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.
Dawn, this is timely for us! With our first son, adopted transracially and transnationally, we sorta kept his name. His first mom had a pet name for him that was his legal first name–it was a term of endearment in English (like imagine a boy in the US named “Sweetie Pie”!) so we didn’t have any problem removing that and using his middle name, which is a lovely name that works well in English and in his birth country.
It’s harder for our second son. He’s older–4 years old–so he knows his name and it’s his identity. We have no plans to change it. It’s a simple name, just really unfamiliar in the US. Anyway, we know we’ll call him that. We’re just not sure if we should keep it in the first name place or make it his middle name. Plenty of people go by their middle names, but I think that’ll make it easier for him someday if he wants to use the name we gave him. Or am I rationalizing?
We’re also not making any final decisions til we meet him. As best we can, we’ll include him in the conversation. And we’ll also be interested to know of any nicknames he might have that we don’t even know about.
Thanks for this post. I do get frustrated by the “claiming” that people do with naming, and it’s refreshing to hear about a family adopting an infant who retained her first name.
Ugh. Another one of the myriad issues I wish I would have understood during the adoption process the way I do now. Adoptees’ voices are the ones who should be heard on this issue, but I will say that if I had it to do over again, I would be very willing/likely to leave my son’s name as it was given to him (and I dislike the argument that *who* did the naming has something to do with whether the name is ‘worthy’ of being kept or not…..IMO that’s just not the point at all).
As it was, we didn’t feel we had the right to take away any of his Korean name, so we kept it all and added to it. Looking back, I can see that we had no right to change it at ALL, though, so I will fully support his name preferences when he is of the age to voice his opinion. For now, we use his ‘American’ first name and his Korean first/middle names probably 50-50. He responds to either and refers to himself sometimes with one name and sometimes with the other. I think a better option in our case would have been to leave his name just as it was, and let the him choose an additional name in the future if that was his wish. To me it’s sad that we chose to change the ONE and only thing in his life that could have remained the same.
Zoe, I’m with you. I hate this: “We’ll keep the name if it came from the first family but change it if it was given by the orphanage.”
A name is a name is a … identity!
We initially planned to change our son’s name, but once he came home at age 2.5 years he so identified with his name we decided not to change it.
My sister made a point that those of us of African descent whose ancestors came to the US as slaves had their names taken away so our son’s name should not be changed.
Our son is Ethiopian. We decided that he should be able to keep the one thing that definitively identifies him as such. So his name remains as is…Yihun (Amharic for “so be it or let him be”).
I wrote a post on my own blog about a similar issue. We kept my son’s name… Philippe… but he was 8, almost 9. so I can’t imagine changing what he had always known. My issue is when people insist on calling him Philip. I understand making the mistake… but there have been a few people who insist on changing it, with one woman going so far as to tell me he should us Philip, as it was more American. I calmly told her that Philip was not his name… Philippe was. Afterwards, I had a long talk with my son, about what a beautiful name he has, and his mother in Haiti must have been very proud of him to give him a good strong name. And that it was his Haitian name, and that he should always be proud of that as well.
This was a great read, thank you Dawn.
We internationally adopted both of our children (now 1) as infants. For both of them we kept the names their first moms gave them as their middle names (spelling unchanged), and added a first name for each. Interestingly enough, their birth names are more easily Americanized than the names we gave them (they are adopted from Guatemala, I am Spanish, my husband is American). We also kept the Spanish/ Guatemalan tradition of including both father’s AND mother’s last names as their legal ones. Their names are long but hopefully they will reflect their identity well.
It drives me crazy when other a-parents refuse to keep or incorporate birth names. The worst is when people name their child their name or their husband’s name JR. Ugh!
I just have to say how much I appreciate the efforts of the previous commentors to understand the complexity around naming. As Dawn mentioned, the practice of renaming African slaves is one way of removing and controlling a person’s identity.
In my blog post on naming, I refer to the movie Spirited Away, in which ten-year old Chihiro finds herself trapped in a spirit world. In order to rescue her parents and return to the human world, Chihiro must work at a bathhouse run by a witch named Yu-Baaba. One of the ways Yu-Baaba enslaves Chihiro is by taking away her name; hence she is re-named “Sen” and one of her challenges is to remember her original name. If she forgets that she is “Chihiro,” she will lose her chance forever to return to the human world.
As Miyazaki (the filmmaker) explained the significance of Yu-baaba’s practice of re-naming her prisoners, “the act of depriving (a person) of one’s name is not just changing how one (person) calls the other,” he said, “it is a way to rule the other (person) completely.”
