What's in a name?

My family asked me about this so I want to be clear and let everyone know: "Joel" is not my son's real name. My son has probably never heard the name Joel in his entire life. It's a code name given to him by Reece's Rainbow so that his identity is protected while he's shown to prospective parents. They could have called him "Number 613," but that would have made him a slab of meat. But out of respect Reece's Rainbow gave him a human name. We do refer to our son as Joel when talking about him, but when he comes home he'll have a different name.

Q: Does he have a name given to him by his birth country?

A: Yes. I'm sure it's beautiful!


Q: You don't know what it is?

A: Nope. I don't know that we'll even learn it before we make our first trip to U. (Two trips total.)

Q: Will you choose to keep his birth name?

A: We don't know. It depends on what it is and how it comes across in our culture. Some people choose to make their adopted child's birth name into their US middle name. But unless we change our minds (which we might), we're settling on whole new first and middle names. And of course he gets a whole new last name: ours! His cultural identity is important to us, but being a part of this family with our name is most important to us.

Q: What names are you leaning towards?

A: It changes depending on the day. We may keep it a secret and reveal it as part of a fundraiser. We have learned to stick to names that are easily pronounceable. (Sorry Laelia.) Let's just say for now all the names I come up with are awesome and all the names Charley comes up with are not as good as mine. ;)

And that's a problem because I promised my husband he could have the final say in his son's name. :)


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UPDATE (12/19/11): Charles decided on his son's name. We will reveal his name in our first fundraiser for him that will happen after the holidays. Stay tuned! Exciting!

ANOTHER UPDATE: We just found out our son's birth name! We can't share it for privacy reasons, but it's cool to know! (We're still going with Charley's name.)