by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Dawn Friedman
I was stuck on what to write this week but Carmen shared a list of some of the keywords people use to find their way here and there was one that stuck out to me: “naming adopted children”
I wrote an essay for Adoptive Families about (not) naming Madison that came out, oh, about a year ago. Madison is our daughter’s birth name – it’s the name her first mom gave her. Her original birth certificate reads the same as her state-sanctioned fake one: First, middle and last names are all the same. (The last name just turned out that way; we didn’t expect her first mom to put my husband’s last name on the original birth certificate but she did.) So it turns out that Madison has always been Madison has always been Madison.
Our daughter’s first mom, Jessica, was told that we’d likely change the name and originally we decided the three of us would come up with a name together but we knew that Jessica was going to name her Madison first. And suddenly it seemed ludicrous to change it.
I wanted our daughter to know that we welcomed her, the child she was before she met us. Changing her name seemed like a symbol of wanting to change her.
There’s a lot to say about naming and adoption but I’m going to try very hard to keep my wandering mind on task and remember I’m writing this for the Anti-Racist parenting blog so I’ll just talk about this piece of it.
I realize that naming a child is an intimate act. Most of us spend our lives talking about what we’ll name our someday children so to have the decision taken from us by the arrival of a child with a name can really challenge us. However, at the very least, I think it’s worth looking at the issue from the point of view of the child.
For a child who is adopted transracially or transculturally, I think this is even more important although I know – given American’s difficulties wrapping their minds, let alone their tongues, around “foreign” names – that many parents think they’re doing their children a favor by giving them “American” names. In such a case, I think it’s important to retain by rearranging it. Having both a more typical American name and one’s original name gives options without taking away the child’s birth right. In fact, I’d say having one’s “real” name is even more important for the child adopted transracially or transculturally since it’s such an important tie to his or her birth community.
(As an aside, we heard this a lot when people found out we were keeping Madison’s birth name: “Aren’t you glad that her birth mom didn’t give her some, you know, black name?”
This never failed to amaze (and insult) me. What did these people think? That we would welcome a black child as long as he or she didn’t have a black name?)
But I want to give this up to the commenters. What do you think about birth names? Particularly those names (unlike our daughter’s name, which is never far from the top ten these days) with strong ethnic ties?
Dawn Friedman is a writer and mother to two children. Her articles have appeared in Salon.com, Yoga Journal, Brain Child and the Greater Good and she is the op-ed editor at Literary Mama. She is also the founder of OpenAdoptionSupport.com and since the adoption of her daughter in 2004 has become passionate about the need for adoption reform. She blogs at this woman’s work.
May I ask,
What is this cheap liquor reference that Meera and Trina have referred to?
I’ll assume the auto reference is ‘Chevette,’ the only automobile name I can think of, discounting any previously given specific reference to as there are precedents and cultural affiliations that supercede the auto reference.
In the end, what is acceptable to any of us doesn’t matter, if we encounter someone with a name that is simply outside of any of the parameters we would assign for ‘proper’ naming.
If we cannot afford them the dignity of saying their name as they have informed us it should be said, then perhaps the problem lies with the arrogant American.
I think this cheap liquor thing is a worst-case scenario. And again, this feels like a smokescreen to get away from talking about the broader issue — do adoptees have a right to the name they were born with? And if this name is outside the adoptive parents’ comfort zone (NOT for being a liquor or car since frankly, this is a scenario I haven’t seen EVER, not even when working in shelter with families that — one study argues — are most likely to give their kids unusual names) but outside of the comfort zone for being Not White or Too Poor then what? Is that a legitimate reason to change it?
Let’s all agree — some names need changing. The urban legend Orange Jello baby, yeah, we’d change that name, right? But what about Devontae? Svyatoslav? Nuying?
“And if this name is outside the adoptive parents’ comfort zone ”
If this is the case, maybe we should wonder about the adoptive parents’ comfort level with transracial adoption.
“If this is the case, maybe we should wonder about the adoptive parents’ comfort level with transracial adoption.” Or transCULTURAL adoption. I’d argue that nearly every stranger-to-stranger (as opposed to kinship) adoption carries some transcultural issues. Sometimes smaller ones (say for families with similar ethnic backgrounds who live in the same area) sometimes much larger (in the case of a family that is adopting from a race, class, religious background that differs from their own).
I think that transracial/transcultural adoption just makes these differences more obvious since we can point to another country or another skin color and say, “Oh yes, this brings issues” but I believe they are present in any adoption.
“..if we’re going to ask white folks to figure out what African American names sound “poor” then we’re going to have to talk about the racism implicit in that effort, too.”
“And again, this feels like a smokescreen to get away from talking about the broader issue — do adoptees have a right to the name they were born with?”
Dawn – I didn’t realize this discussion was geared mostly towards white parents, nor was I trying to put up any sort of smokescreen to “get away from” the broader issue. I was just speaking from my own perspective on naming a black/mixed race child, since it it was a facet of your essay, but hadn’t really been responded to by many others (up until that point).
