They named their newly adopted daughter [name]Adalaide[/name] [name]Marie[/name] [name]Hope[/name]! Their other daughter is named Naleigh (not sure of mn)
WDYT???
I think they should have respected her, her first parents, and her heritage enough to leave her real name alone, frankly.
Never heard of either of them, but I love the name [name]Adelaide[/name]! [name]Adalaide[/name] is an interesting spelling for it. The full name has a really nice flow. Better than [name]Pilot[/name] Inspektor and [name]Daisy[/name]-Boo in my world!
[name]How[/name] do you pronounce Naleigh? Na-lee or nay-lee? It’s a very different style to [name]Adalaide[/name].
Never heard of either of them, but I love the name [name]Adelaide[/name]! [name]Adalaide[/name] is an interesting spelling for it. The full name has a really nice flow. Better than [name]Pilot[/name] Inspektor and [name]Daisy[/name]-Boo in my world!
[name]How[/name] do you pronounce Naleigh? Na-lee or nay-lee? It’s a very different style to [name]Adalaide[/name].
[name]EDIT[/name]: Wait, I just read that they adopted her - does that mean she had a name beforehand? If she did, I don’t think they should have changed it. [name]How[/name] old is she? Did they ask her permission?
I read (I think) that Naleigh was a nickname for [name]Nancy[/name] [name]Leigh[/name].
I did a little digging and apparently this was a domestic adoption, so I would venture to guess that they assumed custody of their daughter at birth, in which case they were probably allowed to name her themselves. Still, they changed their 3-year old adopted Korean daughter’s name, so my judgment still stands! (I also have to wonder how much their new daughter’s first mother was coerced by the promise of her child having celebrity adoptive parents…)
Changing your adopted child’s name: always unethical. [name]Just[/name] [name]Say[/name] No.
[name]Lovely[/name] name - so pleased for them!
Seriously Agusuta_lee? It’s adoption. Not everyone can be blessed with creating their own child and they have the right to adopt their child. When someone puts their child up for adoption they give up rights. In the US unfortunately there are a lot of ethical and legal issues of parents changing their minds years after adoption and start legal battles to get back a child THEY put up for adoption. Absolutely devastating to a family who loved and raised their child only because the ones who “gave it up” changed their mind. For this reason (among many others) many couples seek adoptions from other countries. [name]One[/name] of my best friends was adopted internationally, she was given a new name at 5 months old when she came to the US and her parents are the mom and dad who raised her. She doesn’t care what her name was before that because her b-mother gave her up. She cares about the name she was given by the family who loved and raised her.
Your assumption about a family being coerced to give a child up for adoption to a celebrity sounds very ignorant as well. I have always considered adoption and your post is very offensive.
To the OP - I think it is a very beautiful name and this child is lucky to be given such a gifted life. She will be loved and cared for, for the rest of her life which is what matters most.
I’m a prospective parent. As such it’s my responsibility to my future child to educate myself about the ethical issues surrounding adoption – of which there are quite a lot. It’s great that your friend doesn’t care that her name was taken from her and her birth certificate was changed, but there are MANY adoptees who care greatly. Adoption coercion is unfortunately rampant, here and abroad. Why else do you think country after country keeps shutting down their IA programs?? If parents cannot conceive on their own, they ought to consider some of the children who [name]TRULY[/name] need homes: children in US foster care and those with special needs.
“In the US unfortunately there are a lot of ethical and legal issues of parents changing their minds years after adoption and start legal battles to get back a child THEY put up for adoption.”
[name]How[/name] about the mother in crisis who nurtured a child for nine months and was convinced by corrupt baby brokers to give up her own flesh and blood without the time, money, or resources to carefully consider the ramifications of her decision??
And no child is “lucky” to be adopted. Parents, on the other hand, are [name]LUCKY[/name] to have their children.
If you’re seriously considering adoption, I really hope you research the adoptee and first mother’s rights movements first.
I agree with tinabina 100%! Whoever is going to love and raise the child is their true parents and should have every right to name their child what they want. I could understand augusta_lee’s point if the girls had been adopted as toddlers when they had already been accustomed to their name, at that point it may be unethical to change their names, but both Naleigh and [name]Adelaide[/name] were adopted as infants, not yet accustomed to their names. Also, while ethnic names add flavor and can be beautiful, it is easy for exotic names to be mispronounced and misspelled outside of their native cultures. These girls will be raised in [name]America[/name] where their original names may have been somewhat of a burden for them had they kept them.
“No child is ‘lucky’ to be adopted”
Are you serious? Children are taken out of abusive homes and adopted into loving ones everyday. You’re saying that the child isn’t lucky to get out of their dangerous biological homes? I understand that some people are unfairly coerced to put their child up for adoption, but to say that no child is lucky to be adopted is ignorant.
This isn’t a competition in which there can only be one set of “true” parents. When I adopt, I will be my child’s “true” parents – but their first/biological parents will be equally “true”.
“while ethnic names add flavor and can be beautiful”
That’s an incredibly racist statement.
“it is easy for exotic names to be mispronounced and misspelled outside of their native cultures.”
