[MamaJanny]

Ok, I'm wondering if many of you out there have changed your child's name when you adopted? If so, did you know at the referral what name you would give your child?

I'm wondering because I know that we'll have a long wait after referral, and as we wait our baby will be growing up. Did you ask the FM to call the baby by his or her new name to avoid confusion later?

Help! I know this is probably a really silly (dumb) question, but it seems like the little things are what worry us newbies!

I LOVE reading the posts here...they really do help out with all the things I otherwise would know nothing about!! Thanks for your help!

Janelle

[LadyTink]

We had our daughter's name chosen before we even received her referral. We did decide to keep her entire birth name as her middle name, though. We did not ask the foster mother to call her by the name we would be giving her.

[DonnaRack]

We already had a name picked out before our litte one was even born. I always loved the name Olivia. DH and I wanted to keep a part of her birth name, so we kept her birth middle name, Alejandra.

Yes, we told our agency of the name we had chosen, and the information was relayed to the FM. When we picked her up at 10months, she responded to "Olivia".

Remember, we were all "newbies" once, don't worry about asking these questions, we have all been there! Good luck with your journey!!

[judymend]

Hi Janelle, and welcome!! We had our Son's name already chosen 10 yrs ago, so obviously we decided on changing his name all together. We did not ask the FM to call him by our chosen name "Peter Jack", but I will tell you this, when he was placed in our arms forever, at 9 months, we began calling him by his new name immediately, and he responded to the name just fine. I prepared our family and friends who would ask what his birth name was by telling them what it was and telling them not to call the birth name out while in his presence.

Blessings on your journey to your child!

Judy

[2xaround]

We had chosen our daughter's name, Liliana, prior to our referral. Little did we know that her birthname would be Ana so we didn't have to make much of a change at all and were also able to keep her middle name the same. Our agency suggested that we write a letter to the foster mom asking her to begin calling her Liliana and they will deliver it to the foster mom for us.

[DPline]

We had decided on first names prior to referral but only because we had the possiblity of a newborn referral and maybe getting the name we picked on the BC. That didn't work out and we ended up accepting the referral of two waiting children. Our daughter was 2.5 months at referral and our son was just turning one. We did not ask their foster mothers to call them the names we had picked out, but they both transitioned easily to their new names when they came home at 11 months and 20 months old. Even if we had kept their birth names, the way we said it with our American accents sounded NOTHING like the way their foster family said it. :0

Good luck!

[JustBarbara]

Hi there - well also had DSs name picked out a while ago. Turns out his birthmom had given him the same first name but the Spanish version so while in process and on visit trip I called him his Spanish name as he recognised it and found the 'ito' added on to be soothing - basically means little version of whatever name. During the first week home we interspersed both versions and then went to the English version. But since I want him to be bi-lingual I speak to him using small Spanish phrases so he knows his name is the same. We are learning numbers, colors etc. in both languages. Good luck - Barbara

PS There is never any question that someone on this forum can't answer!

[becky]

I typically do not recommend asking the Foster Mother to call the baby by the name you have chosen for one specific reason....as hard as it is to imagine, not all adoptions can be completed...so that poses a problem as the child may have been called his given name for a while, then the name you chose, then if the adoption doesn't go through he will once again be called his given name. I would imagine that would be very hard for the child.
I have never heard of any child having a hard time adjusting to their 'new name' when they come home...so I think that most people just wait.

Good Luck!

[bella2724]

We had both our children's names chosen prior to referral. For us (my opinion totally), we didn't feel a need to keep our child's birth name b/c we have no idea whom gave them that name (Attorney, Foster Mom, Birth Mom, etc........)I think it would have made a difference if I knew for sure if the Birth Mother had chosen that name for their child.

We didn't ask for the FM to call our daughter by our chosen name. I just didn't feel right asking this! Also, when we got her at 7 months, she responded to the name we chose as if she was called this all along!

Daughter was named Irma. Now the Spanish pronunciation of this particular name is beautiful but here in the U.S., I don't like it! I knew no one would pronounce it the Spanish way so I didn't stick with it at all. We changed her name to: Hailey Rose.

I loved the name Kristin Paige for years and after going through fertility procedures that failed when we decided to adopt, I wanted a fresh new name that I hadn't repeated or written down for the past 7 years. Ha Ha

Mamie

[WVUMom418]

We had picked out a name before we got our referral but wanted to keep part of her birthname as her middle name. (this was for our daughter we brought home in 2005) Since she was in a hogar we did not ask for them to call her by our choosen name.

With Angie, we decided we loved her birth given name so we are kepping it.

NOTE: Unless you speak fluent Spanish, no matter what you call your child it won't sound familiar to them. So the name you refer to them as they will quickly identify as thier name.

Mia's birthname was Darlin (prounounced Darleen), we called her Mia on our visit trips and at pickup. Since we didn't speak fluent Spanish everything we said was foriegn to her. She was 14 months at pickup and it didn't take but a day or two for her to realize that when we said Mia we were referring to her. I did often call her Mia Darlin just to drive the point home.

[ERAmy]

We are awaiting a referral. Weve talked a bit about names but have nothing remotely chosen. We are going to wait and see what name she is given and go from there. We will not ask the FM to call her by that name though.

[beachdreams]

We chose bothe girl's names prior to their referral. We did not ask either foster parent to call them by that name but both asked what we were going to call them so that they could start using the correct name. Bailey knew her name by the time we picked her up. I assume Taylor will as well.

[Guatemom]

Our first son---we kept his first birth name as his new middle name, and we added a new first name. We went thru a lot to decide his first name (argue, not speak, even drew up lists on paper-slipped across the table and DH would cross off the ones he didn't like, lol)-it was a hot topic around our house for a while. We decided on Connor right after we rec'd his referral. We knew we'd be getting a boy, so we started the 'discussion' early on what his name would be, and we just prayed we'd be able to keep at least part of his birth name, which we did.
For #2-we are keeping everything. We LOVE his first and middle (Cristian Saul), even keeping the spanish spelling of Cristian. Again, we'd started the 'discussion' and had come to a standstill on names for #2--of course before Cristian came along. We wanted something that sounded good with Connor as well as our last name--and Cristian Saul just has a perfect ring to our ears (can't tell we're biased can ya?)

[allido]

We had our daughter's name pre-selected before we ever even thought about adopting. Before we got our referral, I did decide to see what her birthname was- and at least try to keep part of it as her middle name. I think that is especially important to somehow recognize/respect the birthmother's choice of names, and by extension, her amazing decision to relinquish her child so that she could have a better life. That was my plan until last week, when we got a video and she perked up in response to her birth/current name. Then, I was thinking that we'd keep her birth name and give her "our" name as a middle name. But, now hearing that even 1+ year olds can adjust to new names (good to know, I might go back to my original plan of moving the birthname to the middle. And I plan to give her a special nickname based on her birthname that completely doesn't relate to the name we've chosen for her. So, the point is, as with almost everything in adoption and parenting, you need to do what you feel in your heart is right.

[MamaJanny]

Thank you all for all the great advice!!

I LOVE the idea of maybe keeping one of the given names as our baby's middle name to honor his culture and heritage. I just KNEW you all would be able help me figure this out!