Burgeson China Journal

I think we have decided on a name and this is how it happened.
Before we had our son Reidar, Cean came up with the name
Ariana. We weren't sure this was the name for our dd (darling daughter) and decided
that we would know after we received the referral.
Her name is Xian, which the Xi sound sounds like "she" the entire name is pronounced "she-ann" (we believe). So we looked in the baby book for names that started with a sh sound. We couldn't really find anything so Cean looked up Xian in our Mandarin phrase book. It said "thread". Well we truely believe that we have a
red thread to our daughter.
In the Chinese adoption community there is a Chinese proverb that has been adopted. It says "An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never breaks". Now we knew what the Mandarin phrase book told us about her name but that still didn't really help us with an American name. Then Cean decided to look up the name Ariana to see what it meant. Our book said (and I had never read this before) that it was
Greek, and it meant "The mythological daughter of Cretan King Minos,
who gave Theseus a thread to guide him out of the mazelike prison
known as the Labyrinth."
Cean said, don't tell me anymore names that is it. That is our sign.
Thus we have, Ariana Xian Burgeson. Oh yeah, and Reidar's birthday
is also on the 24th, but in March!