What's In A Name?
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
Should adoptive parents change their children’s names? at Anti-Racist Parent - for parents committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook
I know that I should just be chillin’ like Dylan, waiting for the big day to come, but you all know me by now. I’ve got to jump into the fray and give my probably unpopular two cents.
Now I love and respect Dawn from This Woman’s Work. In fact, Millie has taught me to filter my decisions through a WWDD (what would Dawn do?) philosophy. I totally dig her.
Her April 11th article from Anti-Racist Parent asked the question of whether adoptive parents should change their children’s names. Dawn chose not to. And the general sentiment from the comments was that one should use the name chosen by the birth or first parents.
Some interesting comments:
"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!"
"As Dawn mentioned, the practice of renaming African slaves is one way of removing and controlling a person’s identity."
"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."
"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."
Let me start my part of the story by saying that we have a name picked out for our daughter when she comes to us. The name has been something that we’ve held onto throughout our infertility drama and through the loss of our Zappy last year. It is special and has great meaning to us.
However, until reading Dawn’s post and the comments, I had no idea of the harm that I am about to inflict on our daughter by giving her the name we’ve chosen. Madison has been given a gift because her name was not changed at 2 days of age. Yet AdoringHusband and I will be taking away a gift/inflicting a trauma when we name our daughter the name we’ve chosen, despite the fact that we’ve chatted about this plan with Josie, our expectant mother/birthparent.
You know what? I’m not buying it. I’m just not.
One of the commenters said close to what I feel about this issue:
"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."
See, here’s the thing. Infertility has robbed me of a lot. It has robbed me of my ability to get pregnant, to carry a baby, and to give birth. Now, according to many of the commenters above, infertility has to rob me of my ability to choose a name for the baby that comes into our lives. Oh well. Better just get over than dream as well as all the others. Giving your baby the name you choose is stripping him/her of his/her identity. I’ll be causing trauma at 2 days of age.
People say that comparing adoption to biological parenthood is a dysfunctional act. Adoption is different, period. Your baby belongs to two sets of parents. The reality of this is critical. Yet in the same breath, adoptive parents speak of the love, the status in the family, and the sense of belonging to be no different between adoptive and biological children. So it seems to me that with adoption, issues either get split into the “different” or “no different” categories. While I always had the child’s name as being in the “no different” category, my eyes have been opened by the WMWP from Anti-Racist Parent to see that baby naming actually belongs in the “different” category.
What if I don’t want it there, though? Is there enough data to support the thesis that changing a 2-day old infant’s name is traumatizing to the child when s/he becomes an adolescent or young adult? You know I’m a researcher. I need data. And as we like to remind people, the plural of anecdote is not data. If I am going to give up something so important to parents (any parents) like the ability to name my child, then I want to see some data to support this harm assertion. I would rip out my own heart before knowingly doing something that would harm our child.
Honestly, I thought that the naming plan Josie, AdoringHusband and I worked out was fine. None of the three of us had any issue with it that I am aware of. AdoringHusband and I have also discussed adding Josie’s selected first name as a second middle name. (The child will have a long-ass last name since my name and AdoringHusband’s last name will form a hyphenated last name.) Now, however, I have to consider the harm I’ll be inflicting by changing the baby’s birth name.
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OK, I’ve considered it. To the Anti-Racist Parent commenters, I respectfully agree to disagree. I do not believe that I will be introducing indelible harm to our child by changing her name at 2 days of age. I also do not believe I will be dishonoring Josie in making this change. I already adore this tremendous young woman and I will do everything in my power to foster a positive future relationship as firstmother and child.
So my answer to the question posed of whether adoptive parents should change their children’s names is, if they want to. 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 the bringing of the the child into their lives.
And to all of you waiting for me to cut to the chase and tell you our planned name…you’re out of luck. You’ll just have to wait and see!
