna (
安娜). If you want to do this, just make sure you find out what the meaning of the words you choose are because it might have some funny (or unfunny) consequences.
When I have another kid, I will try to have two syllables for the English name so that it will be easy to translate to Chinese as well.
You can get the
Project Life Ivory Mini Album
and
Project Life by Becky Higgins Core Kit – Baby Edition for Her here.
Show and Tell Time
Do you have a photo of the title page of your Project Life baby album (whether mini or full-sized)? Please share a link in the comments below.
