# Changing A Name



## Wyxie (Apr 10, 2013)

I posted in another thread that I had changed my daughter's name on placement and have since had a lot of PMs asking about this.  Lovely though it is to hear about everyone's coming children, I thought it might be helpful to post a bit more information about it.

A number of people have asked how I broached the subject of a name change with Social Workers.  We actually didn't, in our daughter's case it was necessary and that had already been decided, but I do know a number of people who have successfully persuaded Social Workers that a name needs to be changed.  I would recommend broaching the subject from a child protection point of view, i.e. does the Social Worker have concerns about the child being too easily traced because of their "unique" name.  Social networking makes this a very real concern and at least in our local area, the chances are if a child has a very unusual name and is young, a name change will be agreed.  Of course once you have the adoption order you can change your child's name to anything you want, but introducing a new name at that stage might be very confusing, and if you ever wanted to adopt again, questions would be asked.

Actually changing the name is very confusing even for a young child.  The recommended way of doing this is normally that the new name is introduced initially as a middle name.  So if your child is called John and you want to change it to Bob, you start off by calling them John Bob for a few weeks, then start switching it round and sometimes calling them Bob John, gradually the John is phased out and they're just called Bob.  Timescale for doing this is normally around 6 weeks but could be longer for an older toddler with good understanding and they may have some resistance to identifying themselves with the new name at first.  In our area they ask the foster carer to introduce the new name as a middle name even before you go to panel, as it's a lot less confusing if the change comes while they're still with their familiar carer.  They then start to use the new name more after the match is approved, gradually dropping the old name.  If for any reason the match wasn't approved, the new name would just be forgotten about.  By the time you meet your child the new name is already there, although there's still some work to do.

We also talked in the third person all the time so that Wyxling heard her name lots, and also heard us being called Mummy and Daddy of course.

If your child is old enough to talk to about a name change it's a bit different and the SW and you would probably need to do work with the child about why the name needs to be changed and how the new name was chosen, but name changes for children over 2 are generally quite rare.

The only other thing I would add, is please don't underestimate how confusing this can be for a young child, at what is already an absolutely terrifying time for them.

Hope that answers some questions.

Wyxie


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## thespouses (Jan 5, 2006)

That is really interesting Wyxie.

I am very curious to know from other adopters who either had to (or were "allowed" to) name an older child (or have an older birth child), how you have approached either naming/changing the name of a younger AC, or alternatively how you have approached NOT choosing the name of a younger AC.

We named our little boy because he didn't have a name on his birth certificate, and was clearly far too young to have any inkling of what he was called (well, nothing).  Bmum was happy for us to do this.  But a subsequent AC may well come with a name and it may well be one that either we need to change, or that we aren't allowed to change.

How did you approach the issue with your existing child? How did you explain that the child would come with X name (and we aren't going to change it) or that they would come with X name but we are going to call them Y? (or, did you not tell the older child the younger child's old name if you were going to change it - or not tell them why, at least?)


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