Miya Christine: Temple in Christ

I'll admit that I have always obsessed over names and meanings.  I was one of those 80's Cabbage Patch Doll moms who always sent the adoption papers back with a name change request--the name had to be the perfect choice for each one.  Then in church, when talks became particularly boring, I would leaf through the Bible Dictionary looking up names and meanings, adding the ones I liked to my years long list.  I've always thought about what I'd name my children and while Michael Adam and Miya Christine were never on any of my original lists, Sergio and I did choose them carefully.  We love the way they sound and, most importantly, what they mean.

We chose the name Miya Christine for several reasons.  First, where we live here in the Rio Grande Valley, the community and culture are quite bilingual, so it's always nice to find a name that works easily in both English and Spanish.  Second, we wanted to find ways to connect her name to our families, so Miya is a Japanese name, in honor of Serg's Japanese Grandma Kiyoka and that part of his family's heritage.  Christine is my mother's name.  Finally, the name needed to have deep significance. We found that Miya, in Japanese, has several meanings--all of which are beautiful: temple, holy place, increasingly beautiful, eternally beautiful, royalty.  Christine, of course, means follower of Christ or "in Christ."  So Miya Christine, for us, means a beautiful temple in Christ--something we pray Miya will always know and remember about herself.