Her Name

Eyann was named by the orphanage staff when they received her.  They named her Yan Rui.  If you are American, you would spell that Yenn Rae, because that it is how it is pronounced.  Yenn Rae. 

Because our sweet girl is five years old, and she has been claiming “Yenn Rae” as her name for all of her five-year-old life, we didn’t want to change it significantly.  We know some people do change their child’s name when they adopt, and we understand there are many valid reasons why.  Yet, we really feel like so much of who she is wrapped up in how she was raised in the orphanage.  The people that named her were significant.  They claimed her as their responsibility when no one else could.  And they offered as much love as they knew how to give.  We wanted to respect their place in her life.  And so . . .   

We searched and searched and thought and considered names that would respect her past and the people in it.  Names that would not change her name “too much”.  And finally, we added one syllable to the front of her name. 

                                                                An E.

And that additional E changes her name to Ian.  We like Ian.  We like that it keeps the sound of her name.  And while some people responded with, “That’s a boy’s name”, we know that Morgan and Addison and Parker and Dillon and Kennedy were boy’s names too. 

               
                  Until they weren’t. 

Until someone named a girl one of those names and it stuck.  And we decided Ian could be one of those names too.  But we changed the spelling to make it look more feminine.  And so we spell it Eyann. 

We looked up the meaning of the name Eyann recently, and we found it means “God’s gracious gift”.  God’s grace stirs up remembrances of bad gone good, or even good gone better.  And we believe that Eyann makes our good family even better.  And we thank God for the gracious gift of Eyann Rae and the place she has taken in our home.