It is 7,500 miles from here to Ethiopia. In this land once ruled by kings I search for two special children with eyes like mine. Join me as I take this long walk down the path of international adoption. There are sure to be twist and turns, some hills and some valleys, some laughter and some tears before I reach the destination.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Ethiopian Names to Be or Not to Be?
I've known families that have made all of the choices below. Jump right in and take the poll, it should be interesting.
Our children were named by their first family in Ethiopia. Changing their given names (particularly their first name) was not an option for us. Since they are twins we did end up keeping the middle name of one (our daughter) as her middle name, and the other child (our Son) has his third name (his Ethiopian grandfather's first name) as his middle name. We then gave them both our last name. I couldn't imagine changing my stepson's name, any more than my adoptive children's name. It was a gift from their first family.
We call our daughter by both her American name and her Ethiopian name interchangably. At 20 mos, she answers with her Ethiopian name if asked, "Who's my baby?" or "who wants some peas?" so I can imagine the American name fading from use over time. We haven't readopted here in the states, but when we do, we may actually change the order of the names, Ethiopian first, then the one we chose. Food for thought...
Our current plan is to give our child an Ethiopian first name, a Dutch second name, and Scottish third name and our last name. Our other two children have Dutch and Scottish names and we want our third child to be connected to our culture as we are connected to theirs. As for what the Ethiopian name will be, we are exploring names but it is hard since I seem to be unable to find a site that will phonetically spell the names so that I can learn how to pronounce them. We may keep the given name but we are not sure.
3 comments:
Our children were named by their first family in Ethiopia. Changing their given names (particularly their first name) was not an option for us. Since they are twins we did end up keeping the middle name of one (our daughter) as her middle name, and the other child (our Son) has his third name (his Ethiopian grandfather's first name) as his middle name. We then gave them both our last name. I couldn't imagine changing my stepson's name, any more than my adoptive children's name. It was a gift from their first family.
We call our daughter by both her American name and her Ethiopian name interchangably. At 20 mos, she answers with her Ethiopian name if asked, "Who's my baby?" or "who wants some peas?" so I can imagine the American name fading from use over time. We haven't readopted here in the states, but when we do, we may actually change the order of the names, Ethiopian first, then the one we chose. Food for thought...
Our current plan is to give our child an Ethiopian first name, a Dutch second name, and Scottish third name and our last name. Our other two children have Dutch and Scottish names and we want our third child to be connected to our culture as we are connected to theirs. As for what the Ethiopian name will be, we are exploring names but it is hard since I seem to be unable to find a site that will phonetically spell the names so that I can learn how to pronounce them. We may keep the given name but we are not sure.
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