What's In A Name?

So, how did we come up with the name Reisen...? Well, Jaeden, Kierin and I were sitting in my bedroom the night we decided to adopt from Africa and started playing around with the phonograms. We have patterns of names for the kids: Jaeden, Teagan (notice the vowel reversals), Kierin...and knew that we would need to have _ei_en for the baby. We started plugging in all the different consonant options possible. We came up with a list of about 8 names, and Reisen was the household favorite. We looked on the computer to see how to pronounce the name and find out if it had any meaning. What we found out was amazing! Reisen means "traveler" or "to travel" in German (my Dad and Neil are of German decent). Reisen is also a Japanese word meaning "cold war" (my Mom is Japanese). There is also a national park in Ethiopia called, "Aethiopien Reisen." Aren't all these connections unbelievable? Reisen's name was truly meant to be... :-)