Here are my thoughts about renaming adoptees:
http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/2006/05/the_name_game.html
http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/2006/05/the_name_game_p_1.html
We are in the process of adopting an infant from Ethiopia and I have been thinking about names alot. We have decided that we will give our child a 1st name of our choosing (we wouldn’t do this if our child was older) and keep their given name(s) as a middle name. It doesn’t matter to me if their birthmom gave them the name or the orphanage or whoever-I feel by keeping their name I will be honoring their culture and their history.
we asked our child’s first mom what to name our child. but she did not want to. we suggested a name, which she liked, and when the time came she put it on the birth certificate. If she had chosen a name we would not have changed the given names. but my fear of being challenged as a family (each of the three of us is a different race) in places like borders scared me into wanting at least 2 of us to have the same last name.
in the end, he does have a kind of “foreign” name, but then so does my wife so they can spend their life rolling their eyes at everyone together…she hates it when people don’t try to pronounce it right.
Dawn…
The deepest part of me is so tired of the Whitest part of the White American insistence that everything Black folks do is just God-awful.
Whitest as in, “This is my world and everyone else in it is just a squirrel trying to get a nut.” As in, “I can tolerate your otherness as long as you try real hard not to make me notice it exists. As in, “Those Black people and their damned reach back to Africa/pseudo-land-of-their-psychological and physical birth. Don’t they know they’re in America now?”
Sorry to start out like that, really I am. But I am really tired. There is this insularity which really protects when one is only, or mostly, around those with whom one identifies, and that assumed shared cultural value faux-pas which comes out, as in the statements made to you, i r r i t a t e me ’til they rub me raw.
I love the sound of names, cultural connections, mixes of surnames with mythical figures from literature, onomatopaeic-inspired names, names that have been given because they have been considered and hold meaning to the parents, and a hope for the child.
My name is Kim. I’ve reached for some poetry in that my whole life. Kimberly, if you sound like Dorian Harewood.
I adopted my son when he was 3, and I did not change my son’s first name, but I did change his middle name. I named him after a person who held a significant role in his life. When I was provided the opportunity to adopt his little sister 2 years later, I was considering all the possibilities about her name, and I asked my son, who was then 5, what he thought about the situation. He told me that ” we shouldn’t take away her name, because if that’s what they named her, then that’s probably what her name was supposed to be!” Out of the mouths of babes! Needless to say, I left her first name the same, and, like in my son’s case, gave her a different middle name, after someone significant in her life. Both children go by their first names, unless they are in trouble, then, of course, they hear both names
Dawn & others –
I’m so glad that this discussion is happening today, because some 30 years ago when I (and the other adoptees of my generation) were adopted, the idea of keeping our existing names intact was practically unheard of.
Being renamed was such a normal, expected part of adoption and being an adoptee, and I was so indoctrinated in that practice for so long that I didn’t really begin to question it until just a few years ago. In fact, after I had scrubbed away almost all the other aspects of that “blank slate” mindset, questioning why adoptees should be renamed was one of the last vestiges of that ideology that remained.
I really think it’s important to question this practice — and not just when it involves older children, but for children and infants of all ages — because our names are a very fundamental part of us that we grow into (or, in some adoptees’ cases, struggle to grow into). Our names are imbued with pieces of our stories that can certainly make a difference in our identity formation. I have been trying to flesh out a longer post (or set of posts) about naming and renaming in adoption for a while now, but it’s such a multifaceted topic, it’s really hard to sum up in a blog post or two.
Ji in, I do think it’s important to consider with infants, too. In my essay, I talk about how as a kid I found out that I was almost named “Leslie Dawn” instead of “Dawn Leslie” and it totally shook me. In my mind, had I been Leslie, I would have been another person and it scared me. I also felt like “Leslie” was someone I was not (I pictured Leslie having blonde hair, being cheerful) and for a minute I had this terror of, “What if my mom WANTED a Leslie and instead she got me, Dawn???” And I thought how much more pressing this feeling would be for an adoptee.
I hope that Madison can find strength/comfort in knowing that she is always and has always been exactly who she is and that adults may have made big decisions FOR her but that she herself was a constant and will be a constant.
What surprised me in the reactions to the article was that people saw it as a capitulation to Madison’s first mom instead of something we chose for MADISON’S sake.
(you can read the ones published by Adoptive Families here: http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1442
Both of my adopted sons have the first names their first parents gave them. The youngest one has a name that is unusual for white Americans, and it is routinely mispronounced. I love his name but I am very bad at correcting people about names. When I say his name I often get a puzzled look. The name sounds like badly pronounced French to some whites, so they question me about it. I have known other black men with that name and I have had black women tell me they know someone, their cousin or someone who has that name. But it might cause him some grief with white folks. I don’t know what to tell him about that. I need to figure it out.
