Every time when I chat with friends and colleagues, they will praise me for the good names I gave my two children, which are pleasant to read, tasteful to taste, and high-level!
When I hear such compliments, I tend to be intoxicated and extremely proud!
My daughter’s name is Ruoxi, and my son’s name is Yuanxi!
Ruoxi was born in November 2005. She is now a big girl, tall and graceful, and charming. As early as a few months before Ruoxi was born, my wife and I started naming our unborn child. As a Chinese teacher, this important mission must be fulfilled by me. For a young expectant father who is about to become a father, it is indeed an exciting and wonderful thing to name his child who is about to come into the world.
In order to come up with an unusual name, I worked hard and exhausted all my talents. I opened the Chinese dictionary and exhausted all the vocabulary, but still couldn't find a satisfactory name. Sometimes, I finally think of a name that I think is very meaningful, and I happily bring it to my wife for judgment, but my wife will always pour cold water on me and reject it unceremoniously. Of course, if my wife, who is as full of expectations as me, would show me the name she had worked so hard on, I would find hundreds of reasons to deny it. In this way, my wife and I really struggled to think of a name for our unborn child.
Sometimes, inspiration often comes from accident. Due to the influence of my major, when I was giving a classical Chinese text to students, the classical Chinese word "xi" attracted me. "Xi" is a modal particle in classical Chinese, which is equivalent to the meaning of "ah" in modern Chinese. It appears frequently in Qu Yuan's "Li Sao". I was inspired, so I continued to look for words that could match the word "xi" from classical Chinese words. I searched and searched and found the word "ruo". When the two words are read together, it is very readable, and the artistic conception is also very beautiful. And I discovered that these two words actually came from a sentence in the "Book of Songs", and I suddenly felt full of poetry!
I showed the name "Ruoxi" to my wife. Although she was not very satisfied, she was not as negative as other names. So, my wife and I finally agreed that if we were going to have a girl, it would be named "Ruoxi", and if we were going to have a boy, we would use the homophonic name "Ruoxi". Of course, there is another reason why I finally recognized this name. At that time, there was a popular software for naming children on the Internet. The software would combine the names and score them. I entered the words "Ruoxi" and "Ruoxi" and both got 100 points. So, somehow, my wife and I decided on this name.
In the expectation of my wife and I, we welcomed the arrival of our daughter "Ruoxi". In this way, this child named "Ruoxi" enjoys her happy time in this world day after day, until now.
There are also some worries about naming my daughter "Ruoxi". The word "Ruoxi" is catchy and pleasant when read in Mandarin, but it always feels awkward when read in our Qianyang dialect. There is also the word "xi", which seems to be difficult to recognize. Several times when I visited Ruoxi to get medicine, the nurse opened her eyes wide and looked at it for a long time, but she still didn't recognize the word "xi", which was very embarrassing.
Time passed very quickly. When my wife and I both thought that we would only have this child "Ruoxi" in this life, the country relaxed the two-child policy. Looking at the families around me who are in a similar situation to mine, they have responded to the national policy and started to have a second child. At first, my wife and I were unmoved, but later we couldn't resist the "temptation". So, before we were 40 years old, my wife and I had our second child!
When Ruoxi was born, my wife and I were still young and full of desire and excitement about becoming parents for the first time. But when we are far away, we seem to be very calm, preparing everything skillfully and steadily.
Of course, the task of naming the second child who is about to come into the world has been given to me again. Over the years, I have long shed the impatience and restlessness of youth. This time, when naming my child, my goal is very clear. It must be connected with one of the two characters "xi" or "ruo". I vaguely feel that two children who are connected by blood and have the same character in each other's names are brothers and sisters. I also seem to feel that God will favor me, and my second child will be a boy, which will definitely make my life a big and perfect "good".
So, I naturally fell into the anxiety of naming my child. I went online, looked up information again and again, picked up a pen and wrote down several proposed names.
This time, I seemed to lack inspiration for the name. Even I was not satisfied with the name, let alone my picky wife. Therefore, until my wife gave birth to the child, we did not decide on the name of the child.
God still blessed me with a big "good" word. While I was overjoyed to have both a son and a daughter, I was still worried about my son’s name. In desperation, I turned to my best friend Wan Zi from high school in Xi'an, who is a talented person. Soon, he sent me the word "far away". Suddenly, my eyes lit up and I was overjoyed. Isn't this taken from the word "far away" in the sentence "The road is long and far away, I will search up and down" in Qu Yuan's "Li Sao"? As expected, Wan Zi was very clever and extraordinary, and he solved the problem for me in no time.
I told my wife the name "Yuanxi" I had chosen for my son. She was not very satisfied. My wife had higher standards for her son's name. She felt that the name was a bit gentle, far less sunny and atmospheric than that of a man. But I have a special liking for this name. I hope that "Ruoxi" will be elegant and beautiful, I hope that "Yuanxi" will be persistent and strong, and I hope that my children will be healthy and happy in their future lives!
Although my wife always feels dissatisfied with the name "Yuanxi", I know that the final decision-making power still lies with me. When I added the name "Yuanxi" to my son's household register three months after he was born, I knew for sure that from then on, there would be a person named "Yuanxi" in the world!
From the time "Ruoxi" was born in November 2005 until "Yuanxi" came to this world last year, my life became busy and enriched. Think about it, how lucky I am to have a son and daughter, happiness and joy!
One day, I read a book about parents naming their children. The book says that to name a child, it is best for girls to find it in the Book of Songs, and for boys it is best to find it in the Songs of Chu. And I happen to be like this. This is not intentional, but it is a good thing.
I laughed happily. Life is so interesting. After giving you countless coincidences, it will give you all the happiness and joy in one go!