His Name

We've had lots of good comments on Dawson's name. Our social worker said she has a friend with a son named Dawson--it's not a common name. Other people like it because it's different or "cool". Others have asked how we came up with it. So, here's the story:

A boy's name was not as clear as Meighan's name was. We started thinking of a name before we even took the application into Holt in July of 2010.  I started a list that we added names to whenever we came up with a possibility. We'd throw out a name and if we didn't get a negative reaction from each other, we'd write it down.

Some of the names we had on our list were Nicholas, Banjamin, Levi, Daniel, Seth (although I could never give that first name to a child with our last name...!), Austin, Justin, Dustin...  I am not in favor of naming a child after someone else in a family, especially when the child will never know the person they are named after AND when they are not blood related.

Then one day I was at the mall in the play area with Meighan.  It was really crowded and loud but apparently there was a reason I was there that day.  I heard someone call their son "Dawson" and I thought it was kind of neat.  I told Tony that name when I got home and he went "Hmmmm..." OK, not a negative reaction, so it went on the list. A few days later Tony said, "I like that name." I looked up what it meant (Son of David) and it stuck.  It became permanent when we had to fill out our child's American name on paperwork that would be sent to China.

After we got the referral and found out his Chinese name that was given to him by the orphanage, we ended up using the "Le" part if his name and adding an "e" to make it Lee.  "Le" in Chinese means "happy."  I found out the meaning of "Lee" is "short for Farley"--not exactly a cool name as far as I'm concerned.  Then I found out the meaning of Farley is "bull meadow or sheep meadow".  Huh?  Kinda strange in itself.  Oh, well.  Since we aren't using "Farley", that's OK.  Dawson Lee Smith sounded good to us and we hope he likes it well enough.

So,...

Dawson (English) = Son of David

Lee (English) = short for Farley meaning "bull meadow or sheep meadow"

Americanized from "Le" = Happy