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I've had this conversation with Simba several times, probably starting at a similar age, he is 14 now. His first namr is African, we kept his birth surname as part of his last name and added mine on the end. He askec if he could change his name to Geoff, I've no idea where that comes from. He does not look like a Geoff or Jeff. We had a very long talk about it after we had finished life story work. We have come to a compromise, I'm not keen on him changing his first name, its a beautiful name, has a very apt meaning, its unique and suits him. We compromised and have quietly dropped his african surname from daily use. Its still his legal name and I've told him that if he still feels the same when he is 18 I will help him change it legally, but I don't want him making decisions in anger. I think your situation is different. Her name is in the public domain, eventually someone will make a connection. She's thought about it. If she's going to do it, it would be a good time, she could start secondary school with her new name. I would probably support her.

She seems to have thought about it and fantastic she is talking to you about it. Could you say let's try it for a period of time and if it works OK then officially do it

I think I’d be inclined to go with it as it’s her name, her choice and I would want to respect her wishes. Maybe suggest though that she gives it time, a few months to think and chat about it with you, so you and she are clear that it’s definitely something she wants to do and it isn’t just a knee jerk reaction to something that has happened recently. Probably makes sense to also do it at a time of transition, like a move of year group or even better a move up to secondary school, to minimise the attention the change causes and questions asked. It’s obviously completely diffferent but I got divorced years ago and decided to change my name back to my maiden name. I felt very awkward about it at work as I didn’t want people knowing my personal business, but to be fair very few questions were asked and no one mentioned it (At least to my face). And after I made the transition, I felt such relief, as it hadn’t been a good marriage and I was really pleased to get rid of his family name. I felt like I was making a fresh start and he was out of my life for good. Maybe your ad feels similarly. My as also sort of decided to change his name at about 6/7. He was called something like Charlie and decided he wanted to be called Charles. He was quite adamant about it . And I went with it. To be honest he didn’t give me much choice as he corrected everyone who called him Charlie. I felt a bit uncomfortable with it at first as he didn’t feel like a Charles but after about 6 months or so I got used to it. I admire his determination really. I also do wonder if SS were right in not considering changing your ad’s name 4 years ago given the privacy and press issues... Hope that helps and good luck xx

My AD decided that she wanted to dissociate from her original given name when she was about 7 or 8 years old (adopted at 5 years). AD went with her second adoptive given name as the name that she wanted to be called. So, at adoption her name was XYZ Surname (we gave her significant names from our family to bind her to us, perhaps?) Aged about 7 she decided that she wanted to be called Y. Cool. Fine with that. Her decision. We tried it out in the home situation for a while (2-3 months? - we wanted to test whether this was a "real" thing) and then made the transition at school. The school were very supportive and did a sort of class friendship thing where they celebrated differences and ways of moving on. I put little messages on the bottom of lolly sticks for the whole class with a greeting in her new name. It seemed to work. I changed my AD's name by deed poll on her adoption day when she was 9 years old. She recently asked me (aged 16) to change it further to eradicate her first original given name completely (she went from XYZ to YZX) via deed poll. I have refused to do this so far. At 10.5 you are potentially at a really good point (new school; new identity) or not (new school; lots of teasing). Hard to tell. Happy to give you more of my experience if it will help.

Personally, to me, i would not question, whether it is a phase. In a way, it is not relevant. What is, is the fact that AD clearly wants to fully attach to you, what a fantastic choice, i am sure a lot of us wish our kids could do just that. She obviously feels very strongly and has enough memories to never want to be associated with her abusers. I am sorrry, from the little you have told us over many threads, it has still become clear to me that these people never were her family, whatever happened to her is way beyond negligience or the usual mental health/substance problems. For her to conciously want to disassociate from them must be taken seriously. Whether the name she chooses now will always be one she favours, well, time will tell. I would go with it but also say that this will be her chosen name until she is 18. I would just want to guard against possible changes every so often once teenage years start and identity becomes somehow warped anyway. What a brave girl.

Thanks everyone, I think we all seem to be on roughly the same page with this. She is still in Year 5 so we are another year away from the school change but I agree the transition would be useful. I’m not sure she could wait that long though. I just wonder if I actually have the whole story from her. She has never been great at telling us what’s on her mind and we often get a story in episodes over months. I’m sure she is holding something back, a trigger perhaps. I’m thinking of what was happening around the time she started her list. She had been in the lottery for the local carnival queen. Part of the entry conditions was if you won, your photo was in the local paper and on their website. For the last couple of years since she became eligible I’ve asked the school to keep her name out of the draw but this year I thought the risks are low and the chances of winning were about 1:60 so I’d let her go ahead with it. She didn’t win but during the voting process was, for the first time, included and was part of the buzz with her friends. She really enjoyed it and afterwards asked me why she hadn’t been in this before. I explained that I had been worried about her name and picture being in the paper but explained that I thought I had perhaps been a bit over protective in the past and felt it was up to her in the future. I wonder if the name change is a reaction to this.

Not addressing whether or not it's a good idea, but just to say probably still relatively easy to achieve with classmates at this age, perhaps more so than when older. In year 1 my son decided he wanted to change his name to that of a children's TV character, and in less than half a term had all his class calling him this. It seemed to be easily accepted by his classmates. He subsequently changed it back (completely different reasons lay behind it to your daughter). He came to me and we got the teacher to just make an announcement to the class and he was back to his original name just like that. A slightly long winded way if saying other kids likely to accept without too many questions.

Just sharing my experience I changed the kids names due to similar reasons than yours keeping their first names as second names. We therefore used to called them by their second name to help with identity forming. All the school and our families used to known them by those names. One day, my younger boy teacher told me my son had approached her telling her to call him by his first name (the one I had chosen for him). We spoke a lot about it. It gave him a sense of security and self-awareness. Now the whole school calls him by his first name. In fact, no one calls him by his BPs given name. Exploration of their feelings is crucial in those moments. Just listen, listen, listen. Don’t worry about what explanation you will give others. Hope you well

Just sharing my experience I changed the kids names due to similar reasons than yours keeping their first names as second names. We therefore used to called them by their second name to help with identity forming. All the school and our families used to known them by those names. One day, my younger boy teacher told me my son had approached her telling her to call him by his first name (the one I had chosen for him). We spoke a lot about it. It gave him a sense of security and self-awareness. Now the whole school calls him by his first name. In fact, no one calls him by his BPs given name. Exploration of their feelings is crucial in those moments. Just listen, listen, listen. Don’t worry about what explanation you will give others. Hope you well

Just wondered if you could start with just an extra name. Neither of these are adoption related. My school friend decided to go by her second name which she eventually used instead of the first. Also I remember a child who came to a youth group who was not keen on his first name. After hearing about someone he identified with from history he asked his parents if he could change his name. I presume they agreed as he then went by this new name.

It’s all or nothing with my daughter I’m afraid. We are trying the new name out at home for a couple of weeks