Did you change your child's first name?

You should let your children have a part in deciding. Some older kids are attached to their name, others want to have a new American name. Many adoptive parents keep the original names, either as first or as middle names. But if a name change is necessary, you can do it so that there is some continuity, e.g. changing to an American name that shares a common root.

I left my kids names, but they were names I could stand. If they had names I could not handle I might have tried to change them. But I also would have asked the kids. I do have one friend who changed her kids names, but one kid would not change. So his legal name is a new American name, but he only answers to his old name so they had to give up and call him the old name. Luckily they had kept it as his middle name so it's not such a problem. Her other kids were younger and handled the name change well. Many people who change thier names, in order to help them get used to it will call them by both for a while and then eventually drop the old name. I don't know that there is a right or wrong. I have heard that some kids like having new American names, both of mine are proud to have thier original names. My daghter was only ten months when adopted, but she is nine now and is glad she got to keep her name. My son we asked, he was fine with a new middle name (he got his new dads first name as a middle name) but he really wanted to keep his first name. As strange as it sounds he had some good memories of his orphange and did not want to forget everything. He wanted to have those memories and some of that identity. However, other children want to forget and start new. I do think it's harder with older kids. I have heard several parents that will choose two or three new names and let the child choose.

Our oldest daughter was 34 months at adoption and our youngest was 4 years 4 months at adoption. After much thought, we did legally change both their names. Part of our oldest's Chinese name in English is slang for a male body part and the other part is slang for sex. Our youngest daughter's Chinese name can easily be misprounounced as a swear word. Now, they both have part of their Chinese names in their new names - the oldest's has a very popular first name but spelled differently to incorporate part of her Chinese name and our youngest has part of hers as her middle name. We also continue to use their Chinese nicknames as their nicknames now.

We are adopting a 6 1/2 yr old. She will have an American first name and her Chinese first name will become her middle name. We will let her choose though. We plan to call her by both if she allows us to. I work with many adopted children. I have seen them choose to use either name at various stages in their childhood. -Karen

We kept her Indian name as her middle name :) She has an American name as a first name. She was 3 1/2 @ home coming.We are hoping to adopt a boy who is 5 right now we plan on doing the same thing......but if he wanted to be called his Indian name we would just call him by his middle name!

We adopted a one year old and changed his first name, keeping his original first name as his middle name. If he had been older though I think we would have talked to him about it first. As it is we often call him by both names.

Our Daughter was 7 yrs old when she came home.We had planned on keeping her name but she didnt want to.We let her pick her new first name and kept her given name as a middle name.I left this to her as she was older and wanted to make the choice herself.She tells me all the time she has a pretty name and she loves it. Denise

We adopted a 9 & 10 year old (brother and sister) from Ukraine, so they had Russian birth names, which I thought were absolutely beautiful. During the process, our children asked US if they could change their names. So, we allowed them to change their first names and kept their birth names as their middle name. Our daughter was upset we even kept it at all, but our son understood, being that he is older. Now, after being home for some time, she totally understands why we chose to keep it, though she says she NEVER wants to be called by it again. Some horrible things had happened in their short little lives there- so she wanted to forget everything bad, start a new life here in America, with a family who loves her. She got her request. I think personally, it should be left up to the children, especially if they are older. If my children hadn't pretty much demanded it, we would have been happy to keep their birth names. It wouldn't have mattered one bit to me what their names were- I would have called them MUD if need be. From the words of Shakespear..."What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

My DS (local adoption) was 2 when we adopted him, and we changed the spelling of his name from "Kile" to "Kyle". I'm not sure what I'd have done if he was older and could already read/write.DD was 6 when we adopted her (from Poland) and we gave her the choice of choosing a new name, but she decided to keep her Polish one which I was fine with. I'm 1/4 Polish and lived there for a few years when I was younger, so I guess this might have changed my views a bit. Her name is pretty easy to pronounce in English anyway, but some of her friends have given her an anglicised nickname.