Naming your adopted child

[julie anne]

I am curious about how many kept your adopted child's "original" name. If you changed it, how old was your child when he/she came home to you? Was it received well by your child, birth parent, agency...or it didn't matter?

We adopted our dds (at 4.5 mos old) from Korea and had changed their Korean names to American names for their first names and kept a first part of their Korean names for their middle names. When we adopted from the U.S. (at birth), we kept our ds's first name, but changed his middle name.

[Laurel]

We kept our son's birth name as his middle name. His birthmom didn't expect us to use his birth name at all...she was surprised and delighted when we did.

Our dd didn't have a birth name. Her birthmom felt that she was ours and it was our responsibility to name her. She didn't even call dd by any name in the hospital. She was just anxious for us to hurry and choose a name so she would know what to call her. But we only had about 2 days' notice of her birth, and we were having a hard time deciding on one in such a short time. She did have a name that she liked, but she wasn't attached to it at all. We didn't use it because it just didn't fit with any of the other names we had planned to use. We couldn't make it work as a middle name, and as a first name it didn't sound right with our last name. I felt a little bit guilty about not using this name, especially since our ds had his birth name. But the middle name we did give her was very significant for other reasons (a derivative of both my name and dh's mom's name, who had died the week before dd arrived--dd was born during the viewing). DD's birthmom liked the name we chose because it was an old-fashioned sounding name.

Our children both came to us as newborns.

[Sierra]

I bumped an old thread of mine from when I was trying to decide what to do about ds' name.

For me it felt really important not to do anything that could be perceived as trying to erase ds' pre-adoption identity. Also, I really wanted to honor his birthfamily. However, we did change ds' middle and last names (and made the name his birthmother chose his legal first name, which it hadn't been before his adoption).

ds was 1.5 days old when he came to us. He was 13 months at his adoption.

With dfd (who came to us at 6 months old), who we *may* have the opportunity to adopt, her first name makes me cringe. I have really bad associations with her name, due to a very traumatic experience with someone having the same name. dw and I have been calling her a nickname that is her first name minus just two letters. Her foster family and social worker before us, and possibly her birth family, have also called her this nickname some of the time...so it wasn't any true change. If we adopt her, we will make this shortened version of her first name her actual legal first name. We may also give her my grandmother's first name as her middle name. And we will change her last name. I wish I had a relationship with her birthfamily, as I don't want to make these changes without talking to them first.

[annethcz]

DS was a few days away from his 5th birthday when he joined our family. DS was born in Ethiopia.

We had a hard time deciding what to do with DS's name. It was pretty much the only thing he had left from his country of birth, and we didn't want to strip him of it. However, DS's Ethiopian name sounded very similar to an American girl's name. So in the end, we gave him an American first name and retained his Ethiopian name as his middle name. We usually call him by his first name, but occasionally call him by his middle (Ethiopian) name.

[plates]

Dd wasn't named by her birthmom. Hospital asked and she refused to give a name and said her parents would name her when they arrived later that night. So the hospital only put birthmom's last name and baby on dd's placard.

I had dd's name picked out for a long time prior to her birth. I ended up changing it a tad after I saw her (shortened it for nickname). (She was tiny and her name seemed too big!)

If her birthmom had already named her, I would have felt weird changing it. Now a days, her birthfamily call her the shortened version of her actual name (nickname when she was an infant picked out by me!) but I now use dd's actual name! I think her birthmom likes the nickname better than her actual name.

Dd was adopted at birth.

[alicia622]

We have not adopted yet, but it should happen sometime this summer. Dfs came to us at one month obviously already named. Even though I would never have picked his name, it has grown on me and it will remain. His middle name will definately be changed- it would make sense if he had Italian heritage, but he doesn't so you just kind of scratch your head when you hear it

[Buddhamom]

We didn't even know "F" had named Drihan until we signed the finalization papers because ALL the hospital paperwork and ALL the agency paperwork refers to her a "baby F". Our SW was pretty surprised when the original b-cert came in with a name on it. It may have impacted our name, but probably not. However we are in a semi-open agreement and she never met us, never saw the profile book and had the agency pick us. She refuses any letters so she doesn't even know we changed it. BTW, we got her at 3 days old so she was not use to any other name.

[pumpkingirl71]

Originally Posted by Sierra

dw and I have been calling her a nickname that is her first name minus just two letters.

This cracked me up. I don't use my kids real names on the internet either, so I completely understand. But I have no idea what you are talking about here. I just can't picutre it

My birth son and adopted daughter (came home at 23 months) have ryhming names. It really irks me. I also never would have choosen dd's name, but I love it now. I feel very strongly about keeping it, but catch myself wishing that we had named ds something else.

We really really don't like dd's middle name. On top of not liking it, it doesn't fit with her first name. But we think it must be a symbolic name and feel badly wanting to change it. Still haven't decided what we will do...

[aja-belly]

we picked dd's first and middle name. we asked her birthmom if she wanted to pick out a middle name, but she left it to us. i was a little bummed at first cause i had this romantic idea of her picking a totally kick-ass name (her bio daughter has awesome names) but in the end i really like the middle name we picked. :

i really think if we foster/adopt a child in the future we would keep their birth name. if they were old enough we would likely let them pick a new name if they wanted to. i imagine if it was really hard to pronounce we might shorten or change it slightly as a nickname.