My responsibility is to protect my black/mixed race children from the racist society we live in as best I can so they can lead productive and happy lives. I’d hate it if they were prejudged based on names that had negative connotations. I was not talking about names like Leroy or Regina, I was talking about (real names!) like Alize, Lexus and Jaquarius (my parents were Philly public schoolteachers for 30+ years, I’ve heard them all).
Admittedly, my “associated with poverty” comment was jarring (even jarring to me as I typed it…nobody likes to sound like a big snob), so apologize for any offense if may have caused. But I was being honest with myself and with this community. We wouldn’t be here talking about any of this stuff we weren’t working on sorting our certain issues for ourselves (like racism for instance) while simultaneously trying to raise children in this society.
I realize this might be a different subject entirely, but I do think that baby naming has a whole lot to do with class, almost more than race (not surprising to me, because often, race and class are substituted for one another in this society). The book Freakonomics has some interesting viewpoints on this topic, outlining what names sound the “blackest” whitest”, “most “or “least educated”. The lists (and parallels) are fascinating, but not as much as the final conclusion. This might explain why many of my black friends have kids named Ava, Henry, Alex and Max…and none of my white friends have kids named Destiny or Chateau Brione (and I did know one once).
But for what it’s worth, I really think it’s about the way we raise them more than anything else. I just wanted to share my perspective on one facet of the discussion…I really didn’t mean to “hijack” it. And for the record, I think that – for many reasons- Svyatoslav or Nuying is different from Devontae or Alize. But as far as a trans-culturally adoptive child having a “right” to their name, I think they do…at the very least, a name that reflects their ethnicity.
No, this was not a post just for white parents although I think that we have to look at context. My friend and fellow ARP columnist (Amber) recently adopted a baby from China. Her husband is Chinese-American. Their naming decision has a different resonance than the decision made by two white parents, even if ultimately the decision is the same.
So I think there are two issues:
–Adoption and naming;
–Transracial/transcultural adoption and naming.
The first is about whether or not adoptees have a birthright to their names. Why or why not?
Then the discussion bleeds into another when we start talking about how adoptees *usually* should get to keep some aspect of their names but not in circumstances xyz, which bring in issues of race, culture and class.
We’re talking about the worth and value of the culture, class, ethnicity, race of the child’s birth origins. This is an issue, I know, in Chinese adoptions, too, where naming has even greater cultural importance than it does here in the States and names can define a child’s origins (there are orphanage names that identify a child as having been abandoned). (At least this is what I understand from talking to Amber — someone feel free to correct me.)
I think the theoretically meera and I have been exposed to directly with naming practices amongst blacks (of all classes) than many others. Names like Leroy or Regina are maybe old-fashioned, but otherwise simply a matter of taste. *shrug* And some “re-assigned” names – like Brandy – have gone on to become slightly more mainstream.
Cheap liquor may be a “worse case scenario”, but – like Meera – I can rattle off a whole list of names given to the babies of relatives, friends of friends, neighbors kin, etc., that fit smoothly into that scenario.
Alizè is one I’ve heard (an inexpensive wine-based drink, I believe), as is Tanguerey (a brand of gin). Heck, my own 2nd cousin named her baby girl Tequila.
And then there are the so-called ANAGRAM names; i.e. the baby’s name is a compilation of the first 2 or 3 letter of the father’s (or mother’s) best friend’s names….
Obviously, we should respect any human being based on the content of their character no matter what their name is (esp. because people usually don’t pick their own names). And we should pronounce that name the way it was intended to be pronounced.
On the other hand, if we talk about adoption as one possible way of providing children with a chance at life they may not have otherwise had, this can – in some instances – extend to the names they are given. Or how one deals with the names they already have.
I understand. Again, my apologies for any offense my comments may have caused. mbj
“Names like Leroy or Regina are maybe old-fashioned, but otherwise simply a matter of taste.”
Trina, I think that is an ahistorical mischaracterization, and that, absent the dated aspects of those names, the unintended and unforseen mainstream backlash that is at the core of stated concerns here as regards the current batch of names, can be said to attach to Leroy, Regina, etc.
What is the difference between the reactions and judgments to those names, and assumptions about their educational and social backgrounds, than those which attach to Alize? Very little, especially when one considers combining a rather familiar last name, also prevalent among African Americans, like Johnson, Washington, Williams, Brown.
The greatest distinction, I would add, is the time frame in which they have been introduced to the society as first names, enjoy widespread use, and our resultant famililarity.
You can bet that studies which conclude with cautionary warnings about the ‘too ethnic sounding name’ when it comes to the pre-interview and interview stage of employment seeking, were not working with Alizes, or Destinys(ies), but with Leroys, Duanes, LaQuitas, Monets, and Demetrius(es).
In twenty years we will see the very same conversations going on, but with a new batch of names.
Additionally, I used Leroy due to its having been derived from the French, Le Roi, and Regina because of its traditional use among the Irish.
