Okay, so I think this will be the last of the Name Game posts.
The origin of this topic began with Elle’s post, which discussed Russian names and whether or not to keep them. (Sadly, that blog has been retired, but you can still read the archives.) Her post got me thinking. Elle’s point was that it is nice to keep something from the child’s culture. She and her husband considered Russian names in their great search for the perfect name. As for me, I have two very contradictory opinions on this subject.
On one hand, maybe their birthmother chose the name for them. One could appreciate that as an adult. It can also be argued that keeping the Russian name gives the child something cultural to hold on to about themselves. Keeping the Russian name is a very nice way to honor their culture. Also, if one is looking for an original name, Russian names (like Oleg) are pretty darn uncommon in the US. Finally, if the child is older, this brings up an entirely more complex debate. Maybe the kid is old enough to want to keep their name and voice that opinion. In that case, I would think it is fair to let them keep it.
Now, on the other hand… (and please don’t be offended if you LOVE the idea of keeping the Russian name …. I respect that decision … if you don’t believe me, read the above paragraph again)…. however, the child is becoming an American. We are adopting them and bringing them to our culture. They have to fit into school and certain Russian names will no doubtedly end in torment and endless name jokes. Further, the name was given to the child by a woman who gave the child up. (I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic because I do realize how incredibly horrible it would be to have to do that….) But still, the woman is not the child’s mommy. We, the adoptive parents, are the Mommy and Daddy. The ones who give all the daily love. So, why not give the child a name that means something to us? I think that should count for something. It is also common knowledge that a lot of kids have names given to them by the caretakers at the orphanages. Again, these women are amazing and we are all thankful for their hardwork and compassion….. but, they are not the mommy’s either. We are.
You see, I have very mixed feelings on this topic. My compromise: Middle name = Russian Name. I say that now, but will I follow through with that…. who knows?! And do I have the "magic" list of middle names we love, why yes, of course!
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Another NAME PROBLEM…. Family names. How many of you have had a family member say one of the following:
**You should use the name (insert random name here) that was my great, great grandmother’s sisters cousins husbands name. It’s lovely and would be nice to keep in the family. Don’t you think?
(ahh, I don’t know that person. In fact, I’ve never heard of them until now. I like the idea of family names, but this person meant nothing to me personally…. so, ahhh, I, ummm, I dunno. Thanks for the suggestion.)
**You know that my maiden name was Jazzabelle. Since no one is carrying on that name, maybe you could use it. It would be nice as a middle name at least… don’t you think?
(ahh, I, umm, I dunno. I will talk to Frank about it. He, umm, should get to a say so. So, ummm, thanks for the suggestion.)
**You know your middle name has been in our family for three generations, you are planning to keep the tradition going, right?
(umm, well, yes, I guess, I, umm, haven’t really thought about it. But, umm, yeah, that sounds like a good suggestion.)
**I’ve always loved the name Gertrude. In fact, I was going to name your Dad Gertrude if he was a girl. When you adopt a daughter that’s what you should call her.
(umm, Really? I never knew that. I’ll, ahh, have to keep that one in mind.)
what we’re really thinking is …. OH GOD, PLEASE DON’T LET THIS PERSON SUGGEST YET ANOTHER NAME TO ME…. and what we really want to say is…. I’M SORRY BUT THE NAMES MILDRED LEE GERTRUDE AND ADAIR ARE NOT OUR LIST AND THERE IS NO WAY POSSIBLE WE CAN PLEASE EVERYONE. SO, HOW ABOUT YOU STOP SUGGESTING RANDOM NAMES AND JUST WAIT UNTIL WE DECIDE WHAT THE NAME IS GOING TO BE!? HOW ABOUT THAT?! (if you’ve never had these name droppings occur, then lucky you…. as for Frank and I, we haven’t even put in our application and we’re already hearing this….)
***
If you’re still reading, I’m impressed… I am long winded today!
Actually, I’m just trying to finish this topic. Last bit, I promise.
