Name changes - would like input

Hi! We have a 15 mo little girl in our care whom we are adopting. She has older sibs in another foster home and we stay in close contact. We have already informally changed our baby's name and the other foster/adopt mom has moved sibs names around like you are saying. I feel it is a very good thing to do, as long as you keep some part of their original name. Just my humble opinion. As a foster mom, I would welcome any requests from an adoptive family. I think it would be a great idea for them to start using the new names. Maybe they can somehow explain to them that they will be with a new family who loves them very much and wants them to have a special new name, or something like that. Have the older sibs seen the baby much? I ask because our baby was apart from her older sibs and it was a bit tough the first few times we got together for playdates. Of course, you will have all of them in one home, so it won't be as odd for you. Best of luck to you and have fun!!! Hugs, Vickie

[font=Courier New]Thank you so much for posting this!!! My hubby and I are also adopting from the foster care system and have been debating this same idea. We have secondary infertility and have a 9 year old son and are wanting to adopt a little girl infant to 3 years old. We are waiting for final approval of our application from the state: they have until May 20th, lol. Currently we are stationed in Hawaii and will most likely be adopting an interracial child and some of these Hawaiian names are really hard to pronounce. We have concerns that the child's name will forever be mispronounced leading to lots of frustration for her as well as us. We were thinking that changing their name would be great because it would give them a fresh start. We felt that their birthparents gave them that name and then were not able to take care of them and in many cases have abused the child. We feel like doing away with the old name would give them a new sense of meaning. What we were wanting to do is give them a new first name, then use their first name and middle name together. I am so glad to hear someone else wants to change their child's name. [/font]

Hi, I think name changing can be a good thing in the right situation. We adopted a sibling group of five and did change their names. They were age 2 thru 7. They loved it. They are bi-racial but did not have names I felt were cultural, so that did not come into the decisison. We had them in our home thru foster care for about a year and a half before the adoption was finalized. After we knew for sure we were going to adopt them and the therapist had talked to them about us being their new parents we told them that night that we had a special surprise for them. We talked to them to make sure the oldest ones understood what adopting meant and then told them we had picked special names out for them. They couldnt wait to know what their new name was. The rest of the night they were so excited and kept going around the house and saying it or coming back and asking "what is my new name again". We then started calling them by that name at home. Within a couple of weeks when they would talk about the other, they would call them by their new name. When they were playing among themselves it was usually their old name for a few months, but before long the other was correcting the sibling with what their name was now. I havent seen any problem with it and the kids seemed to enjoy it. We thought it was needed since we did not want the bio-parents to search for them since they already knew our last name and the area where we were located. They were not aware of the name change and we had their social security numbers changed also. I just didnt want any problems in the near future. We have told the children it was their decision if they see their bio-mom when they turn 18. We are very open about the adoption with them. Hope this helps

Thank you all so much for your input. We have decided to keep their first names the same, but morph one into a new spelling and pronunciation. It is close, so I don't think it should make a big difference.I was driving in the car one day and it just hit me to keep their names. We will tell them that there first mom gave them their first names, and their second mom (me) gave them their second names.Every situation is different, and I think this is best for us.Thank you again!