A Name....

I was thinking about Olivia....Mame.... For a year now we have called her Olivia, around here, and she does not know that name, does not know we call her that. I noticed recently, I call her Mame a lot. For a couple reasons, one I just did without realizing it, but second, I wanted the kids and my parents to become familiar with that name, in case Mame does not like the name Olivia.

When I adopted Mary Elisabeth, her name was Wu, Qing, (Ching)...but they called her "Char". So she was not familiar with her legal name at all, and was a month shy of 3 years old. Her transition to Mary Beth was fairly easy, although she loves being called "Princess Qing Qing". :)

Mame is quite a bit older, and we will have a BIG language challenge to work through. How do I even explain to her, that I would like to add-to her name, the name Olivia? Like Mary, she will come to use with nothing other than the clothes she has on, her memories and her name...

The challenge with "Mame" (currently pronounced Muh-may) is that most people will have no clue on how to pronounce it, if they just see it written, like at school etc. I am hoping she will feel good about having Olivia as her first name and Mame as her middle name.

I know many families change their names altogether, and many do not change them at all.... Some have let their children pick a new name. :)

Olivia has some signifigance with us. Prior to adopting even Mary, Tadpole had a dream he said of his little sister we would be adopting and she looked just like Olivia in his preschool class, (yes that many years ago). Fastfoward a few years, and when I was thinking of adopting from Ethiopia, I found this picture of this 16 year old sister and her little infant sister. Both orphans. Their names? Sandra and Olivia. So Olivia has just sorta stuck.

We will see what she thinks.

I wonder what she will think.