An ‘elegant’ English name would be all wrong for my Hong Kong baby
My daughter, a child of multiple cultures, needs a carefully chosen name in a city where racial difference is not seamlessly accepted
Hong Kong’s Births Registry gives new parents 42 days to name their child before imposing a fine. This might seem enough, but when you are navigating new motherhood, learning to keep a tiny human alive while your body heals, time becomes both endless and insufficient. It took me nearly all that time to settle on two names, not from indecision, but from the weight of history.
Months before my daughter arrived, I had chosen for her a Chinese name meaning “dwell in peace”. The name came from a psalm, for the inexplicable peace I found during pregnancy despite life’s circumstances. For her English name, I waited to meet her first.