[Monie]

We gave Evie a first name that we had chosen, kept part of her original Chinese name as her first middle name, then gave her a second middle name that is my Grandma's middle name but also happens to be a translation of the nickname her nanny at the orphanage called her.

Her Chinese family name was a shortened version of the orphanage name, so we didn't feel too badly about dropping it. Her given name is considered a very beautiful and desirable name in the area she is from, and there is a beautiful story about why they gave her that name, so we wanted to keep it.

[Mom2lilpeeps]

We chose our son's name prior to his birth. His life mommy/daddy had no name preferences and left the naming to us. They usually call him by his nickname. Our dd came home at 4 months of age from fostercare. Her name was...well...to put it gently 'made' up. We chose to give her a family name. We completely changed her name. : We had other reasons for changing her name as well. We also got her a new social security number. We felt and still feel it's safer for her. The people her life mom associated with were and are a dangerous lot. There's a lot more to the story but the bottom line is we feel her safety is our priority. Her name fits her and before her life mom checked out we talked about it and she agreed with and seemed to understand our decision. Our dd will be told about her 'first name' and she may decide she likes it better and wants to change it later in life. I'm sure some will say we are 'erasing' her identity but that's not it at all. We cannot 'erase' (nor would we want to) her origin but we can protect her future. Hope that made sense.

Candy

[JunipersMom]

I kept my dd birth names as middle names. We knew that her birthmom named her (alot of times in Guatemala the lawyer or facilitator will name the babe) so we kept both names. We would've kept the two last names too - if we could have pronounced them
And at least in my family I'm amazed that anyone knows their real name because we have so many nicknames for everyone that I dont think anyone has called me by my true first name in years

[yestheyareallmine]

Our oldest 3 children all had family names, so when we adopted our fourth we kept his first name, as it was a biological family name, and gave him a name from our family as his middle name. We will do the same for the next adoption. That way they have a name from both of their families. They were/are both toddlers at the time of adoption.

[queencarr]

Before we received our referral, we had planned on keeping ds2's Korean first/middle name as his middle name and giving him an American 1st name. However, his Korean name was Dong Hyun, and we were afraid he would be teased because of the Dong part, even though it is actually pronounced Dohng. Plus, Hyun contains a sound that does not exist in English, and we can't actually say it properly. So, we kept his last name as his middle name. After we decided this, we found out that the babies keep their birth mother's family name, so I am really glad that was the part we kept. When speaking with some older Korean-Americans, they were very pleased by us keeping his family name, as culturally, the family is more important than the individual, so I feel like we respected his heritage in that way as well (although we didn't realize it at the time). We were also told that is was a "good, special" family name, although I have no idea what that means. Had he been given his individual name by his birthmother, we probably would have kept it complete as his middle name anyway, but our paperwork says his name was chosen by his SW. As an neat aside, if you show him pictures from before/after he was palced with us and ask him where Connor is, he will only point to the pictures after he came home with us. If you ask him where Dong Hyun is, he will point to his earlier pictures.

We had no trouble making the name switch, we used both for a few days, in addition to his nickname from his FF, and he was responding to Connor within less than 2 weeks. He was 5 1/2m when we went and picked him up in Korea.

[Diane B]

These are great stories. Our daughter was not named either - the foster family apparently just called her "bebe' ") and when we got her referral at 6 weeks, we were able to name her. We chose two family names, but her first and middle names "work" in Spanish as well as English. We use the English spelling of her first name, but the Spanish pronunciation. We are open to changing this to the Spanish spelling if she wants to when she's older. Her paperwork in Guatemala has her name spelled both ways.

Of course, we were thrilled that she would be called by her name until we could bring her home, and then we found out that her foster family was using an Americanized version of her middle name! Oh, well...

[blessed]

Originally Posted by julie anne

...changed their Korean names to American names for their first names and kept a first part of their Korean names for their middle names...

This is exactly how we handled Dd's Chinese name.

It was funny, when we returned from China and were going through airport security in LA, the security guard was holding our tickets and asked "And who is (Dd's American name)?" We pointed to Dd. He looked at her and said "Well, that's a good Irish name for you!"

It's true but hadn't occured to us, both her given name and surname are Irish derivations .

[griffin2004]

DD's birth name was the same as her birth mother's name. I kept the middle name (which just so happened to be a version of my mom's name) and changed the first name.

[dharmamama]

Our kids were around 2 1/2 and 11 when they joined us from Ethiopia. We kept both their Ethiopian names. We felt that they already had names and didn't need to be named by us.

Currently both our children have my dh's first name as their middle name because that's what the Ethiopian court does when it finalizes adoptions. We plan to give ds two middle names that we chose (one because dh liked it and one because it's dh's middle name) and we plan to give dd her Ethiopian last name (Ethiopian surnames are the father's first name) + an American middle name of her choice (as long as we find it acceptable) for her middle names. We originally planned to just use her Ethiopian surname as the middle name but she strongly objects. We compromised with Desta [her choice] [our choice--her Ethiopian surname] [our last name].

Namaste!

[Heavenly]

We haven't adopted yet but plan to adopt from Ethiopia in a few years. We will be changing their first name and retaining their Ethiopian name as one of their middle names and the second middle name will be a family name. All of our kids have a name honoring another family member in their name.

[Leatherette]

Our dd was named by her birthmother, but her foster family did not know this and gave her a new name. We found out about the name her birthmother gave her soon after placement, and were able to use it as her middle name before her legal name change had gone through.

So, like others, we chose the first name and used the birthparent-given name as her middle name.

L.