Jeff - Day 4 - October 19 (eary morning!)

10/19 – Day 4 – SDA

Adjusting to the time is quite the challenge. I’m up a bit earlier than I need to be, so of course I spent the time reading other blogs! We talked to the facilitator last night, so I’m not worried about the SDA at all, but we’ll report on that later – right now, I want to talk about the DEBATE – Nastiya’s name!

First things first: the first name. Sue and I have been going back and forth on the spelling of Nastiya’s name. The anglicized version is obviously Anastasia. This is what Sue would prefer as it is the easiest and most recognized spelling for the name in America. I on the other hand, have been fairly vocal about using the spelling that is in the documents we have received so far: Anastasiya. I really think this is fairly important as she is giving up so much of her heritage just in the transition. This one is optional. And we will be asking her to change her nickname. Neither of us thinks that Nastiya will play well in the US. So in the middle of all of our own discussions, we were talking to the translator yesterday while we were touring. First, Sue found a translation on one of the posters in the church that translated the name as Anastasia (there is a Saint Anastasya), and then she saw one of the paintings of the saint on a wall, and the spelling was Anastacia! Oh, jeez – more excitement. The translator said that the spelling on the documents that we received is correct, and that we should stick with that.

Now, about the middle name. I was just reading Richard’s blog (see the list at the bottom of this blog), and saw his section on the middle name. The translator relayed to us the same thing Richard has documented very well about the patronymic – the middle name in Slavic countries is based on the father’s name and must be changed. Our translator though it hugely amusing when I suggested “Jeffreyivna”. However, she did seriously say that it is considered bad luck to use another girl’s name as the new middle name – it should be last name. We did use Sue’s middle name as Connor’s middle name to honor his heritage. We were considering a standard girl’s name: Michelle or Helen for other family reasons, but now we will probably use Sue’s maiden name as Nastiya’s middle name as well. Last thing we need is bad luck!

On a side note: we picked up the cell phone that the last family was so kind as to leave here with a few grivna left on it. Our translator was shocked when I picked it up and had it ringing on my own blackberry in a few seconds. One of the simple things you can do internationally on a cell phone: dial the + sign and the regular US number – bingo! We now know what the number is for our loaner phone!

OK – off for breakfast, and then SDA.