Names

My kids all have rather unfavorable names for each other when they are annoyed with each other, but heaven forbid if anyone but them ever use that same kind of name on their siblings! They are so protective of each other. They have also picked up calling each other by nicknames of endearment, in twisted versions of the names they call each other when they are annoyed.... Aubri is "Bossy", Andy is "Trouble" and Sera is "Stinky". No one else has permission to use these names either!

I have my own nick names for them too.. Not planned ones, but ones that have stuck. Aubri is my Doodlebug, Andy is my Noodle boy and Sera is my Snickerdoodle... Somehow I must like the sound of "oodle"!

As for their legal names each child has a family name, a name I liked for specific reasons and Sera and Andy kept their Chinese names ( minus the surname) as a 2nd middle name.

Aubri is named after a little girl I was blessed to meet in college who changed my life forever. She was a student I worked with while taking a SpEd class as a gen ed requirement to ease my workload from a Chem E major. I so enjoyed working with her that I totally changed directions in career planning. I knew my Aubri would also change my life for the better forever, and she definitely has! Her middle name is a derivative of my grandmother's middle name.

Andy was given a first name I really liked due to it meaning "strength" but also because I naively thought it sounded similar to his Chinese name and would be easier for him to adjust to. Little did I know that it did not.... His middle name is my father's middle name and he also kept his Chinese name as a 2nd middle name.

Sera was named based on her future full of hope. I had been told that she could easily have lifelong delays. I did not care. I wanted, and will always want her (and my other 2 also) to become who they could aspire be, so her name is my grandmother's firstname with a twist. It is said like Sarah, but spelled like the french verb "to become- she will become- elle sera". Her middle name means garden of beauty. She also kept her Chinese name as a 2nd middle name.

I have no idea if Andy and Sera will ever use their Chinese names. Both were given by the orphanage they were in. Neither has any special meaning or connections to their personality, but they are theirs and are the only things they have of their life in China. I know Andy has to have had another name given to him with more meaning and love, since his first family tried to provide him the medical care he needed before realizing it was beyond the scope of what could be done there. He was about 4-5 months old when he was found. Maybe someday he will know that name. Maybe he will not. I don't know if Sera was named before she was born, or when she was born, before she was left in the hospital.

I do know that their Father knows all of their names, however, and despite the meanings they have to me, to them, to their siblings, to their friends, to their teachers or to their first parents, their names are precious to him. They are precious to him.