Unlike
with Jacynth, we actually had a name for our baby boy before he was born! Perhaps, it's because Jacynth had already set a precedence in terms of 'style and format', which helped narrow our options.
His surname is 'Koay' (郭, pronounced as
Guō); no surprises there, if you're familiar with typical ethnic Chinese Malaysian customs. Like Jacynth, the first character of his first name is 家 (
jiā), following the generational name predetermined by the Koay clan a long, long time ago. So they’ve got this book that keeps a record of all the first characters that are to be used in the first names of any Koays for every generation, which we decided to follow with Jacynth, and now with our baby boy.
Also, unlike with Jacynth, this time we chose his English name before deciding on the second Chinese character. The English name should sound like ‘
jiā ’- (something), since both the Chinese and English names needed to sound alike (we planned on spelling his Chinese name using the English name on his official documents, similar to Jacynth -
jiā xīn). After searching high and low, online, and elsewhere, we finally agreed we liked `Jadon’, the name of an obscure person found in the book of Nehemiah in the Bible. He was one of the men who helped rebuild the wall of Jerusalem following the return of the Israelites from exile.
Next to them, repairs were made by men from Gibeon and Mizpah—Melatiah of Gibeon and Jadon of Meronoth—places under the authority of the governor of Trans-Euphrates (Nehemiah 3:7)
Kevin was reminded of a Bible Study he conducted in the CF as part of Bible Surgeons, where the important roles that these many people played in rebuilding the wall was painstakingly recorded down by the scribes, even though that role may be insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Everyone played their part. Our hope, is that our baby boy will play his part in rebuilding God’s world, no matter how small that role may be.
Jadon in Hebrew means ‘YHWH will judge’, ‘plead’ or ‘thankful’, depending on which reference book or Bible dictionary you refer to! Through the pain and joy of the 9 months preceding the birth of our baby boy, from having scans revealing possible chromosomal disabilities, a cystic growth in the lung (CCAM) which doctors warned might have to be removed after birth (in the worst case scenario), to the eventual disappearance of all these symptoms and the CCAM growth in the final weeks of gestation… we all pleaded, and are indeed thankful to God.
With Jacynth, where we decided to go a little hip, and change the ‘i’ in jacinth to a ‘y’. We therefore decided to add a ‘y’ to his name as well, so we got ‘Jaydon’ (pronounced jay-dehn), which modernizes it a little!
So now, what’s the second character in his chinese name? We found this a bit more difficult, as we were trying to avoid combinations such as 家 灯
(jiā dēng) which means ‘house lamp/light’, and 家 蛋 (jiā dàn) which means ‘home egg’ and sounds like ‘add egg’
(加 蛋, also jiā dàn). So with the help of Kevin’s parents, we decided on the character 恒
(héng, pronounced more like ‘herng’), which means ‘permanent’, ‘lasting’ or ‘eternal’ as an adjective, and ‘perseverance’ as a noun. So 家恒 (
jiā héng) can mean a lasting/eternal/permanent home/family, or a home/family that perseveres. Although `heng' and 'don' are not very similar, they're similar enough to satisfy us!
Being the astrophysicist, Kevin was also very pleased to find out that there is a celestial connection to the name too. 恒 (
héng) is often combined with the word 星 (xīng) to form 恒 星 (héngxīng), which means ‘star’ or ‘stellar’. So if you do a google image search for 恒 星 (héngxīng), you’ll find lots of pretty pictures, like this one of the stellar lifecycle (Jacynth’s name has a very subtle celestial connection too, thanks to J. R. R. Tolkien’s poem ‘the Happy Mariners’).
We believe names can be very prophetic. As much as Jacynth has lived up to her name, being bubbly, joyful and gleaming (like a gemstone!) all the time, and having brought so much joy to our home as well as to both our extended families, we hope and pray that Jaydon will live up to his name (which by the way is ALSO a variant of the name Jaden, and is associated with the gemstone jade!) too!
So now we present to you (again):
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