I should say I have a weird name too. I changed my boring old regular name to something artsy when I was in college and it stuck. So now I often have to explain that too and I guess people who know me well enough to get to that point are not surprised my son has an unusual (to them) name either.
I don’t like how so many APs assume they have the right or prerogative to change their adopted child’s name. I feel very strongly that it is the child’s. Taking away a person’s name is fundamentally invasive no matter how young they are. I need to work on how to talk about that too; get the point across without sounding judgmental or something. I am glad you posted this because it is a touchy subject I would like more conversation about.
A timely post for me too, thanks Dawn.
Our daughter’s name, “Tsehaynesh”, is meaningful and beautiful, but difficult for many people in the US to pronounce and spell, and we struggled for a long time about what to do. In the end, we decided to legally change her first name to a more common name with a similar meaning, “Helen”. Our rationalization was that since families in her culture generally name their children based on meaning rather than the sound of the name, her Ethiopian mother’s intent was preserved. “Tsehaynesh” legally became her middle name when we finalized her adoption. What I have found is that I tend to use “Helen” when I am talking about her to others, but we only use “Tsehaynesh” at home and this is the only name that she knows at this point (she is nine months old). I am not sure what we will do once she goes to school, and what it will mean to her (and her sense of identity) if we use separate names at home vs in “public”. I’d love to hear opinions on this.
Kellie:
You don’t want opinions on that choice.
Your explanation, unsolicited, has deep, immediately understood integrity.
My husband and I adopted twin baby girls from China last year. As soon as we received the documents informing us of their names, Ningyin & Anyin [meaning sounds of harmony & sounds of peace], we immediately knew we had no right to take those names away from them; in fact, even before our China trip, I changed the Chinese name of my elder daughter (we have biological fraternal twins) from Kangying to Kangyin to so that she would have the same character as her sisters (I am half Chinese so my two bio kids have unofficial Chinese names anyway). After much discussion, my husband and I decided to legally add a more Westernized given name in front of their Chinese names, based on sounds–Ana for Anyin, Nia for Ningyin. Thus, their legal names are Ana/Nia [original Chinese surname] Anyin/Ningyin [husband's Japanese surname]. At this point, everyone in our family calls them Ningning and An’an, which are the nicknames they were called at their welfare institude. Honestly, I can’t ever imagine calling them Ana or Nia–it would be too fake. Those names are there as options, and occasionally if strangers in the park ask their names I will use them, but even our non-Chinese speaking friends use their Chinese nicknames. As they evolve into adults, they are welcome to use whatever names they’d like, and my husband and I have no problem with them dropping the names Ana and Nia, and we’re also okay if they want to drop my husband’s family name (given the history, I feel strange bestowing a Japanese surname upon people of Chinese descent).
One issue that remains unresolved for us is what names to use for them when they start Chinese school: my Chinese family name, or their original Chinese family name? They’re only two years old, so we have time to think about this, but I see pros and cons to both. I’m inclined to use their original surname, but my husband is concerned that they may feel uncomfortable having a different Chinese surname than their older siblings, and that their classmates & teachers at Chinese school will question them about this, thus drawing attention to their adoption.
Anyway, this is our individual experience. While each experience is different, I’m inclined to say it’s better to be inclusive than to cut away parts of an adoptee’s heritage without her/his consent. Adoptees have to deal with so many losses as it is that it doesn’t seem fair to strip them of their names, particularly in cases of transracial/transnational adoptoin. I also think it’s important to maintain a dialogue on these issues as the child grows into adulthood and for adoptive parents to realize that if they did change the adoptee’s name, s/he may choose to reclaim it as an adult. Adoptees shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for that. I hope more a-parents can realize that by being open about these issues, they are likelier to be closer to their children as they grow up.
Thanks Dawn for such a thought-provoking post, and I love reading everyone’s comments, especially those from adult TRA’s. The Spirited Away analogy is spot-on.
I changed my son’s name from “Timothy” to “Benjamin”. The reason I did is that I wanted him to be a part of his new family, and he carries my great-grandfather’s name. I think the idea of not changing the name has validity, and it might work for most people. I made a different choice. I thought that having a familial name with meaning in my family would help all of us completely welcome him.
Because my son is African American and I am Northern European American, I perhaps selfishly, wanted to send the message to my family that this is our child and he carries our name. I wanted to honor my great grandfather and my father, and make Ben, the only grandchild of four who will carry the surname of my family, an honored member.