Trina, I agree. And OMG, the anagrams! I almost forgot about those.
This is definitely an interesting aspect of the conversation, but might be veering in the wrong direction for this particular essay (I didn’t see your last comment before writing my last to Dawn). Maybe we can continue this discussion on another thread? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. -mbj
Since my name was brought up, I will just toss out what we did with our recently adopted daughter. My husband is second generation Chinese American who grew up with a western first name and a Chinese last name. As we discussed naming, he was adament that our daughter have an “American” name. I was adament that we not take away one more thing from our daughter who came to us with only the clothes on her back and her name. We planned to call her by her new American name.
Our solution was to select a new American name (Ramona) and keep both her given name and family name from the orphanage as middle names (so she has two middle names). Then we gave her my husband’s family name.
All of this was decided before we met her. Once we got to China, we found out that she was called Lili (leelee) which is a nickname based on her Chinese given name. Because Lili is not hard to spell our pronounce, we decided to keep the name she has always known as the name we use now. Besides, as soon as we met Lili, we could see her name perfectly suited her.
In less than three days, my husband was wondering why he ever wanted to give her a new American name. Now we only use it for legal reasons (medical records, etc) and it just feels like we are talking about another person entirely, not our Lili. As she gets older, she will have many options: if she wants to drop any of her names, hypenate her two family names, use Ramona or choose a new name entirely, we will support her in that choice.
I have to say, I think keeping the name she knew turned out to be really important in retrospect. It helps me remember that she had a life and people who cared for her before we met her. It also helped provide Lili with a small point of continuity during the trauma of joining our family.
Amber, I think your last paragraph is exactly the reason why I personally advocate for adoptive parents keeping their names.
I’ve been working in the adoption field (foster care adoption) for the past three years and there are a lot of African American or biracial children who are being adopted by African American families and I’ve noticed that many families re-name their adoptive kids – it’s not just “white” families who do that. Especially if the children are young. And I’ve told families in their pre-adopt training the same thing I tell white parents of transnational kids – keeping the given name is a connection and tie to their past.
And while in general I believe in keeping the child’s given name, I also recognize that at least four children I’ve worked with have wanted to change their names (one was only 4 years old, the other 3 are teens) because they DIDN’T want their names associated with their traumatic past. It was a way for them to reinvent themselves with a family where they felt safe. On the other hand, I’ve personally known at least a couple dozen adult adoptees who have legally changed their name back to their given names.
So if your kids are old enough to be able to articulate in any way their feelings about naming, I would ask.
(- And as a side note – as far as the OrangeJello and LemonJello brothers go, they’re not an urban myth. My brother once worked at a correctional facility and he had both in lock-up.)
This is a really interesting conversation. Amber and I have discussed this topic often, as we were both waiting for our referrals.
My husband and I had a name all picked out for our daughter before she ever came home. *Of course* we were going to keep her original name – as a middle name.
But then we received our referral and learned our daughter’s name. And read her paperwork and discovered that while she was 6 months old when the paperwork was completed – her knowing her name was referred to several times as one of her developmental achievements.
At that point, we realized that 1. the name we had picked out totally did not fit our daughter and 2. She had a wonderful, beautiful name. 3. Her names was *hers* and we didn’t feel that it was anyone’s right to take another person’s name away from them.
So, we chose to keep her whole Chinese name (she had a 2 character name, as opposed to the more traditional 3 character names) as her legal first name. We then added a family name as her middle name and our surname as her last name.
Did this choice give our daughter a more unusual name than many other children? Perhaps. But it was her name. She knew it, and as Amber has said – I do believe that keeping her name helped to reduce the amount of confusion during her transition to our family. Everything else might have been changing – but she was still who she had been before we came into her life.
While we kept her whole Chinese name as her first name – we do usually shorten it to just use the one character that was her ‘personal’ name. Or say that name twice (as her nickname). But she does know her full Chinese name and that when we use her full Chinese name – we mean business.
My question to many parents who are considering adding a name or keeping their child’s original name is this:
Why do so many choose to keep their child’s name as the *middle* name? Why not keep their first name in the first name position, and put the second name they are given (by their adoptive parents) as the middle name?
I mean – so many parents, here and elsewhere, say that their child can use their original name if they choose to – since they still have it as a middle name – but why not say that their legal first name should be their ‘original’ name and the name a-parents choose/use is the middle name?
I had plenty of boyfriends who were given the same name as their fathers, but whose family’s called them by their middle names. So Kenneth John became John, instead of Kenny or Ken Jr. So, it isn’t like using a middle name is unusual.
chicagomama wrote: “why not say that their legal first name should be their ‘original’ name and the name a-parents choose/use is the middle name?”
I’m one of those who posted above that we did this. I can only speak for our family, but in our case this was a deliberate choice. In our family so many of those whose names were regularly butchered had to endure humiliation during school roll call. Many chose an American name or nickname/shortening of the given name to avoid this, but the legal first name was always used during roll call, and sometimes resulted in assignment to the wrong gender locker room. Our rationale was that keeping the original name as a middle name honored the original name while giving the child the option to avoid the challenges we dealt with.
