Lots of people have been asking us “Are you keeping their names?” For those of you who don’t know us in person, and therefore don’t know their actual names, you’ll have to read this with some imagination 🙂
B-girl’s name is short (only 4 letters) easy to pronounce, and beautiful. It means “redemption” which is awesome. It’s not something you’ve probably ever heard as a name but it would just be another “unusual name”. W-boy’s name means “I have a brother”. It is longer (11 letters) and a lot harder to pronounce by looking at it (or even hearing it – usually takes people a couple times). Yet it rolls off our tongues, even the kids and I think it’s pretty cool. It does manifest a nickname of 5 letters which I use a lot (and then Natalie corrects me with his whole name).
At 8 and 7, obviously their names are much more entrenched then those adoptive parents bringing home infants and toddlers. These are names their parents gave them and the names their grandmother still calls them.
So we’ve done a lot of reading and talking to other adoptive parents. Seems that a lot of adoptive kids WANT to be given American names. I don’t know if they realize that it will help them fit in or if all things American are just “cool” and therefore they think it’s cool to have American names.
So for now the plan is to come up with American names that we would like either as a first name OR a middle name and let them decide. If they choose the American names then they will keep their Ethiopian names as their middle names.
If they decide to use their Ethiopian names we will respell W-boys name so that it is more phonetic and ideally someone looking at his printed name could at least get close the pronunciation.
Now we just have to come up with names. Hm?
I love your heart for your two new children…I can hear it in the thoughtful way you are considering each step. I think it’s great that you are giving them the opportunity to make the choice! I can’t wait to meet them!
I think that’s an awesome way to look at it. I know we talked about it at one point but I wasn’t sure what you had decided. They will probably appreciate it more since you’re letting them decide. The whole thing still just gives me chills when I think about it. I’m so excited!!
You may NOT take our name, which is . . . oh wait, it’s a secret. I think we already have a name for our boy though. So, don’t pick names that begin with “M”