Her name

I just thought I'd post briefly on Anya's name. I know that naming is a hot topic in the adoption community. People often wonder if they should keep their child's birth name or rename them. As you know we kept Oksana's name. The first time we heard it we absolutely loved it. Since she was already 5 it was a no brainer for us to decide to keep it. To this day I am thrilled with that choice. I love the her heritage is connected to her name and while it is sometimes mispronounced it is always a great opportunity to share our adoption with people. Because we kept Oksana's name our goal was to also keep the birth names of any children who followed, unless it was a name that would never fly in the US.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we first heard Anya's birth name. I can't tell you what it is until our adoption is complete but our first impression was, "OK we can live with that." So for a few days we used it frequently in conversation and shared it with some friends and family members. We found that as we used it more, we liked it less. We were getting strange reactions from people, which normally doesn't bother me but my own uncertainty about it was just amplified by this. I found myself wanting to say "I didn't name her" everytime someone asked her name! When we talked about it again we decided that if we changed her name we would want it to be something close to her birth name. We thought of a couple of options that for one reason or another wouldn't work but when the name Anya came up we knew that was it. It will not be a hard transition at all since it contains a portion of her real name and it keeps that Eastern European heritage that we love so much about Oksana's name.

For middle names we always choose a family name. Oksana is named after Larry's sister. Anya will be named after my grandma and great grandma, and Larry's grandma. They are all Rose or Rosemary so Anya will be Anya Rose.