[ChromaKelly]

How do you refer to him when speaking/writing to bmom? We actually kept the name, but changed the spelling. I'm about to send her some pics and a card, and I didn't know if I should use her spelling or ours. When we left the hospital, we did tell her we were keeping the first name, but we decided later to change the spelling.

Just curious how others handle it.

[smash_effect]

Ok, I only have 1 week experience...but our caseworker said that they tell birth parents to use the name given by the adoptive parents to ease confusion later down the road. I'm not sure that's the way it always goes, but it is how our agency does it I guess.

[Leigh131313]

absolutely use the name you are using. That is now his name.

[missw005]

I did the same thing - kept his name, but changed the spelling to me more phonetic - it's a VERY unique name, and there was NO way anyone would guess the correct pronunciation the way it was spelled. (I even said it wrong and was corrected by his CW)

But when I send pix/letters to his bfamily, I use the old spelling - it's what they chose, and I don't want to make it an issue. But we have a closed adoption - he was adopted out of foster care - and that makes a difference.

Ok, now I'm thinking, "well, how the heck did that help her???" Good grief.

Well, I'm happy for you anyways!!!

Sandy

[chrisandaaron]

Since you kept the name, but changed the spelling I would probably just tell her that and use the spelling you use.

I kept my son's first name as his middle name. In the beginning I always refered to him by first and middle name (in letters), but I have slowly gone to referiing to him by first name only.

[SupaModel]

I kept DS first name and changed it to the middle. Kept the spelling but told bmom I changed first name. Actually she asked me what did i want to name him? I told her and she thought it was nice. In the letter i sent I used both first and middle name. In future i'm sure i'll just use first too. I say be honest and let bmom know.

[lisa in venice]

Our second child was named by her foster family not her birth mom so I didn't feel like her name change was emotionally charged. With our second dd we changed kept the first name and changed the middle name to something very similar abut more traditional then the one the birth mom had chosen. When we met the names were similar enough that I just told her that was what I was going to do since the name we wanted was a family name.

[Fran27]

I call them by the names we chose.

[Kat-L]

Originally Posted by Fran27

I call them by the names we chose.

I do, too. And in correspondence, Hanna's birthmother refers to Hanna by the name I gave her-rather than her birth name.

[veggiegirl]

We refer to DD by the name we gave her. (Well....we refer to her as Ella even though her first name is Ella Grace - bmom and bgrandma didn't seem to like the full name so we just use Ella in the letters.) We did change her first name, but kept her middle name the same. We have never heard back from bmom (DD is only 3 months old), but bgrandma sent a letter and an e-mail so far and referred to her as Ella in both, not by her birth name.

[loveajax]

We also changed DD's name and her birth parents have always referred to her by the name we chose (which means a lot to me). They knew that we were going to change the name, but decided that they wanted to give her a name that was a "combo" of both of their mothers. I think I would just tell her that you loved the name, but changed the spelling. Enjoy your new baby!

[sonia1959]

We changed her name but keep her bname as middle name, bmom call her by the name we give her, but bgrandm call her by her birth name, she seems to have a problem with her new name, it doesn't bother me, but when bgrandma calls her by her bname our dd does not respond to it.

[slugbug0930]

I would use the name that you gave him. Especially since it isn't a different name....just a different spelling.

We didn't have any name issues as DD's bmom let us pick her name.

[nikkianni]

We use DD's name. (The one we gave her).
Her bparents did name her initially and we did change it but they knew what it would be in the hospital.
I've never gotten a response to the letters I send so I have no idea how they refer to her.

[Happy123]

We adopted out of foster care and received our son when he was 13 days old. We had previously adopted his bio siblings. At the time, they were older so we just changed their middle names. When we picked the baby up, we had already picked out a name.
I used to refer to him as just baby. But, he has outgrown that name. I let the birth parents know that I changed his name. I knew they were not happy about it. They continued to call him by his bio name. I recently went back for a visit...gave them a list of "these will end the visit." One of them was to call him by the name we decided on.
Happy123