So the last thing I wanted to mention is the whole "I call the name ___" What is it with girls? It’s like once someone you know has said, "In sixteen years I will name my child ____ and my twins ____ & _____." Then, that means you can no longer consider those names. If you do, you are a traitor. Even if the person is not even dating someone…. those names are hands off. I can understand this phenomena if you are pregnant or adopting and you say, we are going to name our child Xavier. Then, if your cousin goes and names her kid Xavier two months before you are due or the child comes home…. then I would be quite annoyed. Just wondering what you guys think about this? Has it happened to you?
Finally, what aboutr naming kids in the same family with similar names? I know is some cultures that is common place. For example, in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, it was a running joke that everyone has a kid named Nick, Nicky or Nicholas. But, what if your name is Christen and then your sister in law names her kid Christian. And then for the rest of your life, you mother in law will call you Christian by accident. Would that annoy anyone else? I’m just saying …. ahhh, hypothetically. 
We do get the comments like, “Oleg… are you going to keep it?” Even 6 months after coming home. We had quite an atypical approach to naming our child. For us it was more of a cultural thing. For years we had Scandinavian and Irish names picked out simply because that is what we are. We figured a child adopted from Russia wouldn’t be Swedish or Irish so a Russian name was most appropriate. We just aren’t the “American” name type of family.
Also, in our particular case Oleg wasn’t named by his birth mom. He was named by some random person in the baby hospital. However, when he comes to us and asks how he got the messed up name of Oleg we can tell him that it was a gift from his country and us. That random name made us look at one we hadn’t considered before. And to us, he looks like an Oleg.
Comment by elle — March 24, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
I am in total agreement with you. We completely changed her name, but gave her a Russian sounding middle name that would also be considered pretty in the U.S. Her first name was one that my husband had chosen many years ago for a daughter.
Comment by jeneflower — March 24, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
I’m so glad to have found your blog! We’re looking into adoption now too, Russia looks like the country for us. Great name post… now I know why people keep their names to theirselves.
Comment by annie p — March 25, 2007 @ 2:38 am
I’m so glad to have found your blog! We’re looking into adoption now too, Russia looks like the country for us. Great name post… now I know why people keep their names to theirselves.
Comment by annie p — March 25, 2007 @ 2:39 am
I’ve had lots of names, both boys and girls, in my head for years and years. BUT when it came time to get serious about naming our potential son, the names disappeared and I couldn’t think of any. When we decided to adopt from Russia we made the decision to wait to see what the referrals name would be. If we liked it, we’d keep it… if not, we’d come up with something different and keep it as his middle name or maybe even a third name. I was secretly hoping for the name Nikolai. Love that name!! When we found out our son’s name was Ivan… well, I wasn’t too happy. I didn’t care for the name Ivan or Vanya as they called him. Vanya sounded like a girls name (shhhh, don’t tell him that!). We came up with the name Evan. Which in Russian Ivan is pronounced like “E-von” so Evan wasn’t so far off. We were okay with this decision. Then we met our son. He was not an Evan. He was definitely an Ivan. So, we were torn. It began to grow on me. Then we found out his full name. His middle name was a combo of his birthfather’s first name with “vich” added to it (a common thing to do in Russia). So we knew that his bioMom named him and put some thought in to it. We didn’t keep his middle name, but decided we’d keep the name Ivan. We wanted to let him keep the one and only thing that truly belonged to him. What is more personal than someone’s name? So… our son is named Ivan Michael (my husband has always wanted his son to have the middle name Michael). We still get people who, when they find out his name is Ivan, ask… “was that the name YOU gave him or did he come with THAT??” ;o)
Comment by Denise :o) — March 27, 2007 @ 4:51 am
Great discussion on names, Christen! I’ve had names for boys and girls in my head for a long time but it really took meeting my son to come up with his name. We were going to give him an American name and use his Russian name as his middle name. I did a little poll with some close friends and they liked the way it sounded better with the Russian name first and the American name as his middle name. And, it just fits him so well! Rob and I will let him opt to use his American name as his first name for school, etc, if he wants to one day. I agree with you about The Race on Sunday night–it was a good one! I was sad to see Teri and Ian go, too! She looked good this season with the longer hair! Hope you are having a great week!
