More on the Name

I wanted to add some more about how we settled on "Owen" for Loc's American name. Actually, how I threw my support behind it after Ray and I narrowed down our choices to three or four names.

My sister and my nephew picked up on it right away, when I told them Loc would be called "Owen." They both said, "Oh, like Owen Meany," referencing John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. They might not know it, but I share their fondness for this amazing book.

Indeed, there was a time when John Irving was my absolute favorite author. I've read Garp cover to cover maybe 5 or 6 times. I haven't liked much of his more recent work, and I've actually skipped the last few novels. I think Owen Meany was his last great novel.

I never set out to name my son after the ruined-voice, dwarfish Owen Meany. When Ray and I were paring down choices, we both liked Owen, but we had a few others we liked just as much.

But I ultimately gravitated to the name Owen because of the book, which I read many years ago, because it is about fate and faith -- two things that figure heavily in every adoption journey, adoptive parents will tell you. You have to have a lot of faith that you'll get through the process and find your child, because there's so much of it out of your control. As for fate -- everyone will say it's wild how it happens. Even though you go in order based on when your paperwork is done and when a child is available, you get the child you were supposed to get, in a cosmic sense, and once you meet him or her, you can't imagine any other child more perfect for you. It's fate, pure and simple, that brings you together.

And then there's the book's Vietnam angle. Owen is convinced his fate is to go to Vietnam. Okay, specifically, that he will die there, but let's not go into that. Let's just acknowledge that Vietnam looms large in the second half of the book.

Owen Meany uses my favorite narrative device -- at the end, all the loose threads come together, including something that seemed so unimportant -- "the Shot." You find out why the book included so many references to Johnny and Owen practicing "the Shot." And the book ends with Owen using "the Shot" to save a group of Vietnamese orphans.

So there you have it -- Vietnamese orphans, a feeling that one is destined to go to Vietnam, and poignant meditations on faith and fate. I didn't name Owen after Owen Meany, absolutely not, but I remembered the book after we put "Owen" on the short list, and it all just seemed to fit.