Wishes Behind My Name

Jiaying Zhang (Catherine)

ESL 100

February 2, 2017

Wishes Behind My Name

The name that we have may sound special, general, or interesting, but I believe each of them has their special stories. My name is Jiaying. It was chosen by my grandfather. He spent a lot of time choosing my name and listed more than ten names to compare and ask for advice. He finally settled on Jiaying as my name because it means kindness, happiness, cleverness, and health in Chinese. This name shows wishes from him. He hoped that I would become a warm and outstanding person in the future. He also hoped that I would have a healthy body and a happy life. I didn’t like my name when I was a child because it was too hard to write for a child. Neither my classmates nor my teachers could spell it correctly. They usually wrote another Chinese word “yi” as “ying” because their spelling is very similar. It also took me a long time to practice writing my name. However, I love my name after I understood the meaning behind it, and I am trying my best to make its meaning come true. In addition, there is another interesting thing about my name. Although it’s hard to write, many people use Jiaying as their name. I have met more than five people called Jiaying in China, with the same character and same pronunciation. If someone on the street just calls Jiaying without the last name, many people will turn their heads.