has anyone ever adopted a child and changed their name?

Mellisa J

I think that this decision is up to you and your hubby. This is personal and you don't need random people making you feel bad about your choices. We adopted 3 girls from foster care and we did change their names. As a mom you may have a name that you have dreamed of using so go for it! Maybe their local name could be used as a middle name. (We slightly changed our older daughters names and completely changed the youngest.) All of our kids have names that have a story behind them so they are personal to us and our kiddos! Good luck and CONGRATS!!!! :)

AnnaBelle

I have, but we had to. We are adopting them from foster care and there are very real and imminent safety concerns. We had no plans to change their names, but again, it wasn't up to us. It also wasn't about us...We chose names that were respectful, and tied in their history with their foster home and with each other. Different names than I probably would have chosen for a biological child, but our kids had the right to have their history honored from before they came to live with us. When they are 18, we are PERFECTLY fine with their names being changed back, and when they are old enough to safely know their names, we plan to do something special to honor those names, even if they never go back to them.

Please, for IA, there is no good reason to change their names. Even if there was abuse, there is an ocean between you. Their name is part of who they are, and should be preserved WHENEVER possible. How would you feel if I randomly started calling you "Ajeshni"? It's a beautiful Hindi name...what's the problem, right? The problem is that it is not YOUR name, and may not be representative of YOUR cultural background. It's disrespectful.

Rosie

Yes, we did. We put a first and second name in front of his ethnic name. If I had it to do over, (which for safety reasons I really didn't have a choice) I would have just added one name in front of his name. He goes by his first name as he should. It's who he is.

Keep their ethnic name. No Ethiopian Courtney's and Brittany's please. oh please. Honor who they are.

Pip

I haven't adopted, my son was. His adoptive parents had chosen a name for him but I had also named him which was my right. They changed his first name to the one they chose but kept his middle name.

Personally I think it would be nice if adoptive parents kept the child's name but I know realistically this doesn't happen. My exception to the rule is as Annabelle has explained when the child is at risk from their first parents so then I understand the need for a change of name.

Randy B

We did. Our first adoption was of a child from India. She had a vary Indian sounding name and we were concerned that it would just not fit in Canadian society. What we did was we looked at the meaning of her name in India and then looked through some Muslim and Hindu baby names in a book we got (we lived in India during this time so it was simple to find) and we picked out another name that was India but still sounded Canadian. As fate would have it the two names were connected so it worked for us. (Her birth name meant "protected by God" while the name we picked meant "chosen by God" so we say she was protected until she came to us).

With our second adoption we also changed the name but in this case it was shortened only. She had a hyphenated name that both my wife and I could not stand. We shortened it to the first portion only which, again, as fate would have it had significance to my family so it was a good fit all around.

In both cases the children were infants (8 months and 4 days respectively) so it didn't case any issues (bring on the "thumbs downs" lol). For our last two adoptions we left the names as they were given.

H******

My parents adopted me as an infant but made sure to keep my name out of respect for myself and my natural family.

I love that they did that, it means alot to me :)

Dee

Im adopted and i was called Sandie and now im called Dee x

Jennifer

We adopted two boys internationally. They were 9 and 4 when we got them. We wanted to change the four year old's name because we didn't like it and everyone in the adoption community jumped down our throats about it. So we left it. Looking back, we totally should have done it. Kids that grow up in orphanages are not near as developed mentally as other children, and our son was very, very delayed. He never would have known the difference if we had changed his name. When we finalized 6 months later we changed his middle name to Samuel, but still kept his first name. But now we call him Sam and he's been just fine with it. Changing his name also made him feel like he was more ours, which is really something important when adopting. Just because you long for this child and work so hard to get him, it doesn't mean you are automatically going to love him the same as your bio kids. This takes alot of hard work and time to come to that point. Oh, and God also changed the names of many people in the Bible when he "adopted" them as his own. I think it's a very special thing to be able to name your child.

Erin L

We adopted our daughter internationally when she was 9 months old. We DID change her name, but if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't. It's something that is already a part of who the child is and a huge part of his or her identity. You don't need to take that away.

if the child is under 2 years old, i dont see a problem, but if its like, a 5 year old, it may seem strange to them.

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