Hi there! Nameberry creeper here, haven’t actually posted until now, but I couldn’t resist posting about this! I just came across an article in the Daily Mail about the decline of adoption due to parents unwilling to adopt children with unique or misspelled names, such as “Chrystal” or “Chardonnay”. Thought this was an interesting topic for Nameberry.
Some of the names mentioned in the article include:
Chardonnay
Champagne
Rubie
Emmarald
Jayde
Chrystal
Gemma-Mai
Courtney-Mai
Alexia-Mai
Lily-Mai
Shania-Rae
That story is so heartbreaking I can’t imagine turning away a child because I don’t like that name! I do agree with the author though. Those kids deserve a fresh start, and if that includes a new name, then so be it. I mean, if it is so important for them to stay in touch with their birth family, then why have they been taken away in the first place. If it is safer for them to be taken away, then it is safer for them to be completely separated from the family who put them in this situation. Maybe if they found a compromise, like the child had to have the same initials, but the name itself could change. I don’t know. It is such a horrible thing for those kids that a bunch of governmental nonsense is getting in the way of their futures.
This is absolutely insane. First of all, changing a child’s birth name is enormously unethical. Second of all, any parent who’s going to turn away a child based on their name doesn’t deserve to have kids. Period. Also, I completely doubt the veracity of this story. Healthy infants for adoption are INCREDIBLY rare. No couple is going to turn them away because of their name.
Morally, forgoing a child due to the unfortunate name they were given by their birth parents is totally not ok. And besides, if you are looking to adopt you have probably been anticipating the moment for so long, that the last thing that worries you is the name of the child.
When it comes to renaming the child there are some double standards. If that child is over the age of 18months-2yrs then changing the name is just not an option. By that age a child has begun to incorporate their name into their identity and changing it would be immensely confusing (especially for a child who is already going through the upheaval of becoming a part of a new family). However, if the child is a very young baby (under 18months or especially under 1year) then changing the name poses no major problem as they won’t ever remember having a different name, and it would then be up to the discretion of the adoptive family. That is just my view.
I feel like changing a child’s name at whatever age is an ethical issue. By changing the name given to them by their first parents, you’re erasing that connection as well as robbing them of the only thing in the world that’s truly theirs. I feel especially strongly about this in terms of international adoption. It’s just wrong. And I’m saying this as someone who plans to adopt.
Wow, that is really interesting, thanks for sharing.
I have to disagree with some pp’s, here, I think as an adoptive parent you should be allowed to change your new child’s name, especially if they are under 2. And with the differences in the class system in [name]Britain[/name], it really could put them at a disadvantage to have a name like [name]Chardonnay[/name] or [name]Chrystal[/name], especially if the parents put them in public (private to the US) school. I do think its a shame people are letting that stop them though, I would hope, if it was impossible to change the baby’s name, you’d find a way around it, such as always calling them by a middle name or a nickname or something.
Im an adoptee, my name was kind of changed in the sense that my birth mother had named me but no one about this me until years later. The nurse I stayed with until my parents picked me up at 3 months also called me something else and when my parents picked me up at 3 months they changed my name. I have no issues with this as I was never officially named. If they had changed an official name I would be angry.
A name may be the only thing you receive from your biological parents, even if you are only 3 days old to change it is to change part of your childs identity or reject it all together especially if they are older.
You want to give them a new name and stick the old one in the middle? That’s fine but if my birth mother had named me Chardonnay I would rather have Chardonnay as a middle than nothing from her at all. I wouldn’t care how difficult it might be in school it’s a gift nothing could ever replace. I wouldnt want someone to take it from me.
Adoptive parents will never be able to fully understand how important it can be to have some connection to the life we had with our birthparents, even if we only knew them after birth for 10 minutes we spent 9 months with them developing one of the closest most intimate bonds that occurs in a human life. If they named us love us enough to not take that away.
Of course those willingly to adopt are very unlikely to turn away a child based on their name. My question was directed towards Nameberry users because they’re passionate about names. I’ve read so many posts about yooneek names! I don’t want so much to get into the ethics of changing an adopted child’s name, but rather want to know how unique/misspelled of a name are Nameberries willing to live with, especially if they didn’t name their child themselves and couldn’t rename them.
@daenyrs I called and asked my mother this question (you’re never too old to call mom lol) her response was “I could live with whatever name you had but I couldnt live without you.” I would hope other adoptive parents would have similar answers
Never. Anyone willing to turn a child away because of their name shouldn’t be a parent. I think past a certain age, maybe around 2, the name shouldn’t be changed at all. Before that age, I think it’s alright to move the birth name to the middle. I have heard of older children (6+ or so) picking a new name for themselves upon adoption, which I think is fine. But I wouldn’t remove a birth name completely even if the child was a baby, no matter how bad the name was. I’m sure that the vast majority of birth parents love their children very much and circumstances prevent them from parenting. I wouldn’t want to take the one thing the child has from them away completely for my own selfish reasons.
