Name Change?

mia_2005 · 10-25-2005, 06:08 PM

Do you plan to change the name of your adopted child? If so, will you keep part of their original name? If so, what part? If you changed it, are you concerned that your child will feel like he/she lost their cultural identity?

Lisa67 · 10-25-2005, 06:15 PM

Hi Mia,

We used Emily's Chinese name as her middle name. We do have that concern about her cultural identity so we thought it was important to keep that part of China for her. It's what a lot of families adopting from China do, and what we will do with our next daughter too. I hope it goes well with Katelyn ! Lol

One thing that comforted me and eased my mind a bit was that it wasn't a name given to her by her birth parents. Her surname was the orphanage name so all the babies had the same surname and the orphange gave her the rest of her name, which actually is quite beautiful!

It made it a bit easier to give her a new first name, ya know?

HUGS...welcome to the forum!!

macrod · 10-25-2005, 06:50 PM

We changed our dd's first name from Raquel to Rachel and kept her middle name the same. Her bio mom had named her. I had a name picked out for her but when the time came to change it I couldn't do it. Maybe if it were an unbearable name or if the birth mom had been a drug user it would have been easy for me to change her name completely. We have totally lost contact w/birth family and we feel that keeping her name is the only connection that she has to her past.

~Traci~ · 10-25-2005, 07:01 PM

We're giving our daughter her first and part of her middle name. Like Lisa, we'll keep our daughters given Chinese name as her middle name.

It may be different if our daughter was much older (and already knew her name) or her BM had given her her name though.

Traci

Micmoore · 10-25-2005, 09:54 PM

I changed all of adopted childrens middle names. They where older so we kept their first names. They all had middle names I would not have picked. My youngest son was Justin Tyme.... LOL! If they where younger I would have probably changed first names as well.

Leanne actually wanted to change her first name. She could not decide what she wanted to be called. So DH and I spent several weeks calling her by whatever name she picked that day. We called her Lola, Ella, Elizabeth, Emily, Leah and several more I can not think of. It was so confusing, I always got it wrong

She loved the name Lola "but my body didnt really match, since I was going to be the most beautiful teenager, but my legs are way to big

". This coming from a 7 yo who still has to sit in a booster and bearly weighs 45 lbs. So we decided to stick with Leanne since it is such a lovely name anyway.

Lacy

Calantha · 10-26-2005, 11:07 AM

We changed Sam's first name and kept his middle name. His Colombian name was Juan Sebastian. We had planned to keep his Colombian first name as his middle name, but we were told by a Colombian friend that Juan can never be used as a middle name and that keeping it as a middle name would actually be denying his Colombian culture. So we kept Sebastian instead. When we first got custody of him in Colombia, we continued to call him Juanchito, which was the nickname his foster mother had called him by. We slowly switched over to Samuel, but he took to it a lot faster than we thought he would. Like others have said, we were concerned about taking a name from him that his birth mother had given him, so we asked the social workers where his name came from. We were told that his birth mother had not named him, and so his name was given by the ICBF (children's welfare department). That really helped finalize out decision. We plan to make sure that he knows his Colombian name as he grows up, and if he ever decides he wants it back.. we're ok with that too.

We're looking into adoption for #2 right now. As things stand, the plan is to do as the others have said if we go to China.... we'll pick a first name and keep her Chinese name as a middle name. If we go with domestic, we'll try to include the birthmother's wishes in our decision.

JenJen78 · 10-26-2005, 04:17 PM

We chose to go with 4 names for Zach. We chose his first name. His first middle name is after DH and his Dad and the second middle name was his birth middle name. We wanted him to have part of his Birthmom and part of us too. I've always said though that if when he's old enough to understand it all he would like to change him name, I'll support him in that and pay any fees needed for him to do that.

Jen

dna · 10-27-2005, 03:36 PM

We have done the same as everyone...DS has a 1st a 2nd and then his Birthname (not given by Birthmom) is his 3rd ... We plan to have DD's name in the same fashion but not necessarily 2 middle names

I think in order to integrate some children from other countries into ours we need to give them our own names..Chinese names are hard to spell, pronounce and say in English most times and I wouldnt want her to have to explain everytime all of these things. Not to say she and our son wont be immersed in their culture the best we can around. I think thats more important then keeping a name that most times is not provided by the Birth mom in the first place.

In my Humble opinion

~Lisa~ · 10-28-2005, 02:56 AM

If I had to I would probably change one of their names, but we named them from birth, the only name change I'll have to do this time is the last name. The bio parents let us choose the names.

Best wishes to you.

strawberree · 10-28-2005, 01:39 PM

we naming our daughter leah.. we may use part of her chinese name... i guess were waiting to find out her name.. my DH loves the middle name Maeli so its our go to middle name i guess .. my brother and sil didnt use any of there daughters chinese name..it was Fang .. and the had already her name picked out for sentimental reasons..at the orphange they called her fang-fang ... she does know the name fang.. she calls her chinese doll fang-fang (acutally its a baby Mulan doll)

mia_2005 · 10-28-2005, 05:03 PM

Thanks for the replies. I guess we'll have to see what the child's name is first. I hadn't thought about finding out whether his mother named him or not. That's a good idea. A name is much more important if the b-parent gives it to them. Definitely something to consider.

samstars · 11-04-2005, 11:13 PM

Just to add to all of the other replies. We are in the middle of adopting our first child. A son, who is 10 years old. He actually brought it up first asking if he could change his name. We debated for a long time going over and over several variations of names. But our son knew from the beginning what he wanted to do. He will keep his first name and has decided to changed his middle name to the same name as my DH's middle name. He doesn't like his birth middle name anyway so it wasn't hard to get him to change and he is a 3rd in his bio family and really doesn't want much of his birth father's name.

Like some of the other ladies, if he had been younger we have already decided we would change if we didn't like the name to start with.

Stacy

Adoption Momma · 11-13-2005, 05:12 AM

We are adopting 2 boys ages 5 & 7. We plan on changing their middle names and of course their last name. Since they are older, we felt it was important to keep their first name. Right now in school they go by both last names combined (i.e. Matthew Smith McCormick). Since many parents hyphenate anyway, we felt that would be an easier transition and less social issues and less confusing in school.