her FULL name! (decided. FINALLY)

Yes, there is a story here!!! 🙂 Stay with me here….

Ok, so I wrote a post months ago about why we decided to name her Tahlia (click to read if you missed it, you should probably read chapter 1 of this story before starting ch.2) hee-hee. And, we thought we had decided on her middle name of “Joy”. However, as much as I LOVED the name Joy for so many fitting reasons, there was one thing that was really bugging me about that middle name: She wasn’t named after anyone in our family.

Each of our children have a middle name after someone who is very special in our family….a namesake. So, each gets a special story attached to their name. Isabella Brook is named after my mom, whose maiden name is Brooks. Ethan Brian is named after Brian and Brian’s dad (papa Buddy) who also shares that middle name. Helaina Ann is named after Grandma Pat (Brian’s mom) who also shares the same middle name. And, Ashton David is named after my dad (pop-pop) whose name is David.So, Tahlia MUST be named after someone….and I guess I kinda wanted to be included in the name party too! 😉

Well, we prayed, brainstormed and deliberated and fought it out(mind you, this isn’t easy with 6 opinionated little minds in the house) and we came up with many, MANY variations.

However, there was something else that was important to us that we wanted to include in her name (you can see just how difficult this was getting)….which wasn’t even considered prior to knowing who Tahlia was. See, as soon as we found out that her given name by her orphanage nannies, whom she has spent over a year of her life with, was Xiu Xiu (Shoo-shoo)and then found out that it meant: Beautiful Beautiful in chinese, we were just so moved that the Lord would orchestrate such a precious name for our beautiful little girl! And, I just knew we HAD to include this name as well! Isabella was also SET on this decision!

Oh, another requirement is that Brian was dead-set that he didn’t want four names…which would have made this name game easier (sigh)

So, I prayed…..and prayed we discussed, and discussed….and doodled many different names…with none feeling quite right. And, finally it came to me one night at 3 am in the morning. The Lord laid Xiuhanna (shoo-hanna)on my heart. So, as soon as that name flashed in my mind, I popped up out of bed and I looked up the meaning of hanna. Hanna means grace in Hebrew. And, how perfect was that!!!! She is our beautiful gracious gift. Oh, and remember how her middle name was going to be JOY??(see above link for that chapter);) Evidently, I discovered that the African origin of Hanna means JOY!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!!! How awesome is GOD!

This HAD to be!

We managed to squeeze every important detail of her story into one name!

And, even MORE miraculous is that it was unanimously approved by the little CanneLongo committee! YES, a REAL miracle!

So, when we tell our little girl about the story of her name (which could be a book, at this point) LOL….and, when we get to the middle- name part (chapter 2): we will tell her that she is named Xiuhanna. Xiu after the name that was given to her by her special nannies who upon looking at her for the very first time thought she was so beautiful that they named her just that. And, hanna after her forever momma (that’s me, Johanna)who loves her more that she will ever ever know and for the fact that we will always see her as nothing short of a HUGE grace in our lives.