I think this article was insensitive to birth parents. It was written very much from the perspective of an adoptive parent, with little consideration for birth parents. It portrays them as nothing more than criminals and crackheads, when in actuality they’ve done something incredibly selfless in offering their child a better life through adoption. I think that strength should be commended.
That’s very sad. I wouldn’t overlook a child because of a bad name or bad background. That bad background is something your trying to save the child from, don’t let it deter you.
I do think it’s very sad that people aren’t being allowed to change the birth names. That’s not right. If I’m adopted a child young enough to not remember her birth name, I should be allowed to change her name from Chardonnay to Charlotte if I want to.
I hope these laws get changed soon, there are so many babies that need good homes and these are just awful reasons to prevent them from finding a loving home.
Personally, as someone who’s never had any interest in adopting, I would have a problem with not being allowed to change my under 2 child’s name, especially if it’s inappropriate like a brand of liquor or if they were named after the very person that abused them. I would probably go for a kid with a name I could live with. Again, I’m not emotionally invested.
The underlying issue is that they are telling parents that they have to maintain a connection with their child’s original life. The same life that was deemed so dangerous and unacceptable that the child was taken- not lovingly given away. They are not allowing parents to separate their child from this old life and make them apart of the new with a more appropriate name. As Americans many of us don’t fully understand the class structures in other countries and how your name can be a dead giveaway and put you at a permanent disadvantage.
As far as how to change the name, it should be suggested that some part of the original name is maintained or that the new name refect they’re ethnicity/nationality. So, [name]Chardonnay[/name] becomes [name]Charlotte[/name] [name]Danae[/name]. I know a family who simply anglicized their adopted son’s name. And older children should be apart of the decision. [name]One[/name] of my cousins chose not to change her name, she still has her original first and last. Another adopted cousin chose to change the yoonek spelling of her first name and took her new last name. I know a couple who shortened their child’s long Hawaiian name to [name]Mali[/name] and named her [name]Hannah[/name] [name]Mali[/name]- she helped pick her new name.
I would adopt them and let them keep their name, so that when they are older and form their own opinion about their name, they can decide whether they want to keep it or not. If the name really bothered me I might use a nickname, but overall probably not.
As a Brit I don’t understand the article’s emphasis on class. “Class” measures absolutely nothing, Daily Mail! We are a meritocracy, get to the 21st century, will you? ><
I’m a [name]Brit[/name], and I can believe that what this article reports does happen here. Classes are not as defined as they once were, but class prejudice still exists. The are more opportunities for social mobility now, but it’s not as much of a meritocracy as we want to believe.
No. I cannot even imagine. And I would never change a child’s birth name, unless they expressly ASKED me to because they wanted a fresh start (as pre-teens or teenagers, I wouldn’t indulge a small child’s rename request unless I knew there was deep trauma that would make dissociating from their past beneficial.)
I find all of this infuriating. Like, I can’t believe how mad this is making me.
The most important point: If you would let a name alone deter you from adopting a certain child, you’re a jerk. The child didn’t choose the name themselves, it has nothing to do with them. [name]Don[/name]'t take it out on this poor child.
I cannot understand how so many of you are defending the rights of people who are giving their children away, or had their child taken away from their custody for whatever unsavory reason. The child stops being yours, you should no longer have any say AT ALL for any aspect of that child’s life. What about the people who adopt? Why don’t they have the right to name their child like anybody else? My aunt was unable to physically have children, so they had no other option but to adopt. Why should she be robbed of the same experience that anyone else can have? She’s raising them, loving them, providing for them, comforting them. My aunt and uncle have more of a right to shape their children’s identity than the person who did not want to keep their child. In their second adoption they were told they HAD to keep the birth name, and while they did this because they wanted the child so much they overlooked the name, they did have a different name picked out for their adopted daughter. I feel that was wrong. They had to pay a lot of money to adopt, they should also be able to change her name if they had wanted.
I can see an exception being if the parents died, since that’s not a case of them willingly giving up their children. In this sense I feel the name should stay the same so the child retains that piece of a parent who loved them, and who WOULD have raised them if they had lived. But this is the only exception that I can think of.
I think if the child is old enough to have an identity attached to the name they should have a say on whether it stays the same or gets changed. Maybe they’re attached to a name, or maybe they would like a fresh start and to leave the name behind with any bad memories. And if the child does want a new name, I think they should have a [name]MAJOR[/name] say in that new name too.
I’m partially adopted. Meaning, my mom divorced my biological father because he didn’t want me, and she did. She remarried and he adopted me. In this case, my last name changed from my birth certificate. Besides that I had been named for my maternal grandmother. You’ll excuse me if I don’t feel sentimental towards a man who didn’t want me. I don’t see the sense in romanticizing a man who broke my mother’s heart and turned his back on his daughter. The relationship would be one-sided even if I did. I don’t see why anybody does this. If it had been both of my biological parents giving me up for adoption, I would feel the same way. I don’t need a special bond with people who didn’t fight to keep me. They aren’t worth my time or affections. [name]How[/name] ridiculous does it seem to have my mom and dad track down my biological father (they ultimately discovered he was in prison and had to get him to sign the papers from there) and to have him say “Okay, I’ll sign over rights, but only if you name her [name]Elizabeth[/name] after my mother”?? It’s freaking absurd.
