Our Daughter's Chinese Name

Above are the Chinese characters of our daughter's Chinese name: You Fu Xuan. We are told that it is pronounced as follows: Yō Fū Süen. The "o" and the "u" are long, and "Fu" is pronounced "higher" than you might expect in English. Apparently, the Chinese "X" is about halfway between an English "s" and an English "sh."

In our letter to the orphanage director in the care-package that we got in to FedEx today we ask about any special significance and meaning of this precious and distinctive name. Here is what we know thus far:

In Chinese custom, the name that appears first is the "family" name, which would be our "last" name here in the USA. "You" is not a standard family name, of course, but is taken from Youyang county within Chongqing Municipality, where our daughter is originally from. My friend Joe Cathey, an OT scholar down in Texas who has studied Chinese, adds that "You" can be a "measurement word for counting the hour."

The next two names, in Chinese, are taken together as the personal name: Fu Xuan. "Fu," according to our referral, is from the name of the orphanage, the "Fuling Social Welfare Institute of Chongqing municipality." Our travel companion's daughter "Fu Fai" also has the name Fu, as I'm sure many of the baby's in this age group do. "Fu" is a wonderful name, which means "Welfare," and also "Blessing," "Happiness," and "Good Fortune."

The name "Xuan" is a bit more rare and mysterious! The referral simply states that it is a beautiful girl's name. Our neighbors, the Yiehs, looked it up for us, and found that it means "beautiful." We also checked with my friend Dr. Joe Cathey, whose research found that "Xuan" means "beautiful jade." A quick Google search of the Internet found these meanings as well as "perspicacious," "heavenly," and "mysterious" as secondary meanings. Interestingly, in Vietnamese, Xuan means "spring," but this is likely irrelevant.

The Yiehs add that at one time the name Xuan was adopted by foreigners, because it has such a glow about it. Joe adds that in the 1950s and 1960s the name was highly popular in China, but is much rarer now. We hope we get some interesting information on how it was chosen, when the orphanage staff responds to our letter!