If you spend any amount of time on any adoption forum or email group you are bound to run into the (insert ominous music here…) “name discussion”.

This is one of “those” topics, where there are several schools of thought, both of which feel very strongly that there way is the ONLY right way, which is what tends to lead into the heated discussion (and occasionally the frightening of the new member who asked what she thought was an innocent and practical question).

The name discussion revolves around whether the “right” thing to do when adopting a child is to keep the name that they were given at birth, or to rename the child when they are placed in their new family.

Some say that it is imperative that you keep the child’s birth name. I have heard many say that a child adopted often comes with little else than the name that they were given, and to take that away from them can be traumatic. Keeping their original name shows great respect for their birth family, their birth country (if different than the U.S.), their birth culture, etc.

Others say that naming a child is a personal thing between a mother and a father…a way that parents “claim” their children. Many adoptive parents have wanted children for many years and have family names that they feel are important to pass on to their children. Others worry that Chinese names or African names, etc. can be very difficult for most Americans to pronounce, and would make life more difficult for a child.

It has been argued that giving an internationally adopted child an “American sounding name” can help them fit in, which has then been countered argued with the fact that America is a mix of many cultures and ethnicities and “different” or ethnic names are ok, and in fact common in many areas.

Can you see how easily this could become a heated debate??

Of course the age of the child being adopted also factors into this discussion. Many seem to have no trouble changing the name of an adopted infant, but with older children it becomes more “sticky”.

Well, not to be Switzerland here or anything, but I do believe that this is just one of those things that there just is not going to be one right answer for every child and every family. Naming your child is an extremely personal decision, and you just can’t say that there is only one right way to name an adopted child.

Personally, we have used a bit of both schools of thought. With all of our children we have kept part of their birth names, whether that be a first name, middle name or last name. Then we have given them a family name, and sometimes a special name we have chosen for them. So yes, five out of our six adopted children have four names…a first name, two middle names and a last name. We have handled it differently with each adoption. With our two little Asian girls, we kept part of their birth names as middle names and gave them first names we had chosen. With the baby we adopted at birth, we chose his first name and middle name along with his birth mother (although we really chose the first name and the middle name was her idea). With our three older children we gave them the choice to keep their names as their first name or have a new first name. Two chose to keep their first names as they were and add a family middle name and one chose to have a new first name. All are happy with their choices, as are we. I figure that as they grow up they can always flip around the order of their names if they choose to do so.

I have friends who have kept all parts of their child’s birth name and merely added the new last name, and I have friends who have completely scrapped the birth name and given their child a completely new set of names. Many seem to compromise and keep parts and add new parts.

So if you are new to the idea of adoption and happen upon one of these naming arguments, oops…discussions, please remember, it’s your child and your decision. Go with what feels right, whether that is Thomas or Terefe, Melissa or Mee Yeon.