I also will let my son choose to change his name, and we will discuss the matter openly, when he is old enough to understand. He will know the name his birth mother, his first mom, chose, and he may want to incorporate that, or even choose it completely, over the name he was given by me.
Names are uniquely personal, and children should be free to choose one for themselves as they become conscious of that. Adopted childen always have a sense of loss, and for me, pinning that too much on the choice of a name only added to the burden my son will carry. I didn’t change who he was by changing his name: I gave him my choice, and with it my blessing to choose again when he sees fit.
For us we kept our daughters name. Our only consideration when we were asked ourselves whether to rename or not was if the name would sound derogatory in English, we decided we would adapt it. We left her name as it was in the end. We pronounce is a litte different only becuase of our American accents, but it was and is her name.
Cloudscome,
This part of your post struck me as I read it: “I have known other black men with that name and I have had black women tell me they know someone, their cousin or someone who has that name. But it might cause him some grief with white folks.” But, then, just being a black man poses exactly the same risk. I’ve read advice that parents should not give kids black sounding names, because of what happens when they’re adults sending out resumes. The resumes that identify the applicant as black get round filed much more quickly (surprise!). But I don’t think its a whole lot better if Madison Spencer walks into the interview and never gets further because it turns out she looks just like an Imani.
I just found this site and appreciate this post. I am in the process of an international adoption – China. I plan to give my daughter an English name but for the reasons you mentioned, I plan to keep at least part of her Chinese name. I may even use her Chinese name kind of like a pet name – just at home or with familiar people. I feel like a child would not appreciate growing up with a name no one can pronounce.
I am guilty! (hanging my head in shame) After recognizing that we made a mistake and changed our daughter’s name, we took the advice of an adult adoptee who said it was never too late to incorporate it into our child’s daily life. We now use her Chinese name in her Chinese class and it has evolved into her nickname.
I love it, she loves saying it and the day she ever wants to legally change it back, I will be first to help her!
It is great that these topics are being explored and more people are reading about these decisions.
It is part of who she is and I do regret the name change, but I am also thankful to all of you who offer guidance to those of us who are clueless
What did these people think? That we would welcome a black child as long as he or she didn’t have a black name?)
Could the person have been referring to the practice of inventing names that are supposed to sound African but don’t? If you had a child with such a name, you might be thought to have engaged in ignorant behavior (or maybe that you’d have a constant reminder of it). If it was a suggestion that you would disapprove of the name because of that practice, it’s at least not as bad as suggesting that you wouldn’t welcome the child as much. I very much doubt the latter was the idea.
Jeremy, it was white judgment about what a “proper” name should look and sound like. Personally I think white people sound ignorant when they think they know more about the African American culture of naming than African American people do.
This was really brought home to me when our social worker said that the black moms who placed usually hated the names their children were given post-placement. That’s when we first started thinking seriously about NOT changing (since we wanted an open adoption) and the more we thought about it, the more we felt it would be best for our child.
(Interestingly our daughter’s first mom, who is black, said when she was telling us Madison’s name, “I don’t like ghetto names” meaning “made up” names. But I do. I think some of them are lovely.)
We have four children. Two are biologically mine and two were adopted from different countries, one from Korea and one from Siberia (Russia). We chose to keep their original names as their middle names. It was a gift from their homeland, from their birth parents, that they should be, not only allowed, but encouraged to keep.
Our Korean daughter was six years old when we brought her home from Korea. Since we had a year to finalize the “legal” portion of the adoption, we gave her a choice of names. She chose Bonnie for her first name. She wanted to fit in with the other kids in school. We did not have that luxury with our second daughter, who is from Siberia.
When we sent her to Russian language camp, she used her Russian name with great pride.
Children need to have something that honors who they are and where they are from.
We have strived to incorporate Korean and Russian cultures into our family.
When a family adopts from a different culture or race, they can allow ethnicity to flow backwards, thus enhancing and enlarging the family’s ethnicity.
Thus, we became Korean in 1986 and Russian in 1994. We go to Korean and Russian events, restaurants and shops in an effort to maintain a healthy relationship with their ethnicity.
I tell my girls that I love them in their native languages. Sa rang handa for My Korean daughter and Ya tibia lu blu for my Russian daughter.
Keeping their birth names (as middle names) shows them that we honor who they are in totality.
I think the exchange between Jeremy and Dawn illustrates that a name can be a marker of class as well as race. So what if well-intentioned white parents who adopt transracially keep the child’s birth name, and the child grows up hating her or his “lower class” name?
