Name Significance

Every name has important significance. We had some rules about her name.

1. could not be "boring"
2. had to have meaning
3. would not be the name of someone we know personally
4. have some kind of historical heroic figure

SUMMER CHIYOME JORY

SUMMER
She was named Summer for a number of reasons. She is born in the Summer. Summer is not a common name (unlike Winter and Autumn which we have been seeing a fair amount of lately). When considering a first name, the word Summer kept showing up everywhere... even in a baby product line. And lastly, it pleased the geeks in us as one of our favorite geeky shows is Firefly with one of our favorite actresses in it being Summer Glau. This choice was Scarlet's with Mark's strong approval.

CHIYOME
She was given the second name in case she every got fed up with a hippy sounding name like Summer. So we went with a historical female figure that was either bad-ass or heroic and found one that was both and from the Japanese culture which has always fascinated us. It would have been nice to give her a Canadian heroine's name, or the name of someone from our own cultural backgrounds (Polish, English, Irish, Scottish, German), but nothing seemed to fit.

She was given the name of Chiyome, named for Mochizuki Chiyome from 16th century Japan. Chiyome was the descendant of a mighty master ninja, Mochizuki Izumo-no-kami. Her familiarity with the role of a ninja to an honorable lord was vital and the lord (Takeda Shingen) took a chance to create something never before seen in Japanese history. A woman... ninja. Not only that, head of a great large female ninja organization as she was given the opportunity to create an academy to train women in the arts of: sabotage, intelligence gathering, ninja martial arts, and more. These female ninja were like a cross between assassins, Charlie's Angels, and the CIA.

"Basically, Chiyome would travel the countryside, stopping everywhere from big bustling cities to burned-out ruins of ravaged little villages, constantly keeping an eye out for promising young girls who were down on their luck but still had fire in their eyes.  Prostitutes, orphan farm girls, young widows and dirt-poor street urchins alike were brought back to Koga Province, ostensibly to be given a fresh start on life."

For more about this interesting woman and her ninja corps (who also seemed to mysteriously vanish from the pages of history as if vanishing with a ninja smoke bomb), go here: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=33837513055

JORY
While it is often more customary to give a child the last name of her father, there were reasons for not doing so here (that are really no one's business). However, the choice of giving her the last name of her mother has reasons very worth sharing. Scarlet was born shortly before her parents divorced. She saw very little of her biological father who seemed to not want to have anything really to do with her. However, her mother remarried a man who took on the role of father for not just one but three children not his own. He loved them all and cared for them all like only a father could. He has been the only father Scarlet has known and she could not have wished for anyone else or anyone better. His heart is so huge in his quiet and creative demeanor. 

At the tender age of 7 years old, he had asked each of these children if they would do him the honor of bearing his last name, of being adopted. Scarlet is the only one who said yes. He has another daughter elsewhere, but she did not keep her father's name. So Scarlet is the only descendant of her now father to have his name and there would be no others after her... till now. In honor of all he has done to take in children and love them, to be father in spirit since he was not so in blood, for all his hard work, go-carts, box-forts, bedtime reading, car fixing, secret confidences, hugs, midnight lifts, and deep love... This baby has been given his name.