A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Names in Adoption

Naming Your Adopted Child

I remember with my pregnancies, I started thinking about names almost from the time two lines appeared on the pee stick.  It's not only a right, but an obligation for parents to name the children they birth and raise.

With adoption, things are a little more complicated.  For parents who do Domestic Newborn Adoption, sometimes birth parents want a say in naming.  Or adoptive parents may want to honor the birth parents in some way with the name.

With Foster Care Adoption, kids are older, they know their name, and sometimes there is baggage associated with it.  Consider a Junior who's birth father made poor choices or was abusive.  Should the child have to carry his abuser's name throughout his life?  Of course not.  But some children want to keep their name.  For some kids, it may be the only thing they have left from their birth parents.  Those feelings should be respected, as well.

In International Adoption, the name game can be a minefield.  Some families feel that since they're taking away their child's homeland, language, and culture, the least they can do is allow them to retain their name.  Other families want their child to fit in, both to their existing family with American names, and to the community at large.  They don't want their kids to be teased or constantly have to teach others how to spell and pronounce their names.  Again, with older kids, some children want to keep their name, others want a new name for their new family.  Some parents have changed a child's name on paper, only to discover that they refuse to answer to anything but their original name.

In any type of adoption, you may have family traditions you want to honor.  My husband's family gives the first son a certain middle name, and has for several generations.  When my husband adopted my son, we changed his middle name to follow that tradition.

Our adopted kids come from China.  Chinese names work differently than American names.  Chinese names place the surname or what we typically think of as the "last name" first.  Which makes sense in a very family driven society.  Who are your people, your clan, sort of thing.

Many orphanages use a pattern for naming their charges.  In lieu of a surname, children are given a character from the city the orphanage is located in.  For example, if your child comes from Hangzhou, her name may be Hang Something Something.   (This is not always true; I have also heard of orphanage directors who give all the children their own surname.)  Often all the children born in the same year are given the same character as their middle name.  So little Hang Something Something who was born in Year of the Pig becomes Hang Zhu Something.  It's that last Something that is the child's unique portion of their name, and often that last part is doubled as a nickname.  For example, Hang Zhu Yu was a beautiful baby, so the orphanage staff gave her the name for Jade as her personal name.  She would know her name as Hang Zhu Yu, but the staff might affectionately refer to her as Yu Yu.

Some families might choose to keep her Chinese name, Zhu Yu, adding their own surname.  Other families might choose to translate the name and change it to Jade.  Still other families want to make their child entirely their own, and do away with the Chinese name altogether.  And then there are families like ours, who use all or part of the Chinese name as a middle name, giving a Western first name.

Hannah has the last portion of her name as a middle name.  It has a pretty meaning, and the name flows well, as first, middle, and last each have 2 syllables.  Katie and Luke both have the last 2 portions of their Chinese name as their middle names.  Interestingly, the pinyan translation for the first character is the same for both of them, although they are different characters with different meanings.

Names are a huge part of one's identity.  And it is an honor to be permitted to choose a name for your child.  Fortunately, with most adoptions, families have plenty of time to make that decision.  Although my hope is that my girls will appreciate that we retained a part of their old name in their new name, my experience is that most children dislike something about their name (I don't care for mine at all!) so try not to take it personally if your child eventually criticizes your choice.

If you've adopted, I'd love to hear how your family chose to name your child or children!  Visit the linkup below to hear how other families reached their decisions.


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10 comments:

  1. We adopted from foster care when our daughter was 9. Our daughter is developmentally delayed and non verbal. We kept her first name the same because she was used it it and we loved it but changed her middle names. We chose the birth mothers first name, maternal grandmas last name (her choice) and then added added Anne because all females in our family have Anne in their names, After we added our last name, our daughter ended up with 5 names but everyone is happy.

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    1. Neat! All 4 of my daughters have ANNA in their names. It wasn't intentional at first. Annaliese was just my favorite name of all time, and I knew from the time I was 12 that I would use it someday. Brianna was actually going to be named Natalie, but Annaliese named her doll that while I was pregnant, and I got sick of hearing it, so we went with our other girl name choice instead. "Hannah" was the name used by our agency to advocate for our daughter, and my husband liked it and wanted to keep it, even though it wasn't actually her name. At some point, Annaliese pointed out that they all had ANNA in their names. So when Katie came along, I chose Katianna to continue the tradition. (I admit, we're about out of ANNA names, though, so should more blessings fold into our family I'm not sure we could keep that up, lol.)

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  2. Both of our adopted children are from foster care. Our son was a new born and we kept his first name because it was on our boy list of names and changed his middle name to honor my father. Our daughter was 2 and hated her birth name. She refused to come to it. So, we changed her entire name in a naming ceremony conducted by her therapist when she was 3. She was give two names to pick from while we sat out in the waiting room. We did not know until she came out what her new name was. She took to it immediately and got mad at us if we spoke or birth name by mistake.
    Blessings, Dawn

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    1. What a neat story! I like how you gave her a say in the manner, yet not so much freedom that she could name herself Dora The Explorer. ;)

      I am very grateful to the director of Hannah's orphanage. On the day we got Hannah, she asked through our guide, "What is her new name?" Then she got Hannah's attention and told her, "Your new name is Hannah. When your mama and your baba say Hannah, you say yes mama yes baba." I thought it was beautiful. Hannah was 3 yrs 7 mos old, and had no problem adjusting to her new name. We called her by her first and middle names at first (new name and old name together), but dropped the old name after several days, and she did just great.

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  3. This is very interesting on the names when adopting a child. My husband and I have talked about adoption but haven't felt that now is the right time for us. Thanks for sharing with #SocialButterflySunday! Hope to see you link up again this week :)

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    1. I think it's great that you've considered adopting! Many people don't even think about it.

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  4. This was REALLY fascinating to me. Having adopted through foster care ourselves, I had no idea, and I love learning about this kind of stuff. So true about children disliking something about their names! My whole childhood I actually wished my name was Katie. Not sure why! I do still love the name Katie, but I've learned to be happy with Erin ;-)

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    1. I love the name Katie, too! :) My Katie is Katianna, because all 4 of my girls have ANNA in their names.

      I *hated* my name growing up. I don't "like" it now, but I'm resigned to it.

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  5. One of my dear friends was adopted from China (she's now an adult), so I found this interesting! Thanks for sharing at the Artful Homemaking link-up!

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    1. China is a fascinating place and culture. :) I wish I knew more.

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