When we adopted DD from China we decided, after much thought and solicitation of opinions, to keep our DD’s Chinese name as her middle name and give her an “American” first name. The biggest reason I had for doing this is that her Chinese name will most assuredly be continually mispronounced by anyone other than those closest to her. Her Chinese name is Xin Xing (that’s a long, high, level “shin” followed by a short, quick, dropping “shing”). Any other pronunciation completely means something else. Many Chinese people thought this would be unfair to do to a child. A simple change in inflection in Mandarin, and you could be cursing at someone.
At home we mostly call her by the name we gave her, but we also call her Xin Xing. If she ever desires to be Xin Xing only, I have no problem taking her to the nearest courthouse to change it.
Now should we ever adopt a child whose birthname is easily pronouncable, I think we’d certainly stick with that name for all the reasons Dawn mentioned.
I was in the airport years ago, looking a member of my travel partner, and had to have him paged. The operator looked at me like she was illiterate and I had asked her to read the New York Times front page aloud, and then smugly and deliberately mispronounced his name over the loud speaker, despite my having pronounced it for her.
My companion’s name was Rashid (“Rah-Sheed”). She insisted on calling him Ratched (“Wra-chid”).
She was Black (and Black American as I could surmise).
Some people will never confer upon you “permission” to have the sound of your name enter the panoply of sounds they deem acceptable to the American tongue, or acceptable as ‘normal’ names.
Thank you, Dawn, for a great post on an important topic. Best part is that the comments tell me adoptive parents are finally listening to adoptees, and recognize the importance of their names.
After much consideration, we made the decision to include a non-Korean name as well. Our daughter in particular is gravitating more and more to her Korean name. It’s a source of identity and pride for her – it’s who she IS, not who she has become in our family.
“So what if well-intentioned white parents who adopt transracially keep the child’s birth name, and the child grows up hating her or his “lower class” name?”
This feels like a smokescreen to me.
As parents, we risk having our kids hate us for a lot of reasons. Both my kids can change their names, change their hair, refuse to come home for the holidays — whatever. My kids might hate having pretty common names. Another kid might hate having a name that makes them stand-out.
But I don’t want to *take* things from them that are essential theirs. I’m just way more comfortable erring on the side of caution and allowing them the choice instead of making it for them.
I’m an AP and we did change our daughter’s name who we adopted at birth. I think we had heard with our ears about the importance of naming, but we sure hadn’t internalized it. And we had a name in mind, had been talking about for years in fact. Now with a school age kid who only knows our name for her, I’m wondering how to bring it up to her in a positive way. Her first mom’s name for her is lovely but it just seems to belong to someone else.
Ok, one more thought on the name. We adopted our daughter, and kept her name, as described way above. When we had her baptised, the priest would not allow her name to be her baptismal name because it wasn’t “christian”. Needless to say, we were not amused. She did not have a middle name, and legally does not have a middle name, but to the church, her middle name is a christian one.
What society does to people about thier names is pretty lousy.
A lot of the ethnic names really aren’t that
hard to pronounce, with a little effort. I think
my children would feel lost without their names. And I think trans-racial adoptive
parents should give a lot of thought to the history
of White Americans and the Native American
boarding schools. Taking away their ethnic
name is a form of cultural genocide, in my
opinion. I don’t think it is so hard to give
them a name and retain the name they
had to begin with. Then they can choose.
Margaret, I think you are placing too much
importance on the tones. Usually a little
context helps and I haven’t met anyone
yet who was offended by my inability to
master the tones.
Kathy….my husband actually was wondering that….about context and tones. I know when I try to speak Mandarin, I way overdo the tones, because I’m a beginner. It’s good to hear that understanding Mandarin does have at least something to do with context. Maybe I won’t fret if my tones get a little bit more subtle now! Thx.
We have adopted two boys. Our first son’s birthmother gave him what some might call a “black” name. We gave him the name we always dreamed of naming our son. He now has both, though the name we chose is his first name and the name she chose is his middle name. I wish we had been able to communicate with his birthmom about this, but she has never really opened up to us despite our efforts.
In our second adoption, we were able to communicate a lot more with our son’s birthmom. We asked her to choose a middle name and we have used it.
Our foster daughter, now 4 months old, has a name I never would have chosen for a baby; yet I have grown to love it. I will probably change her middle name if we get to adopt her, but now I know her as the name she has and I cannot imagine changing that.
I have to say, taking the right of naming completely away from adoptive parents would diminish their status as real parents. It is enough of a struggle sometimes, in an unsupportive world, to feel like our kids are really really our kids. And it is in the best interest of our kids if we do feel that. If an adoptive parent names a child with respect for his or her cultural heritage and birth name, I think it’s fine, even if some changes are made to the child’s name.