I have a name that’s constantly mispronounced and misspelled. It’s in the top 100. My quality of life is not adversely affected. There are also hundreds of thousands of people in [name]America[/name] with names from other cultures. [name]One[/name] of Nameberry’s big points is that we live in a time where the name pool is ever-expanding. If a parent can name their child [name]Olive[/name], Pimm, or Gladiola, why not Sung or Xiang? I doubt that these girls would consider their heritage a “burden”…and if they do they can always change their names THEMSELVES when they are old enough to make the decision.
No child is “lucky” to be adopted because adoption involves an enormous amount of loss and trauma by its very nature. You aren’t “lucky” to have loving parents. Loving parents are something every child has a right to.
To say that no child is lucky to be adopted is extremely offensive! My husband and his brother were adopted and they say all the time how lucky they were to be adopted, especially together. They say all the time how they could have lived in foster care their entire lives and they were lucky to be adopted by loving parents! I think you should talk to some people who have been adopted before you make comments like this. What does it matter if someone changes the name of their birth child it is their child no yours! My husband and his brothers names were changed and they still remember their old names. They saw their names as gifts from their new birth parents. It was a way for them to let go of their painful past and start fresh with their new families. Neither of them has ever shown any interest in searching for their birth mother because she did not take care of them, they want nothing to do with her, and certainly did not regret loosing the names that such an awful person gave to them!
Not to go off-topic, and I agree with you that the child’s name shouldn’t have been changed, but… how is the comment you quoted in any way racist? Racism is defined as a deliberate, malicious attack on someone’s ethnicity or nationality (or, alternatively, a deliberate, vicious attack on someone because of their ethnicity or nationality). There is nothing deliberately malicious about what berry2 said, and s/he was not attacking anyone’s race or nationality. What s/he said wasn’t perfect but I still think you have misused the word, you should probably think more carefully next time you want to use it, lest you hurt someone’s feelings.
However, I will say that I think people are misunderstanding what augusta_lee means by ‘no child is lucky to be adopted’: she means that every child has the right to be adopted (if need be), and that it shouldn’t be based on luck.
I don’t know any adoptees, and I don’t know that much about adoption. But I have a feeling that if I were adopted, I would want to keep the name my birth parents gave me, unless it reminded me of any distressing events in which case I would want to freedom to change it.
If I adopted a child, I would let them keep their name, and let them form their own opinion about this, their own opinion about their name, their own opinion about their birth parents and if they wanted a change of name, they could have one. Legally I would be the child’s parent but they are still an individual; I wouldn’t want to forge a completely different name into their documents. If they want that connection to their birth parents, they can keep their name. If they don’t want it, they don’t have to have it.
Seems like I’ve disagreed with everyone one way or another in this post but that is just how I feel. 
What do you mean? It’s my understanding that they adopted this baby in New Orleans but I could be wrong.
Taking this to another thread so we can keep this one about their names.
I would just like to point out 1) Naleigh was only a few months old when she was adopted. 2) nobody seemed to get this upset about changing adopted children’s names when [name]Angelina[/name] [name]Jolie[/name] adopted and changed the names of her 3 children. [name]One[/name] of whom, [name]Pax[/name],was four at the time. 3) almost all children adopted are lucky because they will be raised in a better environment than they otherwise would have been.
I do agree with pp who said past a certain age adopted children’s names shouldn’t be changed.
Also,I like the name they’ve chosen for their daughter.
I have seen [name]Augusta[/name]'s comments on other threads and they have always upset me but I’ve never commented. We are all entitled to our opinions as to the best name for our own children, whether they are birth children or adopted children. I am a single, adoptive mother of a beautiful 10-year-old girl from Guatemala. I was able to bring her home with me when she was nine months old. I named her [name]Emma[/name] [name]Kate[/name] because I have always dreamed of a little girl named [name]Emma[/name] [name]Kate[/name] and she was and is my dream come true. Yes, she had a different name by birth. I honor and respect [name]Emma[/name]'s birth mother and am grateful for her profound gift to me each and every day. I do not feel I have been “unethical” because I changed her birth name. [name]Emma[/name] has always known she is adopted and has always known her birth name. She also knows how much I respect her birth mother and how beautiful I find her birth country. Now that she is older, I have talked to her about the possibilty of adding one of her birth names to [name]Emma[/name] [name]Kate[/name]. She is not interested. She’s [name]Emma[/name] to everyone who knows and loves her. If she wants to add part of her birth name to the name I gave her that is perfectly fine with me.
I don’t expect to change [name]Augusta[/name]'s mind on this issue as she obviously feels very passionately about this topic. If [name]Augusta[/name] is lucky enough to adopt a child one day I hope she will shower her child with love and provide her with a sense of security. Being a parent is the greatest joy one could ever have. It is a privilege beyond measure. Once she is a parent perhaps she will understand how difficult/wonderful/intense/amazing it is and will not have time to judge others based on their choice of baby names.
Good luck to any and all prospective parents. Name your child what feels right to YOU.
I agree with this 100%. I did my thesis on families adopting from [name]China[/name]. All of them changed their daughter’s names and NONE of them had an issue. Of course many parents kept their Chinese name as their middle name. I swear the people who aren’t involved in the adoption process have more issues with this than the people involved.