When we knew we were expecting a baby girl, I wanted her last name to bear the same initials as her Daddy.  Like other excited parents, we browsed baby websites trying to shortlist names which sound good and have good meanings.  We used to worship at Evangel Family Church and our Senior Pastor’s daughter was named Dayna. She was a very learned young lady, highly intelligent and a fervent woman of faith. When I proposed this name to the hubs, he liked it. It was one of the names we both agreed on right away.

We like it that it starts with the letter ‘D’, it’s short (easy for her to write in future – think of all the exam scripts!) and it’s fairly uncommon in Singapore. Plus, it has very good meaning. We gave her the middle name ‘Joy’ so she can share a common lineage with her sister Ashley Joy who’s in Heaven.  When our baby girl was born, we registered her name on the birth certificate simply as, ‘Dana Joy Sim’ – classy huh?

Beautiful Baby, Beautiful Name!

In Old English and Scandinavian origins, Dana means “Bright as Day.” How apt as her arrival brought sunshine into our lives and turned our mourning into dancing. In Hebrew and Eastern European origins, Dana is the feminine form of ‘Daniel’ which means ‘Arbiter‘ or ‘God is my Judge‘.  We believe God has seen our years of sorrows in waiting for a child and He, being the Judge, has finally blessed us with the best for our family.

Her name Dana is pronounced as “DAY–ner“, not “DAH-nah”. Some many people have misread her name such that the hubs even toyed with the idea of getting a deed poll to change the spelling to ‘Dayna’ but some friends have convinced us that the name should remain as it is.

Dana’s birth certificate does not bear her Chinese Hanyu Pinyin name but the paternal grandmother has dictated that all her grandchildren must bear the same middle character ‘荣’ (Glory). Her cousins have been named ‘荣恩’, ‘荣惠’, ‘荣焕’, ‘荣萱’. We wanted her to be a glorious and graceful girl so we named her ‘荣珊’ (Rong2Shan1).

Check out the meaning behind your name here!