More on Baby James' Name

Alex has been sharing the news of our referral with anyone who will stop long enough to listen and look at pictures (a very large email was sent out to his friends and colleagues apparently). It's very sweet that he's so excited to be a dad and between the two of us we've been consumed with signing papers and getting a handle on everything we need to do before we travel to meet James.

Alex has several Korean colleagues and was sharing the news of our adoption referral with them this week. One colleague (born in Korea and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was a kid) is incredibly generous and has offered to help us find connections within the Korean community in which he's very active. Alex was explaining our desire to help James stay connected to his Korean heritage and the subject of James' name came up.

In our referral, James is listed with a Korean family name and with a given name. They are written, as is proper in Korea, with the family name first and the given name second: Family Name, Given Name. Kind of a last name first if you compare it to how we write our names in the U.S. But we're assuming the family name that's listed isn't really his but is something that's given by SWS (privacy issues). We anticipated, as mentioned in an earlier post, keeping his given name as his middle name. Our reasoning, correct or not, was that this is the name his birth parents gave to him. I felt much more of an attachment to his given name for those reasons. I can't imagine that he would grow up and really care about a name that an agency might have assigned to him.

When Alex told his colleague James' full Korean name, the colleague was really happy because he said "oh, if he's a XXX, that's great! That's such a prestigious family name in Korea! You have to keep that as part of his name if you're going to keep a Korean name for him." This colleague was actually able to explain the stereotypical characteristics of people that have this family name noting to Alex that boys with this name are very even tempered but girls you "have to be careful about." He went on to discuss how important the family names are and that everything is ranked on the family name. He very enthusiastically encouraged us to drop the given name and keep the family name.

When Alex came home later and we talked about it, the conversation made me really sad. I was happy that we have another contact to the Korean community but sad to hear the importance that's placed on family names. Assigning characteristics to a group of people that numbers in the millions based on a name seems silly to me but culturally this is something that we don't really have in the U.S. Are all XXX boys even tempered? I doubt it. It's like saying every male with Smith as a last name is even tempered. Plus the conversation was a reminder that with the importance placed on the family name (father's name), single moms and babies born out of marriage in Korea have a long road ahead of them.

So my plan now is to find out exactly who provided what names to this baby that we'll call James. Whatever his birth parents gave him, we'll keep. The connection to them is what matters to us and hopefully will be what matters to him someday. On the other hand, if XXX is James' real family name and there's truth to the stereotypes, we've really lucked out because we've been referred a very even-tempered and intelligent child!

We'll keep you posted!

Lauren