Mushroom Montoya, I agree wholeheartedly when you say, “Children need to have something that honors who they are and where they are from.” Certainly, retaining or incorporating their names are an invaluable way to honor this.
However, I feel like what you suggest about “allowing ethnicity to flow backwards, thus enhancing and enlarging the family’s ethnicity” is a problematic idea. I have seen many other adoptive parents subscribing to this idea as well, from the standpoint that their children’s ethnicity, race and ethnic culture can, in effect, rub off on them, making them also “Korean,” “Chinese,” “Ethiopian,” etc.
While I think that transracial adoptive families must absolutely acknowledge and embrace their multi-ethnic makeup, your statement that you “became Korean in 1986 and Russian in 1994″ seems to perhaps suggest that you’ve appropriated your children’s ethnicities and cultures as part of your own (or your entire family’s) ethnic (?) or cultural (?) identity. Either way, I am personally extremely wary of this claim.
I bristle at this idea that ethnicity is something that can be shared by those who are not of that ethnicity. To me, this suggests that race can rub off, or that people can put on others’ ethnic identities as they would a costume.
For example, as a transracially adopted person of color and as a Korean American, I do not appreciate it when transracial adoptive parents of Korean children call themselves “Korean” or “Korean American.” This, to me, is humorous at best, insulting at worst. I know that no insult is ever intended, but for me, a sense of ownership of my Korean heritage is something I’ve fought hard to come by, and continue to wrestle with at age 30. Many of my fellow Korean adoptee friends have experienced similar frustrations and struggles. So, for someone else who isn’t Korean to come along and say, “I am Korean, too,” really minimizes our identity experience.
And as a footnote, I really do think it’s fantastic if adoptive parents truly embrace the idea of honoring and integrating their children’s heritage and birth cultures in the family dynamic (as I’ve mentioned before on ARP). However, I hope that all adoptive parents agree that “cultural tourism” alone (e.g., limiting contact with their children’s birth cultures to occasional visits to restaurants and shops) is not enough by itself to infuse their children with a lasting sense of history and ongoing cultural awareness.
Ana, you say, “I have to say, taking the right of naming completely away from adoptive parents would diminish their status as real parents.”
1. I’m not sure who would take away this “right” since it’s unlikely there’d ever be a law disallowing it! I think it just ought to be more open to discussion in adoptive famlies.
2. I feel like I am *more* my daughter’s parent when I make decisions with her well-being first and foremost above what might be my own wishes. For *me*, I’ve concluded that keeping her name was more important than choosing another one. I’ve come to believe that in our adoption experience, the more I make room for my daughter’s family of origin — in both real and symbolic ways — the more I feel like I’m serving her and the more I feel I’m meeting my obligations as her parenting parent.
3. You know, I’m tired of the “real parent” discussion. My relationship with my children is what it is — I don’t really care how other people bother to see it. What matters to me is the love I have for my kids and the relationship we build every day. Real parent, adoptive parent — I just don’t care. I don’t need to assert that for myself or anyone else. Maintaining her birth name does not make me feel less valid as her parenting parent. In fact, doing something that seems so basic and right (as I perceive it) has solidified my confidence.
Some good points above Dawn. I, too, get sick of the word ‘real’. Of course I am real…every bit as much as my son is real, and my other kids are real. His birth mom was very real as well. And his name is a reminder of that.
“the more I make room for my daughter’s family of origin — in both real and symbolic ways — the more I feel like I’m serving her and the more I feel I’m meeting my obligations as her parenting parent.”
Now that’s a real parent!
Oh, Dawn, I do agree with all the above – especially #3! As I see it thus far, parenting is primarily about building solid, loving relationships with each of my children based on who they are as individuals. As far as my (adopted) son, parenting has nothing to do with trying to usurp his Korean mother’s place in his life.
Ana, I think this portion of your comment kind of highlights one of the fundamental problems with adoption as we know it: “I have to say, taking the right of naming completely away from adoptive parents would diminish their status as real parents”. People feel entitled to have a certain experience, and will pursue/demand it at the expense of someone else. There are so many ways in which adoptive parenting should not be measured against the experience of parenting a child by birth, as if the latter is the ideal to which people affected by adoption need to conform. I have come to believe that this issue (naming) is one of many clear examples of how we get into trouble by comparing the two.
Dawn, I want to second that. Your points are excellent, esp. about the real parent discussion. Thank you so much.
Zoe, you said “There are so many ways in which adoptive parenting should not be measured against the experience of parenting a child by birth, as if the latter is the ideal to which people affected by adoption need to conform. I have come to believe that this issue (naming) is one of many clear examples of how we get into trouble by comparing the two.” So well said! I couldn’t agree more . . .
