I've been thinking about the whole name changing thing for a while now.
With our girls, since they were all older, we knew we would keep their original name. Even the names given by two of our daughter's first adoptive families were kept. We just felt that because they were at least seven years old at the time that they joined our family, it would be an easier transition without them having to learn to answer to a new name.
Here is an article written on the very subject.
http://www.rainbowkids.com/expertarticledetails.aspx?id=38
I'm sure it appears that I posted a biased article, but it happens to be written by the author of "20 Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew." It is posted on RainbowKids.
I'm not sure I would feel the same if the child that we adopted was a baby. We would definitely keep some part of their name like making their first name their new middle name, but I just can't say for sure.
It would be interesting to take a poll about how many parents changed their child's name and at what age. Feel free to leave a comment, as I would be interested in finding out how you decided on your child's name.
18 inspiring thoughts:
Christine,
We said we would consider our child's Russian name if it translated to English easily when we received our referral. Once we learned Owen's birthname, we thought a lot about keeping his first name as part of his full name, but in the end we decided to give him a family name, naming him after my husband and great uncle, and let Owen decide when he gets older if he wants to add his Russian name into his full name (or change it completely if he wants to!). I know there is debate over whether you should or shouldn't change the child's name, but we felt that because he was 18 months old and didn't respond to his Russian name that this was the best decision for us.
I wonder what you will do this time!
I like the comment from Adrienne and Jim. It is hard enough to apply a name to a child you birth! I can only imagine the turmoil of naming or renaming an adopted child! I guess it makes sense to do what feels right at the time and be very open about the idea of the child being free to change it later... although that would be tough too. Imagine if Adam or Caleb wanted to change their name?? My best friend wanted to stop using her first name and go by her middle, and I simply could not change (nor could others) - and I really tried! - she eventually gave up.
Nor do names always transfer over well. A perfectly acceptable family name in Pakistan is 'Butt' - yet that may not be something to pin on an American child, no matter how much you want to honor the birth parents or give the child connections!
It is a tough decision!
The two Russian names we decided we would NOT keep were: Sergey for a boy (we thought American kids could have too much fun with that one) and Natasha for a girl which is shorten to 'Nastia' - that sounded too much like 'little nasty girl' to us! So, when we found out he was a Dmitry (my favorite Russian boy name) we were relived that the decision was more or less made for us. His patynomic name was 'Alexandrovich' and so we just shortened it to Alexander for a middle name. We think it sounds nice together and we also thought that if at any point 'Dmitry' felt more Russian than he wanted, he could go by Alex. Our second daughter goes by her middle name Grace or Gracie about half the time.
Thank you for your lovely comments on my blog! The name game is something I have given a lot of thought, and have decided that even though my children are "older" I will be keeping their birth names as their middle names, but giving them a new first name. Haitian names do not always translate well into our culture, and I'm hoping that a new name will help them. If it does'nt work out then my hope would be that we could transition back. But they are old enough that we can actually discuss it...if I can get thru the language barrier! BTW I was born and raised in CA., moved 13 years ago. Miss it alot sometimes!
We went back and forth on the name thing. Their Haitian names are Fredlin and Frednise and we think that's kind of cool but can imagine both of them getting called Freddy and too much rhymes with Fred. Still, I kind of like the names. Anyway, in Haitian fashion we are matching their American names --Kayla and Kaleb.
We kept our daughter Katya's name (only slightly changing it by dropping the "E" from Ekaterina on the official papers, but continuing to call her Katya, as she has always been called and giving her a middle name instead of the patronymic which she didn't even know about).
I really never even considered changing the first name, as she was seven. I was very concerned about preserving her identity. Funny though, that soon after she was here in the U.S. she decided she wanted to be called "Kate" instead so as to sound more American. She's often correcting me when I still call her Katya.
When my parents adopted my older brother he was just six days old. They gave him a completely new name, but as the adoption was not done through an agency, there were plenty of links to his birth family and identity. Mom and Dad never hid his adoption and he loved to hear about the night they got him. My brother's adoption was so special that I "almost" wished I had been adopted. (http://justseven.blogspot.com/2007/03/danny-boy.html)
On the other hand, having found myself pregnant as a teenager, and having considered, even remotely, the possibility of adoption, I understand a little bit how painful it can be for the birth family. We ended up getting married and keeping our son, eventually adding six more babies to our home. After all that my husband would still consider adopting if given the opportunity.
We changed Misha to Micah and he was 6. It was no problem at all, but they sound alike.
