Name

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet." Juliet Capulet

"God has highly exalted Jesus and has freely bestowed on Him the Name that is above every Name." Philippians 2:9

Name, Names, Naming- has been on my mind.

For several months we have been praying together about changing Miss Beautiful's name after she is adopted. We realize this is a very controversial topic so we have really kept this part of our adoption process to ourselves.
Well, at first I didn't plan on keeping it to myself, but after I told two friends with opinions ranging from, "Why would you do that? Her identity is in her name!" to, "Oh, that is the greatest idea". We could see that it needed to be kept quiet.
Many people have set opinions about "to change or not to change" a child's name after adoption. The following is purely the opinion of our family and what we have come to realize after prayer and consideration for what is best for our family.

After praying about it, we then sought counsel from other families who adopted older child/ren and how they handled name changes. Surprisingly, we found that DHS recommends that it stays the same, but that almost all families we asked did chose (as a family with the child's consent) to change the child's name after adoption. They agreed that the adjustment to a new name was challenging, but that the benefits outweighed the negatives.

I reflected on this a lot, the naming of a child that is and the benefits of it. As moms we are given the great responsibility to provide for our children. I provide food, love, school, prayer, clothes, a home, and even though it is often mixed with impatience on my part, I am still trying to 100% provide all that they need. What seemed difficult for me to understand was providing almost everything, except her name.

I know that before adoption the first family was given the honor to choose a name and I believe after adoption the forever family also gets to share in this honor. With our first two kiddos we chose to keep part of their birthnames as their middle name. We think it is a beautiful connection to their birth family. We do not want to strip anything away from our children by renaming them, if anything, we want it to be a connection to both their birth and forever families.

Almost all mom's dream about naming their child. Whether the child comes to your family from your heart or your womb, there is something magical about choosing the name of your child. I really believe that this is one of the deepest areas of bonding. It is similar a wedding day, taking a new last name.

We also realized that it is also Biblical, as God changed many names at various ages. Such as Jacob to Israel or Saul to Paul, when they came to know Him in their new life. Exactly why did He choose to show their newness in this way? He could have chosen anything to show they were a new person, but He chose to change their name.

Because of her age, 12 1/2, we did want to respect her feelings in this area of course. Therefore talked openly with her about it being her choice and a family decision.
And we have been throwing around many names for quite some time seeing what she/we thought. We would call her a name for a week or so and see if it fit. We had some close winners too and funny ones as well. My personal favorite, Svetlana. If I lived in Russia, this would be my daughters name, so she was spared. And yes, I am serious.

We have already started calling her by her new name. And it has been an adjustment. We have explained it to the little kids several times. Even tonight Avi Joy asked, "Now what is her real name?" We tell them that just like how they were born with a beautiful Vietnamese name, she was born with a birthname as well. Then when they were adopted, we kept part of that name and changed their name to the name God gave us for them.

The meaning of names is very important to our family. Avi Joy means, "My Father's Joy". Nehemiah mean, "God's compassion". And Miss Beautiful's new name means, "Cared for by God".

She has started telling everyone at school, church and family on her own, so that has been exciting for us to watch. She said that yesterday at school (she attends a school on Tues/Thurs and we do school at home on MWF) all her friends love her new name. I know it is an answer to prayer because I thought the hardest place to change was going to be kids at school who wouldn't understand the change.

This week we turned in all our paperwork to our lawyer. This started the ball rolling on her adoption process in court. Actually this is when the new name really was settled in our hearts. Our lawyer called and said, "Choose it tonight, call me in the morning". It was the "choose to change it or not" moment, and we knew the right decision for our family was to chose a new name.
The paperwork has to go through several hoops, including two judges before we are seen in court in our local town and our expected finalization is still scheduled for sometime between January-March.

"And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds.]" Colossians 3:15, AMP

The Perryman's