Naming Your Adopted Child
The name given to a child is significant. It is a simple truth. We know this not only from the weight put on naming children in various cultures, but from our own experience with our thoughts as we daydream about children that will one day be in our care. As early as middle school girls have memories of sitting together and discussing possible names of future children. They paired the first name with the middle name and wondered, heart fluttering, what the last name would be. Early on in many a marriage a husband and wife may make a list of names that they feel drawn to for the way that they sound or the image they created. It is most likely that this is a familiar experience for most of us.
Names are given to children because we as parents like the way they sound, have a connection to the meaning of the name, or are passing on a name from our history to honor a loved one. With adoption, however, often a name has been given already. A child has had a name bestowed upon them by a birth family or even orphanage caretaker. This raises several issues regarding a conflict of our earlier hopes mixed with reality. Should we rename adopted children?
In her book, Raising Adoptive Children, author Louis Ruskai Melina has a chapter on naming and renaming adoptive children. She cautions that children who have already learned to respond to their given names should not have their names changed. According to Pediatrician Vera Fahlberg a child will learn to respond to their given name before the age of one. Infants can adapt quickly and will learn to respond to a new name with ease. Something that adoptive parents should take into consideration, however, is that they are already asking their infants to adapt to a significant amount of change. A new name is one more change that the child must endure.
A very high amount of caution is given to parents adopting a child of preschool age. Once a child is of this age their name is a central part of their identity. Changing the name of a child this age could create an enormous amount of confusion for the child and even cause the child to think in terms of self as two different people.
If older adopted children desire a name change due to fear of teasing at school parents can consider working with a translator to find a name that is similar in meaning and sound resulting in the name being changed to appear more anglicized but not entirely different. This is a decision that should be made with much thought on the part of the parents and child as the name given to them by their birth family is part of their identity. They need to integrate their past into their present rather than think in terms of two separate lives led. Adoptive children do not become new people when they are adopted and a new name may create this feeling for them. The changing of a name will not take away past hurt, loss, or change the child’s history. Therefore, changing the name of the older adoptive child should not be done unless the child is specifically desiring this to occur and with much processing as to motivation why from the parents.
There are ways that adoptive parents can name their children while still keeping the given name of the child. It is good to think of keeping the given name of the child as a way of honoring the birth parents. They are, after all, the people that were instrumental in bringing this little life that you love to the world and thus deserve to be honored. Giving a child an additional middle name as a way of claiming them into the family is appropriate. The child is able to keep their given name and receive a significant name bestowed upon them by their adoptive and permanent parents. Perhaps for an infant, if the decision to change the name is made, the birth name could be used as a middle name thus accommodating for both honoring the meaning and significance of the new name as well as honor given to the ethnicity and birth parents of the child.
Remember that names are important, they identify who we are, at all ages. Whether keeping the given name of your child or renaming take into consideration the child’s sense of identity at different stages of their life. This decision should be made in the very best interest of your child at the stage they are in upon adoption through adulthood.
