[Farideh00]

Hi, I have a question for anyone who as adopted older children, either out of fostercare/child welfare, or internationally.

Did you have any type of name change? Did your children ASK for a name change? I am just wondering. I would love to hear everyone's 'naming' stories. I appreciate it.

[Farideh00]

Originally posted by JuliannaTeresa
The problem or concern of the Older child with changing their name is. You are then telling the child that their past and/ or their Culture is not important to them!

That is what I am concerned about. I would never take it upon myself to rename an older child, but I was wondering if there are a lot of children that ask for a name change. I am guessing it would be more common for children adopted out of foster care to ask to have their name changed, but I was wondering if it held true for international adoption.

[Michellemomof5]

When we finalized our adopton this past summer our children were 10 and 13. We gave them the option and let them know that we would support it either way. Our son chose to keep his first and middle name the same, but was very excited to change the last name. Our daughter changed her middle and last name.

I do not know if I agree with the last post. Our son and daughter's birth family had quite the reputation for many crimes in our town. Everytime I said their last name everybody knew them, and I felt passed judgement on them because of their bio parents choices.

The names were changed without a hitch, and the kids were excited about it. I wish you luck with your adoption. We are so glad we made the choice to adopt our older kids. I am so proud to be their Mom.

Michelle

[Bio-adopt mommy]

We are in the process of adopting a 3 yr old boy from Russia--not sure if you would consider that "older" or not. His given name is not terribly strange or unusual in the US so we are keeping it. If it had really stood out as odd, we would have kept it as his middle name and given him the first name of our choosing. His name isn't one I would have chosen, but it's perfectly fine and it's HIS. When we first found out his name, my 6 yr old bio daughter said "I think we should just keep it; he might be used to it". I'm glad it turned out to be a name I feel comfortable keeping. I do think it's important to acknowledge they have their own history.

[HappyMomAnna]

We are about to finalize adoption for our 5 yr old and her 1yr old brother. We decided to KEEP their first names and change their middle names........ I have heard of people adopting older children changing the first name by making the original name the middle name and giving the child a new first.
We decided to keep the first names because our daughter already knew how to 'write' it and she wanted to keep it. We talked about the fact that this is the one chance in her life to take a new name and she gave us many ideas......we all ended up agreeing that we liked her first name....
Now I tell her she gets one part from her birthmom and another from me.....she really seems to like this.
I think it is important to let the child be part of the conversation on the names. Our little girl didn't know she had a middle name or what it was.....so it was easy to change hers.

[lucyjoy]

My concern with older children asking for name changes is that they, themselves, are trying to lose their past and hiding is not the same as healing. Last names were changed as I changed mine with marriage so that was easy to change without hiding(If mom kept maiden name, could be a different issue). Aso, when I was seven I wanted my name to be Tabitha, when I was nine, I wanted Belinda, at 11 Melissa soundd nice......