In an Open Adoption, Who Names the Baby?

I haven’t been on top of blogging as I would like these past few weeks.  I was so excited for National Adoption Month, and had lots of things I wanted to write about.  I have been so wrapped up with a few big projects that I just haven’t had as much time for writing.  But before the month totally escapes me I had a few topics I have been thinking about and wanting to share.  Many of these are based on questions that most commonly come up whenever adoption is discussed.  

So first up: In an open adoption relationship who typically names the baby? 

I want to clarify that every open adoption is as different as the individuals sharing that relationship, so there really isn’t any “standard” when it comes to naming a baby who was placed for adoption. I don’t think that the word “typical” truly even applies because I have seen this issue approached so many different ways. But I like sharing examples that I have seen and particularly how we came to name our little M.  I know there are a lot of opinions on this, and I just thought I’d throw mine in the mix.       

I think, most commonly, I have seen the adoptive couple choose the name of the baby.  Often, I have seen adoptive parents select a middle name that pays tribute to the birthparents.  Sometimes the baby is given a middle name after one of the birthparents.  Or sometimes the adoptive couple asks the birthparents to pick the middle name.  We have family members who came up with a few different first names that they really liked and asked the birthparents to pick their favorite of the bunch.  I don’t think that these kinds of things are necessarily always expected, but I personally think it is nice when the name of the child reflects the birthparent or their preferences in some way.  Even couples who don’t use any of these methods often discuss names with birthparents just to get their opinions and input. 

In our case, M’s name comes from his birthmomma.

Some people are surprised by this, but it was something that we felt strongly about.  Before we ever even met Nat, we knew that we wanted our baby’s name to represent their birthparent(s) in some way.  We thought that we would most likely ask the birthparents to pick a middle name for the baby, if that was something that they wanted to do.  We made this decision for a few different reasons:

1. We wanted the birthparents to know that they would not be forgotten.  Nat told me once that when she was first considering adoption her biggest fear was that she would be forgotten.  I would NEVER want our birthparents to feel like we didn’t remember the sacrifice they made.  The gratitude we feel for our baby’s birthmomma is immeasurable.  We hoped that by including the birthparents in the naming process we could show them that we want them to be a part of their child’s life. 

2. We wanted our baby to have yet another piece of his birthparents to carry with him always. 

3. We wanted our baby to know that his parents love his birthparents.  Our working together to name a baby that means so much to all of us, is an expression of love. 

I realize that there are other ways to accomplish these objectives, and we certainly don’t think badly of adoptive couples or birthmoms that feel differently. This is simply how we felt and what we wanted to do.

At some point after Nat told us that she wanted us to be M’s parents, she told us that she had a name that she loved and that she had been calling her little baby boy by.  She told us what it was and though it was a name that we had not thought of ourselves, we really liked it.  Interestingly, it was also VERY similar to a few of our favorite names.  Spence and I talked about it and we decided to use the name Nat picked as the first name and family names for middle names. 

Yes, M has two middle names.  But when you don’t know if or when you will be able to have more kids let alone another boy, you use the names you want to use for pete’s sakes!  M’s middle names both come from his grandpa’s and we couldn’t very well choose one grandpa’s name over the other.  So he got them both.  Though M’s name is kinda long, I love that every bit of it has lots of meaning and significance.     

The way that we all agreed upon and liked M’s name so much was a sweet experience for me.  I have heard of situations where picking a name can be tricky, and I am glad that it wasn’t that way for us.  I have a hard time explaining it, but from the time we felt M bouncing around in Nat’s tummy, his name just FELT right.  And I still feel like it just suits him perfectly today.  An M by any other name just wouldn’t be the same.   

If you have any questions about adoption that you would like answered, feel free to send them my way!  We love opportunities to talk about our adoption experience and are always happy to share our thoughts!