What's in a Name?

This time around I found it really difficult to come up with a name.  With Maya, I always knew it was going to be Maya, which means “God’s Creative Power” and Darlene after my mom.  Everyone knew her name well before we got our referral.  This time, after we got the referral of Pan Ko-Han, we still hadn’t decided on a name!  We had settled on a boy’s name in case it was a boy, but the girl’s name was much more challenging.  I had one name that I had liked for over a year, but Jeff didn’t like it at all.  The second name I came up with Jeff was stuck on, but I had since decided I didn’t like it that much.  So, more recently I was searching for a name when I found one that I had never heard of before.  I liked it and I also liked the meaning.  So, when I mentioned it to Jeff he said he liked it too.  It is Ciana, which is pronounced See-Ah-Nuh.  It is of Italian and Chinese origin and it has several meanings which are “God is Gracious”, “Light” and “China”.  It is also a short form of Jane, which Jeff’s mom’s name, Jeanette, is also a form of.  So we decided on Ciana.  Then we had to come up with a middle name.  I had a list of names that we were looking at for first names so we looked at those.  I was kind of looking at the name Elise, when Jeff said what about Elise!  I said that was the name I was just looking at!  We liked the meaning of it, which is “God’s Promise”.  I looked into it further and found out that it is a short form of Elizabeth, which is Jeff’s grandma’s name.  So that is how we came up with the name Ciana Elise.  We decided on the name just days after the referral because it was needed on some paperwork.  The funny thing is that here it is 3 weeks later and no one in our family knows the name yet!  I guess they forgot to ask, or they think we’re waiting to name her when we bring her home or something.  The morning after the referral a really neat thing happened.  I woke up and it looked like it was going to storm.  I looked outside and there was a beautiful double rainbow outside that completely enveloped our house from one side to the other.  It was awesome!  It definitely was a sign for us concerning Ciana Elise, God’s Gracious Promise!