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Name:   Miyu Kaneko Schrepfer Born on:   August 5, 2005 At:   5:33 pm (Tokyo) Weight:   7 lbs. 14 oz. Length:   20.5 in. She is:

Miyu (pronounced like "me you") is written in Japanese with the two characters above. The first character, mi, was chosen by Jeff and is relatively uncommon in Japanese. It means "at long last" (appropriate for Ikuko and Jeff's first child) and it also means "to cross or to join two points separated in time or by a great distance" (also appropriate for a child that will be bridging two different cultures.) It is primarily used in names, and it appears frequently in Japanese history and geography. For example, it is used to write the mi of Himiko, a queen who ruled the Japanese kingdom of Yamataikoku in the mid-third century A.D. It is also used to write the ya of the word yayoi (which is why many Japanese mistakenly believe Miyu's name is Yayu when they first see it written). Yayoi is the ancient Japanese term for the month of March, and it is the name of an area of Tokyo not far from where we currently live. It is also the name of the period of Japanese history from about 900 B.C. to about 300 A.D., when rice cultivation first began (so named because the style of pottery that has come to symbolize this period of history was first unearthed at Yayoi, Tokyo.) The second character, yu, is more common. It can also be pronounced yasashii and it means "gentle" or "kind-hearted." It was chosen by Ikuko in the hopes of raising a kind-hearted daughter.