What's in a name?

Everyone always asks me how we came up with not one but TWO double names! So here goes...

**SIDEBAR: I was born and raised in the South and it is nothing for both girls to have double names. I know of one family of 4 girls all of whom have double names! Even if just 2 stuck!

Mary Austin Zuhong

AKA "Mary Austin or Mae"

I have always known I would have a little girl named Mary Austin. Austin is my middle name and my mother's maiden name. I even kept Austin when Tripp and I married. When I was younger, everyone would say "Austin, that's a city in Texas" or as Austin became popular as a boys name "Austin, that's a boys name" Mary is for a great aunt and I just love the name Mary.

When we jumped off the fertility merry-go-round and decided to adopt from China, we knew that our odds were pretty good that we would be united with a daughter. The name Mary Austin was just a given. It became VERY important to me to give my daughter part of my name and part of her Chinese name so she would always have both!

Qing Zu Hong was her name given to her in China. Qing for Qingyuan SWI and Zu Hong meaning "majestic homeland".

Jane Harris

AKA "Jane, Jane Harris or Mary Austin's favorite Janie-poo"

My mother's younger sister was named Jane. When we brought Mary Austin home from China she was in the final stages of her life. Colon cancer had spread all over and she was in hospice care. My Aunt Jane told my mother during one of her visits to her that she had spoken to Jesus and when she got to heaven she was going to send me a baby. We chalked it up to the drugs keeping her pain free and did not think about it again until December of 2004 when she died. My mother once again mentioned the story and I really did not give it much thought, that is, until the stick turned up "+" at the end of January 2005. I had indeed conceived Jane Harris towards the end of December just a few short weeks after Jane met Jesus. Right away there was no way if Jane was a girl that she would not be named Jane!

In keeping with the tradition of mother's maiden names, Harris is my mother-in-law's maiden name.