This has been a fascinating read for me – not only because of the perspective this post offers on the practice of naming and renaming adopted children., but because I’ve always had a fascination with names and how they were bestowed.
Before we were matched with our child, it didn’t occur to us that we should NOT give our child a new name. We operated from the perspective that naming was a part of welcoming a child into one’s family, pure and simple. But as bad a reputation as many adoption agencies get with regard to parent preparation, I have to credit ours with helping us to see otherwise. We were STRONGLY encouraged to retain our child’s name and add to it if we wished. When we received our match, we were clear that the name our child had been given (and we knew it was given by the orphanage) would be continuously butchered because the spelling indicated an entirely different pronunciation in our part of the world (being an immigrant family, we have had the pleasure of dealing with this ourselves). So we opted to include it as a middle name and add another first name. Of course, if our child at some point decides to use the middle (original) name as a first name, we will be in full support.
We have 2 bio kids and we adopted from China in December ,we changed our daughters name. My thought/concern was that her name was very difficult to pronounce. My name is spelled differently and as a kid I got sick of always being different – having to spell it for everyone. Is there any validity to that arguement? Comments??
Dawn – Great essay. Do you know I actually know three black Madisons and one who’s Latina? All under age 7.
I must admit that I don’t think an adoptive parent would be helping a black child retain their ethnic heritage by keeping a name that is typically associated with poverty. If I were adopting a child who had a name that was incredibly hard to pronounce, spell or sounded like a car, alcoholic beverage or someting vulgar, I’d have to change it. That’s not classist (or racist). That’s common sense.
Instead, I’d probably choose to give them a name that reflects and honors the the positives of their ethnic heritage (maybe after civil rights heroes, jazz artists or other cultural icons…like Robeson or Ellison or Gwendolyn). I’d do this with the hope that a name connected to greatness would help them feel like a part of a cultural legacy that’s larger than family that has chosen them (but no less important).
Aimee:
As a child, my brother, whose name is Trappio (pronounced according to all the phonetic cues you’re getting as you read the word), was dogged by people’s shock and unfamiliarity with his name.
He never wished to change it, just wished people would accept it, and move on. By age 19, his name being such a standout, made him “unique,” and he loved the attention women gave to him, and the intrigue he fictionalized around its origins.
If a name is difficult to pronounce, pronounce it for those to whom one is introduced to, and don’t make concessions to their ‘need’ to shorten, hyphenate, Americanize, or sweeten.
I think this area falls into one where if it is one’s desire to lend the ‘different’ name, or to keep one for one’s child, do it without apology, and people will get over it. Otherwise, we all give in to group think, and we melt right into the pot, and disappear.
Meera:
I hope there are caveats attached to the ‘poverty’ sounding name. Regina, Latoya, Antoine, Marcus, Leroy, etc., are all names that are prevalent among African-Americans, and in wide use by persons from other groups as well, not belonging to or originating in the African American community (well, Mrs. Jackson claims she originated Latoya, so maybe that one is the exclusion). One’s disposition and prejudices about and toward the African-American community on the whole may predispose one to turn away in disfavor upon encountering such names; one’s disposition and belief being that ‘all Blacks rest in poverty.’
Our son’s first mother had some name ideas but wanted us to make the ultimate decision. I now regret not choosing one of her ideas. She seemed passive in her opinion, while we had a name in mind. I should have been her voice – I didn’t know it then.
I have a male Hebrew name that I am constantly explaining, my husband is Dutch and no one can say our last name correctly, and my husband’s Dutch name is common in the African American community. On paper we’re pretty confusing. We named our biracial (adopted) son a Hindi first name and a Latin middle name based on their meanings. Between those and our last name he has quite a plateful, but the meanings are stout!
Part of our thought process in choosing names not common in the U.S. was that we don’t plan on staying here. Also, we are a multi-national family already with dual citizenship so acceptance in American culture isn’t the primary litmus test for names in our family.
I don’t regret giving our son a unique and often mispronounced name, but I do regret not using one of his mother’s ideas. We’ve talked about asking him if he wants to incorporate one of them, or her last name, in the future.
Last thought – instead of renaming a child with a non-english name that is hard to pronounce, couldn’t you keep the name and use a nickname for every day? That way the name stays intact, but the child can say “my name is Svetlana, but you can call me Lana” if that makes them more comfortable?
