A Child Chosen - Perspectives of an Adoptive Parent

Keeping a Part of Him…I’ll Tell You This Time!

by Marcie on May 13th, 2008

One of the most important aspects naming an adoptive child is keeping a part of him, at least to us.

When we first received AJ’s referral we were very happy with his first name, Alexander, and decided to keep it. We had long ago decided that Eric’s middle name, Joseph, would also be our first son’s middle name because it was Eric’s father’s first name as well. However, Alexander paired with our entire last name is very long so we brainstormed some alternatives. Fortunately, it didn’t take long. Eric and I were looking at his picture one evening. Eric turned to look at me, said the name AJ, and then smiled. I looked down at the picture, back at Eric, and just knew that little name fit him.

With our second son the process was much more difficult and took much longer. We were not fond of the first name his birth mother had given him, nor did we like the middle name, as it is traditionally the birth father’s last name. Ideally, we wanted to honor his birth mother and keep some part of the name she had given him as well as honor his Guatemalan heritage with an Hispanic name (but we had to find one that went with our last name, right?). We were in for it…

On Christmas Eve we had our family brainstorm Hispanic names and we kept a list of ones that we liked (none of which we ended up using). Some, like Gabriel, Marcus, and Xavier, made the short list.

Like last time, we knew that we wanted my father’s name included. However, this time we had two choices; Anthony or James.

What was really interesting was that although we did not like his given name we did like his surname, rather known as his birth mother’s maiden name; Agustin.

So…without further ado…

Gus.

He is another AJ. Augustus/Agustin (we can’t decide) James. The most important thing is that we call him Gus. AJ calls him Gussie.

Gus.

I just love the sound of it.

Gus.

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POSTED IN: AJ, Countries and Domestic, Guatemala, My Family, The Bebe, birth-mother