Whether to Change Our Adopted Children's Names
by 3 Girls
(Oakland, California, USA )
Ethiopian Princesses
We had spent years preparing for parenthood as we were going through the adoption process.
We dreamed about names for our babies and when we started the adoption process I even bought a book of names thinking I would pick something unique but culturally relevant for our baby's birth culture.
As with all adoption stories, our’s was not straightforward.
After 2 years of waiting for an infant from Colombia, and many twists and turns which may be interesting for another story altogether, we ended up adopting two toddler girls from Ethiopia.
When we first got the referral for them their names seems so foreign and we couldn't even pronounce them properly.
We had to wait until we made some Ethiopian friends who could tell us the appropriate pronunciation.
We agonized over the unfamiliar sounds of their names and were concerned for how they would fit in and how others would say their names.
Once we decided it was in their best interests to keep their birth names, we had to let go of the idea that we would get to pick our favorite names for the girls.
We did choose their middle names and of course they took our last names, but this was not what we had originally imagined.
The middle names also had to go nicely with their birth names, which would be their first names, and this presented additional challenged.
Their first names were Tigist and Belaynesh and now we are pleased to see that we made the right choice in keeping these names.
The names keep them connected to their culture and they have become quite assertive about making sure that others pronounce them properly.
We remind the girls that these names were a gift from their first parents and should be respectfully pronounced the right way by others.
Also, they were old enough to know each other by their first names so it would have been unfair to change that on them during their transition too.
Their names are immediately recognizable to other Ethiopians and they are able to make many connections just by saying their names.
In addition our girls have nicknames within our family like most kids, and these don’t have anything to do necessarily with their given names or what we would have picked from the beginning.
These things just happen organically and that is more endearing than picking out a name from a book.