Names say so much about who a person is and the community they belong too. As a person from another country I happen to have the most western sounding name in my family and honestly felt left out. When giving just my first name over the phone I have been asked if I am Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish. Upon sight it is very clear that I am none of these things. Sure my siblings had to repeat their first names over and over again but I always felt jealous of their names, though my name does have a meaning in our language. That is why I did not change my maiden name upon marriage. I did not want to further remove myself from my culture and my country. And my maiden name is definitely one that is continuously mispronounced, misspelled and mangled. I have even been asked,” are you sure?” when spelling it. But obviously I appreciate it otherwise I would have changed it. So Norma I disagree with your statement that a child would not appreciate a name that others cannot pronounce.
If Americans can recognize and pronounce names like Siobhan, Sean, Zoe and Stephanopolous, then they can certainly learn to say Xin Xing or any of the other names that transnationally adopted children are given at birth. Changing your adopted child’s name is certainly the prerogative of an AP but please let it be for reasons other than “it’s hard to say.” I also believe the age of the adopted child should be considered.
And Meera, I too wonder what names you consider “associated with poverty?” I generally agree with your point of view but that statement was very loaded. There is definitely both an air of classism and racism in it. i.e. any female name ending in –isha, -ika, or onda = black poverty but Tallulah, Paris or even Apple = white wealth. Some might argue that Condoleeza is “a name associated with poverty” if they did not know it came from an Italian phrase. Mercedes is a very common Spanish name, and Portia (which sounds just like the car) is of British origin. I could go on, but Vera said it best above “I don’t think its a whole lot better if Madison Spencer walks into the interview and never gets further because it turns out she looks just like an Imani.”
I have to laugh at the Madison Spencer example because Madison’s name is Madison Ashley (that’s her first and last) and yes, she could pull of Imani!
I also cringe when I hear about “names associated with poverty” because I do think it reeks of classism and 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.
I also argue that the already loaded discussion around re-naming is even more loaded when we’re talking about it in the context of a transracial/transcultural adoption. In other words, should Meera, an African American woman, adopt a Quonnae and choose to change her name to Ella, I think this resonates differently than if *I* did that.
i think this is a wonderful site, and have enjoyed reading many of the posts (and looking at gratuitous pix of cute kids). as the black american mother of 2 adult biracial, binational adopted children (and the aunt of 2 adult transracial, transnational adoptees) , a lot of what is being said here makes me think back to the days when both my niece and nephew, as well as my son and daughter were still small.
naming can be a thorny issue. in my sister-in-law’s case, she kept her daughter’s asian indian name – mumtaz – as a middle name, and gave her name she and her husband selected as a 1st name. she did the same with her son when keeping edwin as his middle name. as a result both my niece and nephew have names that are a neat fit into the german culture they live in.
my daughter’s 1st mother asked what we wanted to name her, and that name was placed on the original birth certificate. in her case: a dutch name many americans find difficult to pronounce (though you say it exactly as it’s written), but has since become quite popular in germany as well.
my husband and i had selected a name for our son, and changed the name his 1st mother gave him, though we told him fairly early on what the name was. in his case: a 1st name most germans have trouble pronouncing (though you’d think they’d have gotten used to it via the well-known scottish actor of the same name), though his middle name is fairly common.
i admit to having a (very) strong opinion on the naming issue where african-american children are concerned – and this isn’t only in connection with adoptees. i believe there is a huge difference between choosing african names, traditional/old-fashioned black american names, “fantasy” names, and “ghetto” names.
* if your name has an african heritage and meaning that you can communicate to me: fine!
* if you are named in honor of your great-grandfather or your grandmother’s best friend from grade school or an illustrious figure from african(-american) history: wonderful!
* if your name is straightforward in its pronunciation, and has an appealing rhythmic character: wonderful!
naming your child after a brand of (cheap) liquor, a car manufacturer that’s less than 50 yrs. old (and wasn’t named after someone’s wife/daughter in the 1st place), the spanish or french word for some trivial object, etc., has nothing to do with “culture” – black or otherwise.
as a matter of fact, it’s proof of anything but.
or would you seriously name a caucasian child from a socially challenged background something that chained him to that state of deprivation for the rest of his life?
Nina – yes, with repeated practice and an actual genuine concern for pronouncing people’s names correctly, I think those with regular contact with my dd could pronounce Xin1 Xing4.
I’m willing to give $100 to every non-Chinese person DD comes in contact with who actually gets her name right consistently though.
I’ve worked in a number of places and been in school with people that have many different names that are unfamiliar to anyone outside their ethnic group. They end up being called every type approximation to their name possible…and maybe some people even hit it correctly occasionally.
Come to think of it, I have an Italian last name and I think I’ve heard it pronounced correctly one time in this country. The last time it was pronounced correctly before that was in Italy.
If my daughter gets tired of this….I don’t blame her for deciding for herself exactly what she wants to be called.