Changing First Names

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

We have Internet! Ha ha ha no, we don't. Twice now something has gotten screwed up and we still have not gotten TV, Internet, or phone hooked up. Now we're told that Tuesday everything will be set up, so fingers are crossed that it pulls through this time. In the meantime, I still have Facebook access from my iPad, and today I saw a post that sparked an idea for today's blog post.

As I've mentioned before, I'm part of Facebook groups in which foster families can discuss the trials and tribulations of foster care, ask each other for advice, share the joys of having foster children, and discuss blogging about foster care and adoption. Today, I saw a post on one of these pages about a foster child wanting to change her name upon her impending adoption, and the family was trying to find the perfect name. This reminded me of finding the perfect names for my own siblings, a topic that I'm not sure I've previously written about.

When a child is adopted through foster care, the parents are able to legally change his or her name. The child is given a new birth certificate anyway, so the new name will be officially put on the birth certificate. Each of my siblings have had their names altered in some way upon their adoptions.

• My brother kept his first name, because he was older and we all liked his name anyway. My dad chose a new middle name for him though, one that honored a friend of his who had tragically passed away shortly before the adoption.

• When my sister was adopted, she wanted a nickname. Her given name at birth had been a short name for which there were no nicknames, so my mom came up with a list of names for which her name could work as a nickname. My mom came up with a list of first and middle names that my parents liked, and my sister got to choose her own name! It was really cool.

• My little brother came to us with a name that my brother couldn't remember and my sister couldn't pronounce, so we took to using a nickname for him using his first initial. Upon adoption, we used our nickname (and a nickname that my Godfather had started using for him), and came up with a new first name. His given birth name became his middle name, so that he still had a part of his history.

• The twins came with names that honored the grandmothers who didn't want them, so we felt like that wasn't right for them to be honored in that way. Plus, my mom and I had always thought that if we had twins, we would use names that started with A and B (since doctors always refer to twins as Twin A and Twin B). The girls' biological names became their middle names, and we gave them two beautiful new first names. In fact, I actually got to pick the name for Twin B!

Choosing a new name may seem weird to people who haven't gone through an adoption. In high school, when I would talk about it with friends, people would sometimes say that it was wrong to change the kids' names because it was part of who they were. But we always felt like they were part of our family now, and they deserved to be named by my mom and dad just as I had been. But each of my siblings still had a piece of their biological family represented in their names in some way, whether it was as their middle name, a nickname, or their first name. We don't want to erase their history; we just want to give them a brand new start in life with a family who waited for them to be a part of it.

I only have four days to reach my goal of 150 likes on my Facebook author page by the time I'm celebrating a year of blogging on July 29th. I'm happy to announce that I've made it past the 110 mark, but I still need 39 people to hit that "like" button and I would be really grateful to everyone if you could like and share my page. It's as simple as clicking the two buttons at the top right of any blog page, so it only takes a few seconds of your time! As I've mentioned before, when I reach 150 likes, I will share information about the novel that I've been working on, so I'm really excited to hit that milestone!

I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.

Thanks!
Taylor

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