Proud Auntie Janet

Months ago, when the whole family was here including my sister's growing belly, we went to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock. There a little girl was taken with Vivian and Dominic asked her what her name was. "Naveen" was her answer.

Dom and Nancy so liked the name that after their healthy baby girl was born yesterday evening, I became the proud Auntie of Naveen Aline Macdonald Lozada. That's right, her name is Middle Eastern-French-Scottish-Spanish.

When I heard the origin of the name, at first I had a little panic. What if this little girl had given Dominic her nick name and my sister just named her kid "Princess Poopy Pants" or "The Whiner"?

I headed to my Hebrew speaking labmates brought they brought no clarity. There is no name "Naveen" in Hebrew. There is Navah, Navit and even Nedivah but no Naveen. However, there is a word naveen in Hebrew and it ironically means "we will understand."

So I headed to the lab next door where an Arab construction crew is working hard at the renos. It think they are still confused as to who's kid it is, but with stilted Hebrew (on both sides) I managed to learn that Naveen is indeed a popular Arab name for a girl. "Shem tov," they assured me. "Good name."

Then there was the stress over the correct spelling. Is it Naveen or Neveen? It was pretty easy to find how Arabic speakers translate it into Hebrew (thank you court documents and newspaper articles!) But since both Arabic and Hebrew are a little vague with their soft vowels, I told Nancy and Dom to just pick their favorite phonetic translation and go for it.

So welcome to the world, baby
נוין
Naveen