From reading the initial replies, I can see that my reply is going to go against the conventional wisdom here, but I’m used to that. Let me begin with the fact that I am black, myself, so hopefully I will be allowed some latitude in my words that might be seen as racist when coming from a majority individual. I may be accused of classicism but not racism against my own people.
That being said, there is no way I would use some pseudo-french made up ghettois name given by an expectant mother to her child as the name for our adopted child. There will be no Laqicas (prounounced Lakisha) or Treyshons in my home. Why? Because these names indicate more than race. They indicate class and they are a handicap.
One of my 15 year old patients named her son Ja’ron. I asked her about when this baby is older. “So say Ja’ron graduates from Harvard Law School and is applying for a job. His resume sits along with Michael Sylvester, Jason Phillips and Madison Holmes. What is the hiring manager likely to assume about Ja’ron Johnson despite his Harvard degree?”
“That he’s ghetto,” she replied sadly.
“Do you think he’ll get a fair shake in hiring?”
“Probably not,” she said.
“Then why did you handicap him with such a name?”
“I never thought about the future,” she replied.
You see, therein is the problem. These weird and oft misspelled names are rarely considered for the impact they have on the child later, in school and beyond. I have no desire to romanticize these names. I find most of them to be awful. Yes, I said it. I even went so far as to buy a baby name book for my practice so that those who desire to be creative and unique can find a name that is both, without it defying the laws of grammar (see ‘Laqica” above).
The interesting thing is that majority people seem to think that these names are “black” names. However, most middle and upper class blacks that I know despise these names. True African or Muslim names: Jamal, Aisha, etc are welcomed, but LaQuan, Avanti, Tequanishema (all names I’ve seen) are not embraced at all.
Now let me get back to the original question. Should we change our adopted children’s names? My answer in brief: if we want to.
Many people move to adoption after coping with infertility. Were I not infertile, there would be no question about my choosing to name our child. Had my donor egg pregnancy not ended in miscarriage, again, no issue with naming. Yet because I am becoming a parent through adoption, the normal naming practices do not apply? Is this yet another thing that I need to give up because of infertility? In my opinion, no.
Open adoption is not co-parenting. Our birthmother (as she refers to herself, so please don’t attack me for the use of the word) does not feel that she a) needs to name the baby and b) that we don’t have a right to name the baby we will be raising.
Dawn, I think you lucked out in that Jessica named the baby Madison. Had she picked L’juanita Kizzy (names I have also seen), would you honestly be comfortable with those names? I wouldn’t. Those names would be a challenge for her as a black woman and one thing we black women don’t need are any more challenges.
We’ve shared our names for our daughter with our birthmother and she is fine with them. She also understands our need to claim her with the name we’ve chosen. (Have I mentioned what a cool person she is? I just love her for many reasons beyond what I’ve written here.)
So yes, I believe that adoptive parents are not dishonoring their children’s first parents by changing names. They are, however, honoring their family by adding the naming ritual to their bringing the child into their lives.
Just my 2 cents…
Liana…
How interesting that graduating from Harvard would not confer upon Ja’ron a power to invest the name and all attendant ideas and majority perceptions of ‘ghetto/class’ with a juxtaposed, proven air and attitude of discipline, literacy, scholarship, acclimation of majority social mores, etc., and even acculturation therein. Moreso, Ja’ron could carry with him the added gains of having infused the campus community with an opportunity to see and know a young Black man, with his slight swagger, his belly laugh, his open body hugs when encountering a dormmate, his wicked sense of humor, and razor-sharp wit from that other hemisphere of peoples, is Black While Scholarly (Oh, my God!)
Whatever it is that you do in your professional role, wherein you consult with young Jaqicas and LaQuandras and the like, where you would seek to have the young ladies consider the consequences of their actions, and the longterm possibilities and hazards for their and their children’s lives, you are not helping them to reach their own conclusions, but yours.
That is not counseling, that is persuasive remodeling, conditioning, if you will.
For all of the reasons that these young girls could benefit from strong, forward thinking role models in their lives, considering parenting at fifteen is far outside of the role we would presently burden a child with, I would posit that you act in the same manner as the pressures which led them to forego their own intimate needs for affirmation and praise, for warmth and protection.
You suggest, in your role as authority/counselor to them that they have acted outside of a manner that is pleasing to you, and you imply to them that as this is ‘bad,’ they need to re-think their choice, until they find one (written, I’m sure, all over your brow, and jumping around the turndown of your mouth, and seeking to scream from the chill in your eye) that pleases you.
Being acclimated into the larger society, and being able to navigate therein, does NOT mean that one becomes the very thing to which one has become familiar, it does not mean one should remove all aspects of self that the majority finds alien, or foreign, or strange, or discomforting.
There is the possibility for introducing into the larger societal view, an OTHER view, previously unseen, unheard from, and unconsidered.
