How to give a name for a newborn?

Recently we have some clients who came for seeking my advice on choosing good names for their infant babies. One of them is an expatriate, who is quite young but already very successful in his diplomatic career. When we met him, the first question we asked him was that why he was interested to seek our advice on giving a name for his adopted son as it is very common for the western christain people like him they don’t believe in chinese metaphysics and they give whatever name they like to their children. The answer we got from him was because he learnt that Vietnamese people believe that a name and a person must in a harmony and since his adopted son is originally Vietnamese, so he wanted to follow this practice. Well, his answer somehow was right in term of a name must match to a person need, but this practice will benefit to whomever that believe in this, it is beyond races, colors, and religions, and we told him not many vietnamese people really care and know about this, like westerns they also give whatever name sound good and meaningful to their chidren. And the common mistakes both all western and majorities of Vietnamese do is they choose names for their children before they are born. One example is when you go to tailor made your baby clothes without measuring your baby body, or similarly you go to buy some dresses for some one without knowing their sizes and styles, so you pick some you like. The risks will be likely are they neither fit to that person’s body nor match to that person’s style. Choosing a name before birth is exactly the same. You don’t know what a person needs, and you give him/her a name you like but it may not match him/her, then it wont benefit to them instead will harm them.

Names are people’s identity or brand, is not only to make people to cary it feel confident about it and how they are perceived by other people in that name, but the name also reflect somehow who they are, their characters/personality, additionally names bring auspiciousness to them, and last but not least they add on the element(s) that person needs.

The key principles for matching a right name to a right person or for determining a good name for a person are based on i) the yin/yang theory; ii) five elements theory; iii) chinese numerlogogy, and ofcourse iv) people’s birthday.

1. the given name, middle names (if have), and surname ideally must be harmonized in term of elements, no conflict. For example, if your surname is metal element, the middle name and given name should be the elements of water, metal, and earth, the cycle of producing, not destructing.

2. The letters/charaters of your children’s given name, middle name, and surname -all are satisfied for auspiciousness as much as possible. This is the most complicated part.

3. The given name and middle name (if have) must carry the elements that person need based on their birthday analysis. For example, if some one was born on a weak day master of wood element, their useful elements are identified as water and wood, so it is very ideal for that person to have names that carry both elements that he/she needs. or in case if someone was born on a very strong day master of wood element, their useful elements will be metal, earth, and fire, so it would be very helpful for them to be given names that carry these elements.