Where did their names come from?
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NOTE: A few months after this post, we found out that Patricia's name is pronounced just like our pronunciation of Patricia. I'm leaving this post up because we still share the sentiment that we want to keep their names and heritage intact as much as possible, but her name is PATRICIA not Patreesa.
I don't know.
~+~
I don't know.
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| Sorry! We can't post unaltered pictures yet. |
Maybe we'll learn that detail, the same way we learned who gave Zoe Amanda's original first name to her. We kept ChiehHsi as a middle name, and I'm thankful our contacts in her country could tell us where the name came from.
Maybe we'll never know who gifted Patience, Philip, and Patreesa with their names.
Either way, we're keeping them.
Some people opt to rename their children who arrive via adoption. Given Zoe's name and the difficulty pronouncing ChiehHsi with an American tongue, we made that choice last time.
We always planned to keep the given names of older adopted kiddos, though. And we are.
{So thankful that we really do like each of their names!}
Well, we're keeping the names with one change: the spelling of Patricia.
In Uganda, the pronunciation is different from what we're accustomed to here. Instead of sounding like -isha, it rhymes with Lisa. From now on, we'll be spelling it to match that pronunciation: Patreesa.
The official spelling of her name will be Patreesa once the court paperwork is said and done, but an accepted spelling will always be Patricia.
We just won't use it as the official spelling, because no one here will pronounce Patricia in
the way her first parents did.
the way her siblings do.
the way everyone in her native culture does.
the way she learned to.
Patreesa.
Patreesa.
I can't take away the losses in her life.
But I can keep her from the loss of the name she's always known.