Imagine how much more multi-faceted the view, how much more brilliant its sheen, how much more valued each and every side when each is cut to perfection, without shallow sweeps across that dim its radiance.
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Kim, your deconstruction of what I have said is so off the mark as to have been a complete miss.
I do not guide patients to my thoughts and ideologies. Were that the case, I would have no prowess with adolescents at all. Adolescents know when you are teaching/helping them to think more broadly and when you are trying to make them into your own image. They rebel against the latter.
Part of me feels the need to speak to the depth of my work with my patients. Yet the other part of me understands that from your words, you don’t know me and you never will no matter how much I explain. And that, in all truth, is OK. You are entitled to your perceptions, no matter how incorrect they may be.
I don’t know what world you live in, Kim. I, and my patients, live in a very real world where there are more Ja’rons in jail than graduating college.
Let’s just leave it at the fact that we inhabit two separate planes of existence than will not ever intersect.
Peace.
Liana, I gotta say, Madison was a harder leap for me then it would look. Naming is kinda like, well, it’s kinda like putting your taste out there for the world to see and Madison has *grown* to be my taste but it sure didn’t start out there. I grieved pretty hard about not naming her myself, which is why I’ll put my thoughts on it out there but hey, I get why people choose to change their kids’ names.
And L’juanita Kizzy? Pretty cute. I’d probably call her Kizzy — that’s very cute.
Liana…
Jail is not the consequence of the name given to one at birth. Nor is college.
The polish and perfection to which I speak is part of what is imparted to the child, that which the parent does play a huge role, though not the sole role.
Stay where you are, dipping in to counsel those who don’t inhabit your air.
Your child will intersect – if not collide- with the Ja’rons of the world, with their attributes and hopes and aspirations. Lock the door.
Lord, Dawn! You ain’t right!
Kim, your message once again shows that you are out in the stratosphere somewhere very much apart from me in the real world.
If you don’t understand the impact of names on educational performance (based on teacher bias) I suggest you familiarize yourself with the extensive sociological literature on the subject.
Not recognizing something personally doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It seems foolish to attempt to pretend that name bias doesn’t exist and won’t have any impact on the child when many, many researchers have documented this unfortunate phenomenon.
Again, I live in the real world, not in the clouds where everyone holds hands and sings. And since I live as a black woman in this world, my experience is no doubt very, very, very, very different from yours. Until you’ve lived 44 years as a black woman in America, please don’t presume to understand me or speak to how I should be.
I’ll leave it at this. If you’d like to take this discourse off line, feel free to e-mail me through my blog. Otherwise my replies to you are done. I’m not angry. I just get tired of trying to explain my world to someone who a) doesn’t have my experience; b) draws inaccurate characterizations about who I am; and c) has no real interest in moving beyond her fixed beliefs. It is exhausting.
Again, peace.
So, in three years we can talk? Talking is easy. Communication requires listening. Somehow I think you’re not ready to do that.
You have assumed things about my background and experience that are laughable, and are moving forward with an entrenched license to wave your flag of classist bias on people to whom you have a professional relationship, and with whom, I assume, you would like to think you share both a historically spiritual and meaningful connection as we move into the future.
Understanding the impact of names on educational performance due to lowered expectations and differential treatment resulting from teacher bias, as well as the impact of the first impression, where one eyes the brown skin and kinky hair of the ‘other’/Black student/applicant/professional/stranger and begins to operate from ingrained reflexive bias, is something with which I am quite familiar.
Blacks do it with other Blacks all the time.
(In Freddie’s voice from A Different World) My sisters, my sisters…
Ah Meera, I asked her to take it off line, but well, hey…you see what the reply was. What else can I do?
Meera,
So funny. How did you know? Must be the memories whirring in your head from joyprincess.
Gotcha. Don’t worry, we don’t need no water…
@Kim. To some extent I understand what you are saying about Leroy and Regina; these are just two examples of traditional names that have come to be closely associated with Black Americans over the centuries. Still, these names can be found in any name book and have solid etymological roots. And when the children of two of the wealthiest people in the UK are named Jemina and Jasper… I stick to my 1st pov.
Obviously, as said earlier in the thread, an exceptional Ja’ron will not have to let his name hamper him. For him it will be just another hurdle to take on the way to achieving his goals. However, most kids aren’t destined to be especially “exceptional”. All they want is a fair shake at life, meaning as level a playing field as possible where education and – later – employment are concerned.
Not choosing a your baby’s name from the annals of ghettois also doesn’t have to mean mindless assimilation to mainstream culture. African/Muslim names, as was already mentioned, are just one alternative.
Trina, re: the annals of ghettois…
The naming patterns and practices within that ‘canon’ are as fluid and ever changing as slang or ‘texting’, and the desire by the parents to beat others to being the first to coin a spelling/sound for a name…wins.
There will never be an annal; never truly be a canon. It will be as outdated as the ink it is written in, as the typeface used, and the syntactical structure explaining its origins.
