Question about names (adoption)

[AInightingale]

Has anyone ever looked for the family of a person who was adopted years ago, under the 'closed' adoption system, and discovered that the child retained the forenames they were given by the birth parents/family? Or was the adoptive couple very strongly encouraged to change the name given at birth, to minimise the chances of the birth family tracing the child? I ask because the person has two Christian names which were very significant within the birth family, but also within the adoptive one. They aren't very common names (i.e. John/James/William) but not wildly unusual either. Is this just a coincidence, or could he have retained his birth names?

I think you are encouraged to keep first names. I looked into adoption a few years ago and there was a big thing about the name given belonging to the child and being one of the few things they keep during a big change.

Roughly how long ago?

A very long time ago, 1930s.

I bet there was no guidance or even a pattern to it in the thirties. People will have either liked it and kept it or not and didn’t. I don’t suppose there was much ‘that will be better for the child’ going on.

My granny was playing out one day and a woman asked her to push a pram up to the church and get the baby christened and she let her choose the name.

Then there would certainly have been no urging that the child’s birth name be kept by the authorities, or expectation that it would be. But, on the other hand, there was a far smaller pool of names, and the majority of people didn’t see giving distinctive, pretty or evocative names as a thing the way many do today — children were named far more by rote, after parents’ parents and the like. And siblings were often given the same name as an older sibling who’d died. Names were less a ‘unique’ marker.

So it wouldn’t be a wild coincidence that the same names were used within the birth and adoptive family, and also, if the names were significant in the adoptive family, it probably removed any rationale for changing the child’s birth name,

I can think of people I know/know of who were adopted in the 40s-60s, some of whom had their birth names changed and some who didn’t. I know of one case where the adoptive child had the same name as one of the existing birth children, but the name was kept anyway, probably because the child was not a baby when adopted. So the family had two Patricias.

My parents let a nun midwife who was there at my birth name me! And this was in the 70s!

The names were the names of two brothers of the birth father, but the middle name was also the name of the adoptive father's dad. The first name was the middle name of the adoptive dad's brother, and had become increasingly popular for boys in the 1930s. So it's anybody's guess!

I’m friends with a married couple who recently adopted 2 children. The adoption agency basically told them that changing the name of the nearly 3 year old girl would be looked down upon as part of their application, and also that it would give the birth mother a reason to object. It’s an English name but with a very different way of spelling it. The baby brother was around 6 months old and it was accepted his birth name could be changed because at that age he wouldn’t have known any different (not my words, the adoption agencies).

My late FIL was put up for adoption at birth (1940’s), though his birth name, obviously not including the surname, was eradicated, for want of a better term, by the couple who adopted him.

Yes, I would have thought that it would have been more common to change the birth name years ago. The adoption agencies emphasised secrecy and a complete break, and obviously the birth mother would have known how old the child was, and retaining the names would have made them easier to find, or even just stumble across, if both families lived locally.

But it doesn't make any difference. Whatever you say to the adoption agency, once the adoption order is signed, you can do whatever you like in terms of name changing. This is now legally your child. (Though one would hope no one would unnecessarily change the name of a child old enough to have a sense of herself under that name.)

Agencies understandably stress that it's one of the things that can foster an ongoing sense of connection to birth parents in adopted children, but they're also pragmatic enough to recognise that in some cases, where birth parents or families might be a risk to the child, that a very unusual name, or an unusually spelled name, can make the child too readily identifiable online, even if the adoptive parents have a total SM lockdown, and are very careful about school photos etc ending up on the internet.

@LovelyAnd I get what you are saying and I agree to an extent.

it took my friends two and a half years, adaptions in their home, constant pressure and scrutiny within an inch of their lives, not forgetting all the stress that went with it, but wholeheartedly willing to adopt two children from the most horrific upbringing that you couldn’t make it up, as a lot of people wouldn’t believe it.Maybe the couple were too compliant/scared that they had one chance at adoption being unable to have a child of their own.

My second hand experience, yours, I have no idea, but each to their own yeah?

Sorry, I can't speak to as late as the 1930s, but I have traced relatives who were adopted in the 1920s. I really don't know what the 'closed' adoption system is.

I am a DNA match to a woman born in London in 1950. In helping her to work out how we are related I found that her mum and her aunt were both adopted.

I am related to two sisters (the mum and the aunt of this person), one was born in 1918 and the other in 1919 in London. The mother of these two was a widow who had been born in County Galway in 1888 and was living in London by 1918 after her husband had died in 1913.

By the time of the 1921 Census they were in foster care together a long way away.

In the 1921 Census, each of them were recorded as a 'Foster Child' under their original birth names. When it came to their parents (Column e - orphanhood) it said "NK" - not known. Although I believe that both parents were still alive at this date.

They were adopted at some time after 1921. I have no idea when but I would guess that it was some time in the 1920s. They were adopted by an Irish doctor and his wife who lived in Wembley.

By the time of the 1939 Register, one sister had kept her original forename but the other had it changed. It would seem that the adoptive parents liked one of the names but were not so keen on the other. They both had the surname of the adoptive parents.

One was named Teresa and kept that name. The other was originally named Margaret but by 1939 was going by the name of Joan. At this time the sisters were living above an Italian restuarant in London SW1, one sister was working there as a waitress and the other was a domestic servant.

So, all I can say in response to your question:

"...discovered that the child retained the forenames they were given by the birth parents/family? Or was the adoptive couple very strongly encouraged to change the name given at birth"

I don't know if they were encouraged or not, but one sister kept her birth name and the other sister was given a different name. They were adopted together.

What I mean by closed adoptions @Another2Cats is the old approach - child handed over to adoptive parents and never told they were adopted, let alone any details about their birth parents, raised as though they are the biological child of the adoptive couple. That certainly was the case for my father and his sister. And they continued to believe that for 50 years, when my aunt needed her long BC for something and it couldn't be traced. Adoption was suggested as an explanation and the story then came out when she asked older family members.

I think the practice changed because as her experience showed, it is very hard to conceal the truth. And also because so many health conditions are hereditary, though tbf that wasn't considered much back then. I'm not sure how much children or the birth parents are told nowadays, obviously children from abusive scenarios need to be protected.

Certainly in the 1950’s babies were given to adoptive parents at around 6 to 8 weeks old. Obviously some were older and possibly sometimes younger.

Once legally adopted it was entirely up to the adoptive parents as to whether birth names were kept and whether they told the adoptee when older that they were adopted. Often first names were changed but middle names retained.

My father was 9 months old I believe. He was obviously called something apart from Baby Boy Surname!

My personal knowledge from a later closed adoption (1970) is the baby kept the two given names (first and middle). Though the adoptive parents could have elected to change it, they liked it and were happy to keep it.

That's interesting @Bellflowers. I'd like to think he was named by his birth mother (and father) but not sure, and getting the BC would be incredibly difficult.

Adoption you can change name. Older children sometimes help choose name. Original name can be kept as middle name if you want

I know of a family in my wider family circle who adopted 3 children in the early 1960s. The child’s first name was changed but their birth names were their second names. I thought that was nice.