[name]One[/name] of you commenters said adoption is a “selfless gesture”. And sure, sometimes it is a selfless gesture, and in those cases I still think the adopting parents should have more of a say in the name, and the biological parents should respect that since they know they won’t be around. Write the child a letter explaining why you gave them up for adoption if you want them to have a piece of you and want them to know that you loved them. However, I don’t see most adoptions as selfless gestures, so much as the parents were too irresponsible to either prevent a pregnancy they didn’t want, and once pregnant could not be bothered to take responsibility for their child. Too many people don’t prevent pregnancies from happening and then act like it’s the worst thing that could’ve happened to them.
I was childhood friends with a girl who grew up to have many children. The first three boys were taken from her custody because she kept doing drugs. From that point on she had 2 more, both went up for adoption (to her family members…one by her mother and is in fact being raised as her sister…she was in her late 20’s at the time). She recently got pregnant AGAIN, then got arrested and sent to jail for drugs AGAIN. She’s out now. This is exactly a case of somebody who is too irresponsible, but who keeps having kids she won’t raise herself. And it’s not a selfless gesture in any form. It’s basically just preempting the fact that child services would remove the child from her custody anyway. You’re telling me she should have more say in what the child goes by than a person who wants so badly to take care of that baby?? This isn’t even an uncommon event. It happens all the time. It’s repugnant and I will not encourage them by saying “Oh wow, you’re doing such a selfless thing for somebody else.” Instead I told her “Stop having babies if you’re not going to clean up your act and raise them yourself. You’re pregnant and on drugs…what the hell is wrong with you.”
Oh and @thetxbelle: That response from your mother made me melt. [name]How[/name] sweet!! <3
Would I reject a child solely on their name? No, of course not.
But if it was between two children who were pretty much the same, say two newborns one named Champagne, and one named [name]Charlotte[/name]? I would likely rather choose a [name]Charlotte[/name].
If I had adopted a Champagne, I’d never call her that, I’d 100% give her a nickname. I wouldn’t legally change it though, that’ll be her choice to make as an adult. I’d likely be sure to inform teachers/principals of her nickname rather than Champagne.
Or I might move it to the middle spot, but I’d likely leave it in the first and use a nickname. There are some great nickname options from some of these names though:
[name]Chardonnay[/name] = [name]Char[/name], [name]Charlie[/name], [name]Donna[/name], [name]Ari[/name]
Champagne - [name]Paige[/name]
[name]Rubie[/name] = Fine as is, I’d likely spell it [name]Ruby[/name] though.
Emmarald = [name]Emma[/name], [name]Em[/name], [name]Mara[/name],
[name]Jayde[/name] = I actually like this spelling
[name]Chrystal[/name] = Tolerable as is
[name]Gemma[/name]-[name]Mai[/name] = Not that bad at all imo
[name]Courtney[/name]-[name]Mai[/name] = Ditto
[name]Alexia[/name]-[name]Mai[/name] = Ditto
[name]Lily[/name]-[name]Mai[/name] = Ditto
[name]Shania[/name]-[name]Rae[/name] = Ditto
My main thing with naming, is that it’s not the parents name, it’s the child’s.
To change someone else’s name because one doesn’t like it or likes something better, is ridiculous imo. It’s not theirs to change, it’s the child’s name.
I understand your point on your aunt not being able to have kids, and wanting that naming experience, I hope I never have to go through that, so this is definitely a sticky situation. But this all falls back on my belief that once it’s the child’s name, it’s theirs. Our names are gifts, we get to do with it what we please. No one else can/should come to us and take away our gifts, and the same applies to names for me.
I think if the child is old enough to have an identity attached to the name they should have a say on whether it stays the same or gets changed. Maybe they’re attached to a name, or maybe they would like a fresh start and to leave the name behind with any bad memories. And if the child does want a new name, I think they should have a [name]MAJOR[/name] say in that new name too.
I agree with a previous poster about just sticking the unattractive birth name in the middle. That way, the child can feel connection with their birth parents, but you don’t have to call them something awkward or have them stand out among their peers.
I can’t imagine turning away a child because I don’t like that name! I do agree with the author though. Those kids deserve a fresh start, and if that includes a new name, then so be it. I mean, if it is so important for them to stay in touch with their birth family, then why have they been taken away in the first place. If it is safer for them to be taken away, then it is safer for them to be completely separated from the family who put them in this situation. Maybe if they found a compromise, like the child had to have the same initials, but the name itself could change. I don’t know. It is such a horrible thing for those kids that a bunch of governmental nonsense is getting in the way of their futures.