I perfectly understand the reach for the cultural/land-based African/Muslim name, as such a choice gives point of origin and global connection, much as the reach for the term African-American over Black/Negro/Colored/All The Unsavories Before…and I do not take issue with using them if that is what one chooses.
I think the issue here, for me, is one which recognizes what the motives/impulses are, and seeking to respect those (albeit, where I did not say this to her doctor/counselor, names that defy pronunciation and decoding standards take more than half a beat to adjust to…but, remembering that transliterations are also tricky and challenging, I move on).
The ‘exceptional’ attributes would not have been something I sought to place on names like Ja’ron in seeking to defend its existence, but as it was introduced, I thought to speak to the possibilities inherent for the aspirations, life and impact of the kid behind the name.
Kim,
I agree that there is much fluidity. But there are also (types of) names that never seem to rise to the top and develop a light and frothy foam. Instead they sink like dregs to the bottom of the receptacle; all too often dragging their bearer down with them.
No one says none of the bearers will ever rise to the top – gracefully – on their own steam… I just question whether they should be sentenced from the beginning to this additional travail.
My husband and I are going through something similar. We are planning to have children in a few years and we constantly discuss what we will name them. I have discovered over the years that names that are not considered “mainstream” are often tagged as unacceptable. I read so many studies on how resumes with “black” names are passed over twice as many times as “white” names with the same level of education and skills. It scares us that our children may be judged far before they even meet people. With that said, I do believe that if an employer rejects my child because of his/her name, then that isn’t a place my child should work. I think if parents give their children the love, education, skills and training they need, that’s all that matters.
Hi i am a social worker and was wondering if anyone can helpo me out on this issue. I am currently in the process of helping a client whose biological surname was changed when she was 15y.o. by her adopted mother. Now she wwants to change her name back to her biological name at the age of 18. The reason behind is that she is on her way to going to college and most of her documents are in her birthname. How else can she identify herself besides using her high school ID when she goes to request a new birth certificate with her biological name?
Hilda:
Are there court documents or anything similar that would be from the time of the adoption/name change period? How about a social security card? If you don’t have copies of each, the SS office may have one. School records from before/after the name change may also have the same social security number, even if the name changes.
How about taxes (if she was declared a dependent) from before/after the adoption?
Is it possible for the adoptive mother to go with her to the county/city offices when she requests a new birth certificate?
These are just off the top of my head. Anyone else??
I can’t see that, as an adult, the name change reflects anything other than “change of name” application status, rather than a ‘reversion to first name.’
If the same application fees apply for ‘change of name’, and any category determined to apply an adoption of the ‘former name’, then the process should be as simple as stating what her ‘new’ name choice is, paying the fee, and signing on the dotted line.
Has anyone else noticed here that the women who are willing to actually come out and say these “black” made-up ghetto names hinder a child and should be avoided are, hmmm….black? That should carry some weight, ladies, I think they’ve got some insider perspective.
Generally, I am a rather liberal person in my values and perspectives, but it grates on me to NO END when I see the names some kids get, and I am not just talking about the “ghetto” names and black children. Would you stand back and say and feel nothing if a white mother wanted to name her son Lucifer or something along those lines? I sure as heck wouldn’t. Yet the original root of Lucifer is something akin to “light”, a wonderful angelic beginning that, no matter what you say, is permanently stained. I’m half German, and I don’t see a lot of boys being named Adolph anymore either– wonder why.
Whether you like it or not, out in the world names carry weight and perceptions that people will dare not vocalize for fear of being called racist, classist, or what have you– but they’re still making their judgments and acting accordingly in oh so subtle ways. Why weigh a kid down with foreseeable baggage when you don’t have to? I had a bunch of old family names I was considering when pregnant with my daughter. Sure, *I* knew how to pronounce them correctly, and people in my ancestral homelands would too, but when I asked myself, “How would this be looked at and slaughtered by my fellow English-speaking Americans?”, they came off the list fairly quickly. My husband is an immigrant with a VERY common last name from his homeland, but the spelling of it makes it unpronounceable to most Americans. Nevertheless, as his wife, I took his name. Why? In part, because I believe it is good for the sake of family unity. Names connect people within a family. When people who know my husband (Mr. N) or daughter (baby N), but haven’t met me, guess what? They’ll probably refer to me as Mrs. N. So why create more confusion? We are a unit, let’s represent that to the world.
