On our first day of the Writing Institute, we wrote about our name. Where did your name come from? Were you named after someone? Does your name have a meaning? Do you have a nickname you like to be called? Have your parents told you any stories about your name? Do people often get it wrong, and do you have any funny stories about what happened? What is the meaning behind your name?
So . . . tell us about your name!
I’ll share my writing, which is still just an early draft, not ready to publish yet. Write about your name as a comment to this post (not on your blog, since you keep your real name private there). Ask an adult to help you cut and paste it into the blog comment area and to check your safety choices.
I can’t wait to find out more about you, and neither can the other blog readers!
Aidan’s name is Peng Yan Shen. Peng is his last name or surname in English. Every child admitted to the Beijing Children’s Welfare Institute (orphanage) in 2004 was named Peng. Yan, his first name, means pretty colors. It can also mean swallow bird. His middle name, Shen, means victory. In China children are called by their middle name twice, so he was known as Shen-Shen.
Aidan’s American name is Aidan Marcus. Aidan means red king and Marcus means warrior. Aidan’s cousin Marcus was killed the day before Aidan’s referral came to us, so the Marcus came from him, but his name in Chinese is colorful victory and in English it means red king warrior.
Aidan, I have read your story several times so that I can really think about the meaning of your beautiful names. I will never forget the day we watched the spider together out by the bus. Everyone else walked by that giant spider web without ever seeming to notice it, but you stopped and stuck your nose right up close to it to examine that spider face to face. Red king warrior indeed! You certainly have made our world more colorful at DES with your wonder and excitement.
May I share your name story with your new teacher? I know she would be extremely interested.
Dear Miss Blessing–
I LOVE this post . . . and I love your name too! I have always been a name-oriented sort, starting from when I learned that my parents had accidentally [I initially assumed it had been intentional] given both my sister and I double names. Both of us have 1st and middle names that have the same meaning [“light” in my sister’s case, and “grace” in my own]. So I have suspected that we are each intended to somehow live out our names . . .
Thank for asking 🙂
Aidan says “sure”, you can share his name story with his new teacher 🙂
In the sixties, people in the Lawrence area walked everywhere. You walked to work, you walked to school, you walked to the store. Having a car was a luxury, and the streets of the towns surrounding this mill city were bustling with people on their way to someplace else.
After graduating from high school, my mother’s friend was walking to her new job. Girls back then rarely attended college; doing so was only a privilege for a gifted few who either had intentions of being teachers, a progressive few who had ambitions to break into medicine or law, and a privileged few whose family had the means to provide higher education.
Caroline walked down route 28 in Andover, a busy intersection with an unpredictable traffic pattern. A driver lost control of the car and struck Caroline, causing her immediate death.
A few years later, when my parents found out they were expecting, my mother felt she wanted to honor the memory of her friend. Although she did not like the sound of Caroline DeMarco, she discovered a shortened form: Cara. Serendipitously, the name Cara meant friend, or dear one.