Changing Child's Name When Adopted

IMHO I think the biggest part of the situation is the common letter for the family. I think I would be thinking not giving them the name with Y would be singling out especially if its something that the family talks about from time to time. And Nicknames are so common and accepted now anyway! My husband rarely if ever gets called by his name - and I've never used it to speak to him directly. And teens are teens - My Niece's name is Jasmine but there are 4 Jasmin's in her group of friends so she picked Jaime as a nickname.

Our 4 yr old is named after an alcoholic drink too... her name is a variation of the spelling of the drink, but sounds the same when you're screaming it across Wal-mart... We call her a shorter version of the name, but she wants to change her name to Layla. Which I love, and think is great! I sing Eric Clapton's Layla to her every night and she loves it. When you ask her her name she says right now it's ____ but when I'm adopted I will be Layla! :) Both of my girls have voiced their desire to change their names, but I have a feeling my oldest will keep her first name and change her middle name (her mn is her mom's middle name too). Either way, our last name is a mouthful, so they will have a ton of fun spelling and saying it for at least the next 15-20 yrs... :)

If you want to change them, by all means do it. They are still young enough that they'll adjust fine in my opinion.. Sure it might take some time- if you do decide to do it I'd call them by both their new first name & old first name, slowly dropping the old first name. We've adopted 4 times (ok the last two are finalizing next month but I'm counting them..)#1- placed at birth, parents disappeared after saying they were going to surrender (but never did) at 3mo. We renamed her at that point and called her the new name from then on. Considering Bmom was court ordered to name her, I knew there were no real family ties in the name anyway. #2- placed at 5yrs old , biological sibling to #1- we knew her name since we got #1 (she's older, just wasn't taken into care). We were used to her name by the time we finally met her.. We kept her first name & just changed the middle & last. She had no problem with the middle/last name changes.#3- placed at birth- will be 4.5 when adopted, changed his name completely. We've been calling him his full new name since 2.5 (when TPR was done) but his middle name (what we will go by) is actually a nickname of his old first name which we have always called him since birth.. If he hears me call him his old name (drs, prescriptions ect..)he gets very upset and corrects me immediately.#4- placed at birth- will be 2.5 when adopted- changed his name completely. We've always called him by a nickname and it works for his new name as well :) Good luck in whatever you decide..

its interesting that this forum came up today....our adoption worker asked the question today about what we wanted the boys adopted names to be. We decided earlier on that since they are 9 we would let them decide if they wanted to keep their first and middle and just changed the last name. They have nice first and middle names already and it will connect them to the parents that brought them into this world but at the same time connect to their new family too. They seemed pretty excited about getting the new last name though, so im really glad about that. Our adopt worker is working on our petition now.

It is interesting to read all of the different perspectives. We always thought we would keep their first names and change the middle to a family name and of course give them our last names. Then recently some safety concerns have appeared and the therapist said it might help the girls to change their whole name and she said it will make it harder for BP to look them up when they get a little older as they know our last name. We asked the girls and they are all for a complete name change so back to the baby name books we go!

Wow, so many different perspectives ans viable reasons! I have a very strong opinion regarding identity and adoption issues, but with that being said, when safety come into play, I would say YES change names. Of course, the last name would be automatically changed. After reading this post, I have now added to the list of reason why to change names to include: being name after an alchol beverage and being named after an abusive person. In my situation, I chose the aparents several months before birth so I consulted with them as to what they would chose for names. And that is the name she got.....for many reasons...but selfishly, I wanted to lessen the chance of them ever changing it. In my 18 years of dreaming and wishing, I did not want to think of her as "Jane" if she really was "Susan". Good luck to you and your family!

Thankfully we have a really good relationship and we were able to discuss and get his blessings for changing our soon to be adopted sons names to a correct spelling. One of the names is biblical and really just has one spelling - like Samuel being spelled Samul. The other name is gender neutral but spelled in a feminine way, so we are changing it to a masculine spelling.

Well, I've never heard of someone telling their fiance, "You know, I'd really like to make a forever commitment to you, but your name really sucks and I hate it. Besides, there is already a guy named Joe in my family. So I'm going to change it. From now on you won't be called Joe anymore. I'm going to call you Sean Penn, after my favorite movie actor. You don't mind do you? Of course you don't. You love me and are feeling insecure if this is really forever, so you probably won't argue now. In fact, you'd do anything to please me right now. So, off we go to the courthouse!" Personally I would never do it. I love and accept my children as they are, including the sometimes rather unusual names I would have never chosen. Which is kind of cool, when you think about it. And my kids are older now and have thanked me for keeping their names.

Yeah, I'm generally against changing kids' names, but whenever I see the daughter of a meth addict, and her name is Crystal.....

RebeccainOr has a point, but I also see Boulderbabe and me-n-u's point too. We're dealing with family members, so it's going to be a touchy situation if we are actually able to adopt as opposed to just becoming legal guardians. The one child has a "misspelled" first name, 2 middle names from a religion very different from our own and a last name. I would like to correct the spelling on the first name and change the middle names to a good southern name and of course share the last name with her. The other child has a good southern first name, so keeping it isn't an issue. I don't know that child's middle name(s). Our other issue is that the one child's nickname is one letter off from my biological child's nickname. One of them is going to have to be called either by their first name (one has 4 syllables, the other 5) or take a new nickname. Both children's names have several derivations, so that won't be an issue...just deciding who's going to change will be an issue. Or I could just say one of the nicknames and insist both come running?

We're giving our 6 year old the choice, he chose Playdoh head and Tractorhead, so we gave him a suggestion list or that he could keep his old name. He's choosing to change his name. We are changing his 3 year old sister's name, when we ask her between the old name and new, she likes the new.

Apologies for not reading all posts, but I just want to say that our three older adopted kids all decided to change their names when adopted. We left it up to them, and they were all at a point where they wanted to identify themselves as different. Our youngest was only 18 months old when we finalized, we got her at age 3 days, and we felt like her first name was the only thing her birth mom ever gave her, how could we take it away? So, my opinion is that you're the parents and you should decide what is best in your case. It certainly won't hurt your kids if you decide to change their names, because if they were older they might decide to do it themselves.

OP here- thank you everyone for so many great thoughts and perspectives! I really appreciated hearing everyone's experiences! So- in case you are wondering.....after finding out that bio mom and dad are local and we found out dad just got out of jail for violence... we are LEGALLY changing their names. New first name and then current birth names (both current first and middle) moved to the midle names, so 2 middle names, and then our last name....whew! We are continuing to call them by their now middle names (their given birth names) as that is familiar and we feel like that still honors their birth names, but the change of the first name legally will hopefully make them a little less likely to be "found" until THEY choose to be. Interestingly enough, the 2 .5 yr old has started calling both himself and his sister by their new first names- old first names as combos, so we'll see where that goes! Maybe the babies know best! :)

I just wanted to thank everyone who posts their opinions and views on this issue... I know it comes up A LOT! We have two adopted sons, kept one first name and gave a new middle name, kept a variation of the other's first name with a new middle name. We are adopting our baby girl and were planning to change first and middle but this thread made me reconsider and we're giving a new first and moving her birthname to her middle name. Thanks for the opinions, it helps make the decisions a little easier for some of us :)

We WILL be changing our now foster daughters name, if it goes to adoption. She has a "normal" name, buts something I would never pick. I dont like it. So I say, if they are young enough that it wont confuse them than yes. or if they are old enough to chose themselves. I honestly dont see what the big deal is.