By the way, my husband was raised by an American foster family who chose to keep his full original name intact and unchanged, though they raised him and two of his siblings for years with no real intention of ever letting them live anywhere else– an unofficial adoption if you will. We love his family dearly, and I consider these foster parents to be my in-laws and my daughter’s grandparents (though she will know his birth family as well– we know the relatives both here in the US and abroad). Yet I am SO GLAD they did not give him their name or change his. Mind you, he wasn’t an infant when he came over, but he is who is, and while he loves them and calls them his family, he is not OF them. When I put together a family tree for our daughter someday, my husband’s branches will be filled with birth relatives to the best of our ability, so she can know who and where she comes from. Will I have the foster family listed somewhere? Absolutely, they raised my husband just as long as his birth family. Do I feel the need to list all the ancestors and kin of the foster family, and portray them as our own? No. That won’t matter to our descendants when they want to learn about us and all that came before us. Giving my husband, and therefore our daughter and any descendants we someday have, the name P____ doesn’t suddenly make them Irish/Scottish/French/Italian like all the rest of the foster family. Heritage means a lot to me, and I want our daughter’s name to reflect who she is and who she comes from. Also, when people see her features and then see her name, maybe they won’t constantly ask her something that amounts to,
“Why do you look the way you do if your last name is P____?” God, adoptees must get SOOOO sick of that.
I know this kind of flies in the face of what I said earlier about a common family having a common last name, but I guess not being fully legally adopted and the fact that my husband’s birth mom and many relatives are still alive and in contact (thus showing a certain amount of respect to them by not name changing) kind of prevented having to make such a choice.
But I have something I’ve wondered about for a long time. How do adoptive families, especially with biological kids as well, talk about a common family heritage to which they belong without lying, yet not singling out the adoptees? They can say something like, “Our family is Norwegian, English, French and Korean” (using a white a-family/Asian adoptee scenario), and yes, be somewhat truthful, if they are describing the collection of ethnicities within their present nuclear family, but that doesn’t make the bio kid or parents Korean, and it doesn’t make the adoptee European no matter how you try to spin it. Heritage includes a lot of history as well as DNA, and until an adoption is arranged to form a new family, those histories are often very distinct from one another. How can you truly say, “WE are _______, and therefore these are our family’s foods, stories, languages, traditions, religion” without an “Oh, but not you adoptee, our history is not your history,” woven into that somehow, or vice versa somehow MAKING the bio-related family’s history that of the adoptee as well, AKA ” lying”, unless the adoptee actually does share the same ethnicities as the family.
Please let me know what you all think– fire away.
My daughter is half white and half Mexican. Did the adoptive parents even ask me what I wanted to name MY daughter? No–and they went on to name her a very preppy white name. I wanted a Mexican and then an English name for her, but they didn’t have the decency to ask me. And no one asked me to name her on her b.c. They don’t even ask where her father is from–as if their heritage is all that matters. They don’t even ask for a photo of us! And, these same people refused to give her back to me after 2 days and were still at the hospital. Sobbing, pleading! And I “chose” this couple bc they were “Christian.” The name thing still makes me sad for my baby, who will grow up and learn these things about her aparents.
Well….what if the children you are adopting are named after family members who have a prison record, gang affiliation and have attempted to abduct the children in the past? Honestly, we fear future attempts. While we would love to be afforded the luxury of keeping the names the same, to protect our entire family (especially the adopted children), we plan to allow the older child to choose his own name with the help of a therapist. We will make suggestions, but the final decision will be his. ANY name he chooses with ANY ethnic tones will be fine with us….as long as it is not the unique family names that make him easy to locate and abduct.
I have to admit that (being a teacher) I hear and see a lot of prejudicial comments and body language toward children with names that are either uncommon, out-dated or unpopular. Of course, I would want to prevent any possible cruelty toward my children that could harm their self-esteem. To ignore the importance of a name with regard to acceptance in peer and business relationships (read the research) would be….well….ignorant and uneducated, to say the least.
As for the FAMILY TREE…our family (like many other families) is already “blended” so when we talk about our heritage with our children, we discuss our blood relatives AND step relatives. We will now add another dimension to our discussions of heritage….biological relatives of each person in our family. This way, as our adopted children grow up, they will be able to seek out those biological relatives when the time is right for THEM. Not be abducted and wisked away into an unsafe environment while they are still learning to trust parental role models for the first time in their lives.
I guess it just isn’t as clear cut as some would think. Each situation must be clearly examined with counsel and input from therapists, adoptive parents, adoptees, etc. before a decision is made. It just isn’t a “cookie cutter world”…
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This thread is so done, but I wanted to add my voice as a black woman with a black name. Many of the studies you all have referenced have used black names that have not been pulled out of ghettois (I am a sociologist). My name, LaToya, is one of those names that when placed next to a Mary, Susan or Ellen, will not get the interview. My parents were the teenagers that give these black names. So if the issue is that “black” names will be discriminated against, the bar for discrimination against black people is very low. LaToya is discriminated against just as is Ja’Ron. My children, named by my husband and I, both college graduates (I with advanced degrees), have names that are distinctly not “white.” Do I worry that they will be discriminated against? Of course. We all want only the best for our children. But we decided to make a choice for our children that was based on love and meaning, not on fear and prejudice.
I am not an adoptive parent, but hope to adopt one day. I think a first mother, like I did when I first looked at my biological child, knew from the moment she looked at the child what his/her name would be. That name is built into the psyche of that child. Be it ghetto, or difficult to pronounce, that name is the beginning of that child’s consciousness. Just think to yourself – what if, one day, you found out that your name was going to be something else. For most of us, I think we would be taken aback, whether it was a name we liked or didn’t like. Because that person with that name is not who we are. It leads to questions of “who would I have been had that name been mine?” Why add this to an already complicated situation?
