Adding a middle name?

[IWantedSnapeToLive]

Did you / would you?
Would you chose a family name or just a name that you love / would've chosen?
Did you remove the existing middle name or add your name as an additional?

After reading so much about the first name changes and sense of identity etc. I may have fallen down a rabbit hole and caused myself a complete panic about what the right thing to do is RE: middle names, so I'd appreciate any help.

We aren't even matched with a child yet, corona just has me in a cycle of obsessing over things.

Hi,

I think it will depend completely on the circumstances. My LO was nearly 5 when she came home, so I didn't even consider changing her first name.

I removed her old middle name and I still have mixed feelings about that decision.

I added a traditional family middle name, which I continue to feel really positive about. LO does too - she knows I gave her that part of her name along with her new surname. Naming my child (even if only a middle name) was really important to me and I sometimes call her by both names together. It's a name I love as well, and have always wanted to use, so it covered everything!

I had a lot of mixed feelings about her first name for various reasons, but I would never change it now - that's who she is. I would never have chosen it, but now I really like it.

Good luck!

We gave all 3 of ours 2 new middle names each and removed the old ones. One was a family name and one was the name of strong individuals connected to our last names. We discussed it with the kids before going ahead with it and they were 100% on board with it. All of them choose to use their full names a lot and are very proud of helping pick them.

We considered all the pros and cons and for us it was the right thing to do in terms of claiming our children and taking away names that were just inappropriate. No regrets about our decision at all.

We were advised to give our LO a new first name and therefore kept the middle instead to provide that link.

I actually went into the process only intending to change my child's surname to mine on adoption, at most normalising the spelling of their name if necessary purely because I know how irritating it is to have to spell your name every time you phone someone up.

Sibling group, we discussed with them as older. My suggestion was to remove the one middle name and add two, one of their choice and one of ours with a family connection.

One wanted to keep their name exactly as it was. One wanted to change but wanted to choose just one second name. One kept second name and we chose a third name together. The other did as we suggested, choose a second name themselves and we choose them a third family name in consultation.

We kept the first name but removed a middle name and added our own.

Our DS didn’t have a middle name. We are giving him a family name from my side of the family as he has DH’s surname (I have a different one)

My sons middle name at birth is also a family name so we kept it as felt it connected both families. He has our surname. He was 3 so didn’t change his first name although it wouldn’t have been my choice. Nothing wrong with it just very common. In fact there is 3 in his year group. Whatever you chose, it will be right for your family

We gave DD1 a middle name which means a lot to my side of the family. DD2, we gave her a middle name that we loved and went with DD1s name. This is the day to day name that she uses, as there were more safety concerns for her. She is aware of her full name of course. To be honest, it's a bit of a pain and I'm worried that it will be for her as she gets older. I wish we'd swapped her first name to middle and just gave her a new first name, but our SW had threatened us with not supporting the match if we changed her name. We were scared to rock the boat until things were legal, despite being convinced it was the right thing for DD2.

We are waiting on our son's birth certificate to see if he has an existing middle name or not. We want to add one too and we're torn between 2; one is a family name but we prefer the other and it suits him better.

We kept our son's first and middle names and added a family name in between his first and middle name. Then we added our surname.

Our son did not like his middle name, and wanted to drop it and the social worker advised us to keep it. I am now glad we did.

I have some very mixed feelings about first names. But I think middle names are much easier. I think having one of two middle names is great and if it/they connect/s to wider family, even better.

We were always very clear that we felt it important to keep given names and so had no particular drive to change ours but as it happened we were advised to make changes because our LO is v identifiable as has 6 middle names and also quite bizarrely his birth family and foster carers were referring to him as one of his middle names which is the same as one of his birth brothers first names! Because of security concerns with BF it was recommended we stripped out middle names and add our own altho we do still have mixed feelings about it as others have said and I do worry how he may feel about it as he's older. We chose a middle name but ended up double barrelling his first name with it as one first name and no middle name instead. We did take care to find out the story of his previous middle names tho and very kindly his social worker included reasons for each that his BM had given in his later life letter which I thought was a nice touch. in the end it was taken out of our hands as we just couldn't take the risk he could be traced with the 8 v identifiable names he had!!

DD1 didn't have a middle name and DD2 did but it wasn't a 'special' one (checked with BM).
So they both got a middle name from us, and DD2 lost her other one.
Now they each have first name from birth family and middle name from us.

We kept my DDs middle name because it’s the middle name we would have given her anyway as it has strong family links, we changed my DSs middle name to one which has similar family links. Both children were older and very happy to have new middle names and surnames.

We kept our children's first names and they didn't have second names. We gave our son the same middle name as DH has which is special to him.
For DD we adjusted her birth surname a bit and turned it into a Christian name and used that as her middle name.

Wanted to give the perspective of an adult adoptee.

I was adopted at a young age - too young to be able to say my name or really understand or remember being called it.

My parents dropped my original middle name and replaced it with my original first name. They then gave me a first name which had meaning for them.

Not my actual names but say my original name was

Emily Louise

I am now Charlotte Emily.

My original middle name was an unusual
Welsh name (Not Louise ).

It is so unusual I have never met anyone called it and am sure my English parents would not have had a hope in hells chance of pronouncing it correctly. It could have made me identifiable so I am really pleased I «lost» it.

I am glad though that my mum and dad kept my original first name «Emily» as my middle name. It was all I had in terms of identity.

But it means a lot to me that they chose my first name. I think they got the balance right.

It was actually good they changed my first name as later in life I met my full bio sister who was born after me, stayed with bio parents and was also named «Emily». !!!!!

LockdownLove I am so glad it worked out well for you.

Mine were 5 and 6. We changed the first name of the 6 year old for safety reasons. We chose a name that is related to her original name. My daughter is happy that we changed her name. She prefers the new name and it helps her to know that she has this added layer of safety.

We gave both our daughters two new middle names. They did not have any before. They are both teenagers now and are both happy with their names.

I think all parties need to be taken into consideration. I know families who kept the original name but years on still feel the name does not "fit", others got used to the name and really like it now. Some children really take to a new name, others don"t. It is a very complicated issue.

We changed big boy's first name but kept his original first names as his middle names. We kept little boy's names and added middle names but call him by his middle name. They were both babies when they came to us.

I had to change my sons name entirely, he had an awful and extremely unsual first name, he also had a very identifiable surname. He knows his original names and we talk about them when we talk about his birth mother.

If we weren’t SM obsessed therr would have been less need to change his name.

Our son was 6 months when he came to us, and we kept his first name (as that's what he'd always been called) and kept one of his middle names (as it was the same as my husbands middle name). We took his other middle name out and replaced it with a name we would have chosen.

So he has first name (original), middle name (our chosen name), middle name (original) and surname (ours). ☺

DD was 20months when she came to live with us so we kept part of her first name (it was double barrelled and very unusual)
So we kept the first part but changed the spelling a little. Lost the original middle name and replaced with one that linked to our family.
I have mixed feelings about changing both of her names but we could NOT have kept her original double barrelled one, it was too identifying. BP only live 90 miles away and there is family in the town we live in. First name is still unusual on its own but she was too old to fully change it, we considered changing it to one that sounded similar but decided against that.

We kept unusual first name because ds already responded to it (20 months). We changed middle names as the three together made ds very identifiable and one middle name gave a certain ompiece of information. We changed them to family names.