Smiles,
Michelle
Comment by Michelle — March 27, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Hi Christen
I just found your blog a couple of weeks ago and love it! I also love this name discussion. Having adopted our two boys from Russia, we dealt with the same issues as you. We knew we wanted to choose new names for them (just because we adopt doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have the same right to give our children whatever names we choose). And we kept an open mind about keeping their Russian names as middle names. Once we met them, we didn’t care for their Russian names and neither of the boys identified themselves with the names (more with the nicknames the caregivers called them). So we didn’t feel too bad when we decided to use family names for the middle. We did add their Russian names as a second middle name but they are very rarely used. The boys know if I call out their full name, using both middle names, then they are in BIG trouble:)
Anyway, loved the post as we deal with family that is constantly throwing out suggestions for our next little one (we’re waiting for a referral for a little girl right now). It drives me insane!
Comment by Allison — March 29, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
Hi Christen, I found your blog recently, and enjoyed your posts on names! We are adopting a 7 year old girl from Russia. We have 3 bio. kids so we were faced with the special challenges of adopting an older child who already has an identity attached to their name and wanting her to not just blend into America, but into her new family with 3 siblings with very American names (Kristen, Jack, and Ben). My favorite name for a girl for years has been Kate. Our referral’s name: Katya (nicknamed for Ekaterina)! Only one of the many ways I know it was meant to be. We ended up naming her Katerina with the intention of calling her Kate, but in the end decided we liked Katya best (as we know her) and will continue to call her that.
Comment by Rachael — March 31, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
So far we have kept our children’s names from Ethiopia and Korea as their middle names. We are requesting older children this next time around, though, and are considering leaving the Ethiopian name first…
Mary, mom to many, half adopted from Ethiopia and Korea
PS - Here from Elle’s
Comment by Owlhaven — April 3, 2007 @ 5:59 am
I’ve met Oleg, and he does indeed look like and Oleg.
We added American first names to the front of our children’s Russian names and of course our family name after their names. We say we are hugging their Russian selves with their family selves.
For a long time we used both names, or just one, or just the other. Now the American-Russian combo is our private family snuggle name. It’s nice.
Comment by :: Suzanne :: — April 16, 2007 @ 8:02 am
I’m so glad I found your blog! I just have to add my two cents to this discussion. We had a lot of name discussions before we brought home our first son from Russia in ‘99. We didn’t know what to do. His name was Bogdan…and we just knew he would get teased unmercifully on the playground someday, but we knew we wanted to keep some of his Russian heritage. We decided to give him an American sounding first name and a different Russian middle name. (We ended up staying up all night one night negotiating a first name!
It turned out so well we did that for his brother and sister when we brought them home in ‘02. Now we’re getting ready to head to Ukraine for the final one and are having a horrible time coming up with a first name…we’ve got the Ukrainian middle name already picked out…Zoia. We may have to have another all-nighter to find a first name! Good luck on the name thing and the adoption! 
Comment by Tami — April 21, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
I love love love my children’s Russian/Ukrainian names and never had thoughts of renaming them. Plus it keeps them non-traditional or the same as three other kids in their classrooms.
People have had the same reaction that they think they are pretty names. Usually people just think it is a family name. Which reminds me my name is actually Russian based and growing up there were not alot of Leanna’s. I was the only one in my school. Now I am middle aged and proud to have a non traditional name just like those of my brothers and sister.
Yes they are my children now there names were just another piece of them that I loved when I met them!!!
Comment by adoptedthree — May 10, 2007 @ 11:12 am
BTW there names are Vitaly Nikolai and Oksana-
Comment by adoptedthree — May 10, 2007 @ 11:13 am