It has NOT been shown that names determine who we become. The studies referenced above simply state that white-sounding names get more interviews than black-sounding names. It does NOT say that black-sounding names are unemployed, or even under-employed. It speaks more to racism on the part of racists than to lack of foresight on the part of black parents. I was raised to know that racism existed, but also to know that I was not the problem, nor was my name. I never thought to be embarrassed by my name because it signaled to someone that I was black and working-class, raised by teenage parents. Hopefully when Ja’Ron (or Barack!!) becomes president one day, it will show others that names are not better to judge a person than skin color.
I don’t agree with the opinion stated here that the adopted child’s birth name should NOT be changed. I adopted two children — a sibling group — and kept their birth names as middle names. Even these names were revised to reflect their new American life. Their life now will be full of hope and love and free of loss and poverty. Who they are now, who they want to be and who they will become have nothing to do with their given birth name. I also notice how our children “became” their names very quickly. Their facial expressions are like ours. They have many of the same personality traits as us as well. I have family members who were adopted and they have never wanted to know their birth name or parents. They felt they already knew their names and parents…their adoptive ones. I have all my children’s birth documents and photos of their birth parents, family history, etc. I share these with them from time to time and they often take down their lifebooks to look and enjoy. These are full of pictures of their birth parents, caregivers and orphange home as well as, new parents, family and new home. They know who they are and they know they are loved! I think many here are making much ado about nothing!
mama23dolls
>I adopted two children — a sibling group — and kept their birth names as middle names. Even these names were revised to reflect their new American life.
Names are not just about where you ARE, they are about where you CAME FROM. Or, what is important to the people around you. I’m glad you kept some semblance of their birth names in their current names. But what was so objectionable about their birth names?
>Their life now will be full of hope and love and free of loss and poverty.
Yes, but their names are part of that story, and are valid regardless, right? I don’t expect you to talk about their personal stories here to total strangers. But I do know that SOME (not saying you) adoptive parents have demonized the birth countries/situations out of proportion to reality – and removing all traces of a birth name (which you did not do, so I am not referring to you or your children) can be a part of that. And people, especially adoptees themselves, react negatively to that.
>Who they are now, who they want to be and who they will become have nothing to do with their given birth name.
Yes, people are not their names. But who they are, how they see themselves, can be at least partially tied to their origins, which are often tied to names.
>I also notice how our children “became” their names very quickly. Their facial expressions are like ours. They have many of the same personality traits as us as well.
Yes, that’s imitation to people you are most exposed to. It’s natural and everyone picks up something from their primary caregivers. It is probably even more important, and therefore happens more quickly, in children from uncertain or chaotic circumstances to adapt quickly when they receive positive interactions with good caregivers in a safe environment.
Still not sure why you’re so vehement against birth names, though.
>Yes, but their names are part of that story, and are valid regardless, right? I don’t expect you to talk about their personal stories here to total strangers. But I do know that SOME (not saying you) adoptive parents have demonized the birth countries/situations out of proportion to reality – and removing all traces of a birth name (which you did not do, so I am not referring to you or your children) can be a part of that. And people, especially adoptees themselves, react negatively to that.
My husband comes from the same country the children came from. We got them here about the same age his parents got him here. So I guess we do have a different scenario and less of a culture clash. Filipinos sometimes tend to name their children odd names like crayola and crayon or cheesecake and creampuff! When we heard our son’s name we cringed. We name his middle name an americanized version of it. Our daughters name middle name is the same except for the spelling. It was a very pretty name and the spelling was just because we wanted to change both of them. We wanted to make them our names partly and we didn’t want one to be changed and not the other just to be equal. We have their family history and we will share it with them often.
>Still not sure why you’re so vehement against birth names, though.
I just think its a parents right to name their child. They are our children. We want them to be named by us and we want them to be part of this family and world now. It is our right and our gift to them. We went clear around the world to get them here, waited three years and paid tens of thousands of dollars! Not to mention the sleepless nights of adjustment after getting them here. It was just like the birth of our first child and the adjustment with her. She even cost us over ten thousand too in medical bills. Its a rough road for some folks to have children. It isn’t all rosy all the time. We are their parents now. We have the right to name them. As their parent, it is my job to make them aware of their roots. I know that and I am prepared to do that. I don’t have to do that with keeping their birth name though. If other parents want to do that fine. I don’t have anything against it. I just really believe it is a parents right to name their child. If the child wants to change it when they grow up, fine.
I think this choice should be taken carefully. First of all, you need to ASK THE CHILD how they feel about it in addition to the adoption and child protection people, the birth parents. If a child is very young change of their name may not be an issue but if the child is older and has a lot of friends and such this could destroy the childs identity of who they really are and confuse a lot of the people the child has a social relationship with.