Again, I will say...... "While we WAIT for Russia to give out accreditations"--
Lets talk about a "hot" topic on many blogs.
Do you keep the child's Russian name or do you Change it?
I've heard over and over again that judges will ask this question while at court, so it's something adoptive parents should think about before heading in.
Some people feel keeping the child's Russian name is best. It permits the child to connect with his/her heritage. It says to the child, while you are an American and you are our child, we wanted to let you know it's a gift your birth parents gave you and we want you to keep that. And it's a way for adoptive parents to keep the discussion door open, to say it's okay to talk about the past and your name and where you are from.
Now on the other side of the discussion, are parents who say this is my child now and I should be able to change his/her name! For some, they don't want the child to feel "different" with a name that will stand out. Or maybe they've had a name in mind for a long time, and now they can name the child what they've always thought.
There isn't a right or wrong answer here. It's simply what's best for you and your family. Where do we stand on the issue? I digress for a moment.
My mother is a school nurse. And what you are about to hear is a true story!!! There was one time the school administration got together and asked a parent to change the name of a child who just transferred in from another country. The family was Asian. The child's name was Fook Yu. I'm not kidding this is a true story.!! I don't remember what it meant in their language, but it did have a meaning, HOWEVER, in our country the child would have had a hard time in life.
Now again, where do we stand with the name issue? Well, we don't think Boris will have a name that will cause as many problems as the one above. But we do look at the name of a child as a gift from the parents. We want Boris to have a name we chose for him-- we want him to have that gift. Now with that said, we will more than likely keep the name his birth parents gave him as a middle name. That way he can still connect with his Russian heritage, understand where he's from, but also understand he's moving forward with our family and feel apart of us.
15 comments:
Not having done it yet... I think you have to have the name settled when you sign the intent to adopt on Trip #1. But I could be wrong.
We plan to wait till we meet him. If the name will not work in the US then we will try to adapt it with a more Americaized version or keep it as the middle name. We really hope that the name will fit here as we would love to keep his given name.
We had to submit the name after trip #1, with the final documents that went to the court. It was one of the items on the "Petition to the Court" paper.
We ended up keeping Katya's name, but only because we really loved it anyway. I think it's hard to decide until you meet them.
Our daughter's given first name was very Russian and difficult to pronounce. Her middle name was the same as her birthmother's and easy to Americanize. We chose a new first name and kept her middle name as a link to her birthmom and heritage. I think it is a personal choice for each family and there is no "right" answer.
good post :) as you know, I had a lot to say about this topic... haha!
I'm pretty sure we will not be keeping the Russian name. Frank and I have talked about it pretty extensively and we both agree. We may keep the russian name as a middle name, but it depends on how we feel at the time, I guess.
Like previous posters said, there is no wrong choice.
We did not keep our daughters Russian names. We had names of our own picked out and they were linked to family names too. During court the reason why we changed their names was brought up and we were questioned pretty extensively about it. But they did seem satisfied with our reasoning behind the name change.
P.S. Congratulations on your paperwork arriving safe and sound. I know you are thrilled beyond words, praying reaccreditation happens soon !
We kept both our boys' Russian names as middle names. I didn't particularly care for either of their Russian names and the boys didn't associate the names with themselves (more so with the nicknames the caregivers used). Also, both of the names were chosen by the orphanage officials, and not by the birthparents. However, I can absolutely understand why some choose to keep the Russian names as first names. It's a personal decision and I don't think there is a right or wrong decision.
We are giving our daughter a family name from our family. We want her to feel a special connection to her forever family so we giving her all family names. Hopefully in the future she will know how much it meant to everyone that SHE got these very important names.
We talked about keeping her Russian name, but many times the kids are named by the caregiver, so although the name might be the only thing they have, it's not from family. I'm sure though when she's older in a some fit of teenage angst (as we females are prone to have) she'll toss back at us that we should have kept her birth name.
The name is submitted at the end of trip 1. We moved the boys' Russian names to be their middle names and gave them a name that fell in line with our other children. All of our children have 4 names:a Bible name, a family name, a name relative to their birth, and then our family name. Their Russian names are their 3rd name, the one relative to their birth. We still call them by their Russian names as much as we do their American names. I think it is a good mix.
Well, others have already said this....but I would just like to chime in that many times, esp if the child was left there after birth, that the caregivers named the child, NOT the birthparents. We did not like our older boys name (Denis) also, it is pronouced Denise...and my husband sister's is named Denise....so we gave him a new first and middle name, and kept Denis as his third name (so he has four names). It is hard telling a child that is 8 years old that you will never call him by Denis again....we call him Kylen at home, but sometimes call him Deniska. The point I am making is sometimes the Birthparents do not name the child.
The summer that I hosted, my other friends (who were hosting) and I spent some time shaking our heads at the kids' names. My boy's name was Vladimir, which I always loved. But some of the other kids had real mouthfuls. Before meeting them I would have said I would have changed their names. But during the summer they were hear, every one of their names grew on me. They're strong, rich, and vibrant names -- even if they're unfamiliar to our ear. Most of all, they were THEIR names. And that holds importance.
I'm not sure what the procedure is in Magadan, but in Khabarovsk you don't submit the name until you fill out the official application to adopt the specific child. So we had a very long plane ride and a few days after coming home to mull over the name. Even up until the second the notary signed the document I questioned our son's name. It was a big deal for us.
We kept our son's Russian name even though he was named by an hospital nurse and his name is very Russian and often mispronounced. But for us it was a cultural decision. If our child was biological he/she would have had a Swede or Celtic name. This child is not biological, but Russian so he has a Russian name.
We did the same thing you are thinking of doing. When you accept the referral officially, they they will usually ask you either that day or another day during your first trip, what do you want his/her name to be. The judge already knows when you get to court and will just read it out and ask you to confirm if it is correct.
We had/have the same thoughts on children's names thru adoption as you posted. We want/wanted to keep our child's name when we traveled blind into Russia last year. We decided we'd put the name as a middle name if it was just to difficult to pronounce, was embarrassing in our culture, etc. (say Fook Yu, whatnot). Someone gave that child that particular name, a parent or caretaker, and we wanted to honor that person by keeping the name if at all reasonably possible.
We were surprised when we found out our daughter had such a lovely name, yet there was NO way to spell it in english? HUH? This is what several Russians told us. So we all debated on what to do, as we wanted to keep this name as a middle name. Hmmm. So the translator told us, hey what about name "xyz", which is the british equivalent & has a spelling? Worked for us. We used that as the second middle name for ZsaZsa when we had to fill out her court paperwork, when we had been back in the US about a day or two. Then as more court paperwork filtered in, her US name & Russian names both showed up on all paperwork.
Now that we are adopting from the US foster system and it's older children again, we still feel the same. Although, if we meet a child(ren) whose drug-induced parents named their children "Butterfly" at birth, and this now 6yr old child wants to change their name at the finalization of their adoption, that will be fine with me ;o) Since we are adopting older children, we want their input.
We changed both of our childrens names. They were both named names that we would have chosen for our bio children and since these are "our" children, they deserve to be treated as if they were our bio children.
Just our own thoughts on this subject. I know, everyone has their own opinion. :-)
hugs,
Laura
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