[rhondalee8]

birth mom asked us to adopt her son who has been in our care (foster) since he was born 13 months ago. His name doesn't fit with our last name - what are the thoughts on changing his name when the adoption goes thru?

[HappyMomAnna]

Most of us who adopt from Foster Care usually end up leaving the first name alone....for a variety of reasons and that is generally that the child knows their name--or that there are siblings involved...Usually, we end up thinking that the child has gone through sooooo much that taking their name would be just one more problem they need to overcome...

Having said that.... you have had this baby all along and know the kinds of issues he has faced....Most likely attachment is not an issue and he is not grieving what he never knew...so the issues your little guy faces and will deal with are really a little different then many other Foster to Adopt children might be facing.

We changed our childrens middle names and tweeked the spelling of their first (b-mom had a strage way of spelling both?) However with our son who was one when placed we wanted to call him by his newly given middle name because we like the name so much....so.... we started off by calling him his Full first and middle name for a period of time....always 'Jeremiah A@$#' and then we started to call him--'J A@%#$' and then we replaced his first name with "Sweet A@%$#" and eventually he just became 'A#@!@'

We did this because we wanted him to slowly become acustom to the new name we plan to call him and because of his older sister....to get her used to it too...

If you are asking if it is OK to change a babies name--the answer is yes..... some people will disagree and others will not....this can be one of those topics that can get heated....

[Annie6]

Our view is...... why change the first name? We have adopted 3 children in the last 2 yrs and we didnt' change their first names we just added our our last name to their full name. When we did this we were asked why would we ever do that? So much has been taken away from these kids why take away their history. It made them (the kids) happy to know that we still honor the past and didnt' try to take that away from them. Now, do my kids use their old last names when they say their whole names? ....No they don't but they know that it's there and they feel happy that we didn't.


Annie6