At our adoption forum, I asked members who adopted an infant, how much input their child’s birth mother had in choosing the child’s first name. Here’s what they had to say;
1. She had picked out “a name. We chose a name that starts with T (we made it up). She really like that, too, and the fact that it “goes with” her son’s name.
2. We met with our girls’ birth mom a week before they were born (she had chosen us a week before that). She asked what we were planning on for names. We told her and she liked them, but never told us what she would have chosen if she parented. I got the distinct impression from her that she felt like it wasn’t “her place” to choose their names since she wasn’t planning on parenting – but I didn’t ask and she didn’t offer.
3. From the start she has said she was ours and we should pick the name.
4. In most of our cases with domestic adoption, we were told of names the birth mother had chosen—either on her own, or because a caseworker told her it might be a good idea. In all cases, we changed the names.
5. When we met the placing mother, she said that it was very important to her for the baby to have a name on his birth certificate. She did not want to name him after his birth father, so she said that, if we would tell her the name that we had chosen, she would put that name on his original birth certificate. She liked the name, and we have been told that she did use our name choice for his original birth certificate.
’6. We had a first name picked out, although we didn’t have a middle name when we met our daughter’s birth mother. We liked her so much (and still do!) that my husband and I quickly agreed we wanted to honor her by giving the baby her name as a middle name, if she was a girl. Her birth mother was moved to tears when we told her that’s what we were going to name the baby (after we found out it was a girl). We never even expected a birth mother to give us input in that decision, but I’m glad she seems to like the name.
7. I’m answering this one in relation to our latest adoption. (We didn’t meet our son’s birth mom and never had any contact, so names were a non-issue) Anyhow, when it came to picking our other son’s name we asked her if she had any names she liked. We chose that as his middle name.
8. Our children’s birth mom’s had no say about the names we choose for our children; however, upon learning that she had been calling our daughter by the name of Bridget for the 5 days before we got custody of her, we decided to keep that name and moved it to her middle name instead of her first. Her birth mom was very, very touched that we did that.
9. My girls’ birth mom didn’t have any input into their names. In fact, the day we met in person (one week after match, one week before birth) she asked what names we had chosen and why. She liked them, and nothing more was said.
10. My son’s birth mom named him one name and we didn’t like it so we changed it. We were instructed to never tell her the name we had chosen. Not sure why that was, but we didn’t.
11. With the boys, she asked us what we wanted to name them. We got a call from the social worker confirming and re-confirming the names. With our daughter, we changed her name. Her original name was just not something that fit in our family. I wanted to talk to her birth mom about it, but she went MIA. I wrote her a letter and told her that we changed her name, but I don’t know if she got it. It ended up that her middle name is her birth mothers first name.
**As a side note…..I haven’t checked the comments in a while so if you commented recently and didn’t see it posted, I apologize and I will be doing that right now. 