Christine,
We labored over the name thing and then when we found out that we would adopt a 3 year old versus a baby,now it was even harder. BUT, His Kazakh name was Nurbolat and here in Ky, we could only imagine how it would be pronounced. His Nickname was Nurik which we liked and called him that for the first month while we were in-country. When it came time to make everything official, we decided Nicholas (Nick) was very close to Nurik and made that his official name. We would have had to officially change to Nurik also had we chosen that since it was just a nickname. As far as the middle name, we had thought we would use some part of his birth name but our adoption was "blind" and we had to "choose" between two little boys. So, my sister had made the comment before we left that she would pray that God would give us some kind of gracious sign such as one of the children "being born on our grandpa's birthday or something" because how do you "choose" between two sweet children....ugh! Well, guess what day Nick was born, yep, my grandpa's birthday! So, to make a long story, longer, we decided to honor this God moment by using my Grandfather's name in the middle. We thought about having a third name and then just decided if he wants to be called Nurik later then fine but for now he is Nick. We still use both of his Kazakh names when playing around. He usually gets a big grin. We learned a few weeks ago in BSF that the names JESUS and JOHN were not traditional names and their parents were honoring God in their choices and not tradition so that kind of felt like God giving me a little "it is OK" sign so that I do not feel guilty or that we are not honoring his heritage. I strongly feel that it will be more important for us to tell him of God's great purpose for him thru his adoption story and that he see how much God loves him and has a plan for him. That Godly heritage is much more valuable than the fact that his people were nomadic horse people. We will honor his Kazakh heritage and his birth parents as parts of the whole beautiful Nick story that God is orchestrating as we speak!! Sorry so long but this was a big deal for us when it happened and I like to testify! ;) Karen
Oh.. just to add we kept Galya.. we liked it and she was 8 and we felt maybe she was too old to change her name,. We gave them both family middle names.
We thought Misha was girly for America and worried he would get made fun of.
It is very interesting to read all of your comments. I think we can all agree on one thing...the name that we chose for our children was not made lightly and we each gave alot of thought into why we picked the name that we did. Each of these comments are definitely worth reading.
BTW Alicia, Our neighbor's daughter is Anastacia and we all call her Nastia pronouncing the first "a" like the "o" in pot. I know where you are coming from, but when pronounced the way it is supposed to be, it is quite beautiful.
I'm chiming in a little late. We have a Nastia too, we spell it Nastaya when written, I feel it helps people pronounce it better. She goes by Anastasia mostly now, though at home we do both. Our 2 year old calls her Nastaya the most!
We also have Paul and Rya. Paul was Pavel, but he went by Pasha. We called him Pasha until he was ready to switch to Paul and that was some time in the first couple months home. We left it up to him. Rya is a nickname for a beautiful Russian name, Raisa, pronounced some thing like Rye-eee-sahh and you roll the R. When said correctly it's so pretty! But we didn't know that Rya was a nickname until it was too late! We just kept her name Rya and we like it. It is all she went by anyways and though I think Raisa is pretty it would be hard to spell and get people to say right.
All three kids have a family name for a middle name. Anastasia is Danielle after my husband Daniel, Paul has Dan's dad's name and Rya is named after my grandma. Cosette is named after my mom and Dan's mom as they both have the same name! That was a no brainer!! LOL
My sister was adopted at the age of 4 (nearly 5), but was in and out of foster care since she was 2. When she came, my parents decided that she hadn't had much to call her own. Except for her name.
They kept her first name. Changed her middle name to a "family name". She's now 27...and loves that she has a name from our Great G'mother.
we changed their first names and made them their middle names so they can keep part of their past. My children were 22 months and 14 months when we adopted them. But if I had gotten an older child, I would not have changed the name.
Well, actually I have both a Sergei and a Nastya. BTW (Russian major here) Natalya = Nastasha; it is Anastasia that shortens to Nastya, and after two years of being Anastasia and not feeling at all like herself this year Anastasia insisted on being called Nastya as she started a new school. No problems at all (though to my horror her teacher began the year pronouncing it like "Nasty-a") Sergei finds he is occasionally called "Surgie" and his favorite teacher calls him "Sarge", but no problems there either. Russians have so many different nicknames for each given name that it seems like something is "usable". I worried a little about Evgenii, our youngest...and the common nickname Zhenya seemed sort of girlish, but even in Russia that is often shortened to "Zhen" which is such a cool little name.
I knew I always wanted my first daughter to have part of my name incorporated into hers. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do this, though. When I traveled to Kaz, the agency had given me a totally different name for Elena. It was actually an English name. I thought this was quite odd, but I liked it (Emma). When I arrived in Kaz, I found that she really had a spanish name. One would think this is perfect because my parents are spanish, well it was not an attractive name at all. So problem resolved. I named her Elena Maria. The part of my name I really wanted to use was "Elena" because it has been in the family for many generations. But I went with my first name as her middle name. So my daughter now has my name, but inverted. Hope that makes sense :)
Our child was a baby when we adopted her. We kept the first and middle name the birthmom named her and used both for her middle name as her birthmom suggested, then we gave her a first name. this way we got to name her, but she also has the name her birthmom named her at birth.
I love my daughter's Russian name, but during my long wait, I had chosen a biblical name that I felt strongly about. Still it was a hard decision, one that I still hope I did right. I found out that her Russian name was assigned to her in the hospital. They named every abandoned baby that month the same name. The way you name a hurricane. It helped me feel I'd like her to have one name that someone had thought about for her personally. So I gave her the first name, and retained her Russian name for her middle name.
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