Chinese Name saga continues!

First of all - Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Happy Chinese New Year!

So since we were over here at my in-laws for Chinese New Years, DH again brought up the Chinese name of our little Appleseed.

It was briefly brought up at dinner a few weeks ago, and these was much controversy (as I interpret increasingly loud talking).  His sister didn't like a lot of the names his Dad had selected.

So today, we asked his sister what names she selected.  And how to pronounce them all in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tschui-Chow (the language they actually speak at home - closer to Cantonese than Mandarin).

So there were some cool options - "Beautiful Energetic", "Bright", "Peaceful", "Beautiful Singing Voice", "Announcement from the King".  And some we liked less, "Precious Treasure", "Presentation".

But some of those nice ones...well, don't sound really nice to my English ears.  Like one of them is "Ick".  <wrinkled nose>

But then it got way more complicated.  DH's Dad said if we can wait until after the baby is born, we can send date/time/location to a ... naming specialist... who will come up with good names.  You see, each person is lacking in the 5 elements (which are gold, earth, fire, wood and water - a surprise to me!) depending on when they were born.  So one's name should have the element in it they are lacking.

And even more complicated - both middle and given names have to be an odd number of strokes, since our last name is even.  (One of the names his sister selected had 23 strokes!  Will little Appleseed ever be able to learn such a monstrosity?) 

Phew!  Them's a lot of rules, ya?

All of this will take weeks after the baby is born.  I know we have 30 days to register our baby's official name...but I'm not cool waiting that long.

So we decided his Dad will come up with a list of names for each of the 5 elements, and we'll pick ones we like from it (of course, all will be odd number of strokes in traditional Chinese).  Then when she's born, we'll see which element she's lacking, and we'll have a quick list to choose from.  If she's lacking two elements, we can choose those two.  It should only take about 2 days.

Good.

I am eager to see this list of 5 element names!