Changing first name

[mollymollymoo]

Hi
It's looking really likely that we've been matched with a little girl - very excited! However - her current name is so identifying and ridiculous that even our social worker has said they can work with us to change it.
She'll be nearly 2 when she comes home.

Does anyone have any experience of this, the practicalities etc?

This is our 2nd adoption and we would have been more than happy to keep her name otherwise.. but really it is awful and not fair on her to have to grow up with it!!

No that’s right Dontbuymewocks. It’s almost as if the courts take the view that the adoptive parents, who have been carefully selected, trained, interviewed , police and medically checked over a period of months or sometimes years, and who will be responsible for that child for the next 18 years, are in a good position to decide what is the best name for that child.

For some bizarre reason the courts seem to consider that adoptive parents are generally responsible and thoughtful people with their childs best interests at heart.

That’s what I had assumed @0rlaith, but there were so many references on this thread to the courts, and justifying name changes that I wondered if I had it completely wrong.

My understanding is that nothing related to name change takes place at the court. Name change is discussed extensively with the child's social worker (usually) and may well have to be justified at matching panel. Then that's it. As other people have said, adoptive parents simply write the child's name on the court papers for the adoption order. I've not heard of name change having to be agreed by the court.

We weren’t asked at matching panel about potential names changes. Our SW also didn’t really discuss it with us but, I think, just assumed we wouldn’t change DS’s name. Our first SW (we’ve had several) said that the LA doesn’t like name changes but that they can’t stop you doing it.

Would the court not get involved with if someone such as child's social worker objects to the change of name? I thought they did... ?

The social workers wouldn’t necessarily know. Ours didn’t look at our application order so if we had wanted to hide it from them, we could have.

I’m not advocating such skulduggery, just an observation!

The Guardian Ad Litem represents the child’s best interest to the court. The child’s social worker is not a party to the adoption order.

It’s about the child’s welfare, not the social worker’s opinion. Disappointing as that may be to some.

The child and their parents, both adoptive and biological , will be affected by the adoption order for the rest of their lives. The social worker will have moved onto their next case by Monday and their next job by Christmas.

Actually, such skulduggery has even been recommended on here before!

Orlaith if the child's sw and panel were against change are you saying that the guardian ad litem be aware of that and raise it with the court? O they wouldn't be aware? Or that they wouldn't raise it?

brightsunshineatlast

"Italian I think that the position re social media is that names are changed if there is actual known risk of danger, as far as the courts are concerned and that this has always been the case?"

Sometimes social workers are not honest about what the danger may be.

I felt comfortable as I felt I had some evidence of safety!

"I am not sure the courts would agree to a change of name to prevent other circumstances of children being found online?" Adoptive parents are legally allowed to change a child's name at adoption. I am not sure that they need to give any reason at all for doing this. But the child not being located by birth family due to an unusual name would seem a very good reason.

Agree with Dontbuymesocks and 0rlaith

If adoptive parents felt a name change was in the best interests of the child why would an overworked social worker feel the need to get involved, perhaps months and months after placement started?

dontbuymesocks orlaith Italian I have just looked it up and adopters can change the surname but need a deed poll to change the first name(s) which presumably means that an affidavit would need to be provided as the application providing reasons, as discussed earlier in the thread, and this presumably would need to be signed by the GaL as at that time the adoptive parents to be are not yet the official parents, or be a co signatory, and the name change proposal would be considered by the court as a "serious matter" along the lines of the case law I referred to in an earlier post.

If you are saying this isn't happening then I don't think that that is a huge shock, but it is probably something which should be addressed.

as part of the application

You seem oddly over invested, brightsunshineatlast, for someone who has no skin in the game.

I think most people care about these issues.

Where did you look this up Brightsunshine?
I’ve been talking to other adopter friends over the weekend and they all changed at least one name, and their experiences all tallied with mine. There were certainly no deed polls involved.

Sorry, no deed polls and no reasons given.

dontbuy it was here:

deedpolloffice.com/advice/adopting-children

NB I haven't checked the primary source, because I am interested but have limited time!

Ok... have just looked again and it is referring to changing the name after the AO - sorry, I was in a rush. However, I will look at this again, when I get the chance, because it seems that getting first names changed via the AO without question or consideration is at odds with the law about namechanging generally.

Surely, as the adoptive parents are in fact parents in the eyes of the law, once the adoption order has gone through, they can call their child whatever they want to? I know there are all the issues of identity and so on, but that is separate from the law. Thus there is no requirement for affidavits and so on. It is the parents decision.

mrsmatty to change a first name in any circs* other than the AO you need a deed poll which requires you to provide your reasons for the name change, and there is case law about how seriously a court considers name changes to be and what the court is required to take into consideration and so on and so forth. This applies to name changes requested by both bio and adoptive parents after the AO. Yet for the AO itself you simply write the name you want and that is it, it seems - no discussion, no reasons required, no questions asked, nothing. It seems very inconsistent.

*exception to that being the change to the birth certificate to do with name changes before 12 months

From day one of training you are told that it is very important to keep a child's name. This is discussed throughout the whole assessment. I doubt you would get through the assessment if you said you would change a child's name for any reason other than security purposes.
To say there is no discussion or it is not taken seriously is ridiculous - maybe so in the past, but not for a number of years.
Legally on the AO we change our children's name to our surname (as they become a member of our family) - having carefully considered other names (middle names for example) and going through the most thorough assessment ever it is not really inconstant with the law to then write down our child's final name.

*inconsistent

Brightsunshine, I am sure that adoptive parents do not make name changes lightly and without due consideration. Although the law allows name change at the time of the adoption order, in the case of my grandchild, there was a lot of discussion and great care went into the final decision. The first name was kept but middle and surnames changed. In their case the SWs had strong opinions and said that matching panel would need good justification for changing the first name. The SWs felt that the birth family is not a great threat in the future. LO's mum and dad are not so sure, and they keep LO well away from social media. They did decide to keep the first name in the end - but I assure you, it was much discussed. The training that adoptive parents go through is so intense, everything comes under scrutiny!

brightsunshineatlast what do you want to address? Parents making decisions on behalf of their children?

Once the adoption order is granted the child is the child of the adopted parent/s. What benefit to weaken the parental rights at the exact point where the patent legally becomes the parent?

We added a middle name with no additional paperwork. We could now use middle name as first name for day to day things. Are social workers so under-worked they need to make up things to do?

"I think most people care about these issues" I care deeply about people trying to weaken parents power to make good decisions for their children. Clearly you don't think adoptive parents can be trusted.

Why?

In order to have my birth child we paid a minimal fee for minimal assisted conception with dh. Most people just have sex!

For ds I and dh had to have medicals, submit to an assessment of our home, our finances and our lives. This process took over a year. Yet you don't seem to think we can be trusted with the decision of what to call our son.

In order not to make it personal - what about all the other adopters who are told not to change their child's name, have things said to them like 'A name is the only thing the birth patents give a child' and risk the possibility of a disruption if they express the thought that a name change would be best. Things that might be completely false and manipulative might be said.

After all that if an adoptive parent thinks a name change is in the child's best interests then I would say not to trust that parent shows a distinct lack of trust in the system that 'recruited' (for want of a better word), trained and approved that adopter.

italian Just to answer your question - "why?" - I wouldn't have said "not trusted" just as bio parents are not "not trusted" re deed polls, it is more that there is an element of judgement and subjectivity in relation to these issues, and checks and balances are a good thing.

Other than that, I am not sure there is much left to be said here because everyone has stated their case and there is agreement in some respects and not in others. There has been quite a wide variety of views expressed.