My Chinese name

When my husband and I were taking Mandarin I before we went to China last year, I asked Laoshi what my name meant. She said, "Goat."

I thought that was odd, but funny. It's kind of grown on me in the past year.

Last night I was browsing our Chinese-English dictionary, and I looked up my name.

It means "Gold."

Oooops.

(I'd been so sure she'd said "goat.")

So, okay, I'm gold, and I still believe Laoshi's remark that it's a reasonably common name in China. I'd been under the impression that China had a cultural quirk that made it normal for them to name their girls "Goat." "Gold" makes more sense.

Then I tried to figure out my middle name, but I won't tell you the results - they were kind of dirty.