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I think this is a tricky area and does depend very much on the age of the child and their experiences. The best place for your daughter to get advice would be from her post adoption social worker. I do think if he continues to be adamant he doesn't want to change his name, I would question if adoption is the right route for him, or if long term fostering may be a better option, as it suggests he is not ready to belong to a new family. However this might be part of him asserting who he is as he settles into a new home an trying to take control of what he can...and his views may change. In terms of other stuff, as far as I am aware, there is no law that says he must but it is part of a parent "claiming" their child as their own. In terms of the when, names are changes as part of the adoption process - the adoption order gives their (new) name. Implications - I'm not sure there are too many, other than when travelling - the adoptive parents would need to "prove" he is their child and therefore have permission to take him out of the country. For comparison, our daughter came to use aged 8 and at first she wanted to keep her surname, and add in the FC surname.....by the time we got round to sorting the adoption order she was happy to take our surname and has her birth surname as an additional middle name. With hindsight (she is now a young adult) I am not sure adoption was the right path for her as she was never really able to let us parent her and had too strong a bond with her birth family and was too damaged. As a foster child she would have had far more access to therapy and support. We also adopted two of her younger siblings, they also have their birth surname as an additional middle name, but for them we are their parents and they have allowed us to take that role.

Any legal change of name does not happen until the adoption order is granted. I don't necessarily agree that adoption may not be the right route for him but do agree with Bop that your daughter really needs to get advice from her SW about talking to him about why he want's to keep it. My son was nearly 8 when he came home, We kept his full birthname, including his surname, just addedd my surname on the end because we felt it was part of his identity. At 12 he wanted to drop the birth surname, primarily because he was very angry with the birth family at that time. I've told him if he still feels the same way when he was 18 will help him change by deed poll, in the meantime we have just dropped it from general use. Its still on all legal documents. Personaly I've never had any strong feelings about the name being part of claiming him but understand others people might. Its something else they might want to explore with their SW. Congratulations on becoming grandparents to Fred

Just a side-thought: if he doesn't change his name, it will be another thing that makes him different from his peers and there will be another set of questions to answer ("why is your name different to both your parents'?". Plus he will be easily identifiable by his birth family on social media.

A similar experience here to others: my AD (aged 6 at placement) wanted to keep her birth family surname - more to do with her own sense of identity. We kept it as a middle name, and I explained that taking my surname was part of belonging to my family to which she now belonged. I did tell her that the name change was something similar to what happened when people marry and that she could choose which name to use as her surname when she was an adult. Needless to say, after a few years she wished she could drop her birth name and I now have to explain why she has to use it on official documents etc....

He will have reasons for wanting to hold on to it - and these are what needs to be explored. Definitely see if his social worker can be involved in this. But other than that, you can see there are a variety of opinions. My kids wanted claimed and having our surname is important to them. One dropped any association with BPs and only her first name remains (although she wanted to change that, but we didn't let her, she was too young to make that decision) and the other wanted his first name and middle name. We didn't give them any choice about taking our surname. Overall, it's maybe just something to put to the side until the adoption order comes through, see how things have panned out? And congratulations on your new grandson! My boy is very bright too. While it makes him feisty and leads him to ask very pertinent questions, it has allowed us to talk to him about his situation and helped him become a really empathetic, understanding and kind boy. Best of luck to you all xx

Congratulations on your new grandson! I'm afraid I can't really help with your query, but just wanted to say it is good to see other adoptive grandparents posting on the forum. My adopted granddaughter was too young to know about her names when placed, but my daughter and son in law took the naming issue very seriously. There was much discussion about it and they ended up keeping her original first name, giving a new middle name and their surname. My granddaughter has had to deal with a lot of anxiety, but she is very bright too; being able to talk with her and explain things really does help her to cope. It sounds like it is early days in the placement for your grandson; I'm sure that, with support from the social worker, his worries about his name will be resolved. I hope all goes well!

We had this with our son, he was adamant he was not going to change his surname to begin with, and I think I posted a similar question on here. Advice was to change it to ours and I think that was absolutely right. We incorporated it as a middle name instead and made sure he knew how much we wanted him to be a 'our surname' alongside working with him on how we were all family together now. By the time we got the adoption order (we left it some time) the surname was no longer a problem for him and subsequently he has been happy to identify himself as a 'our surname', in fact I think very important to him.

We didn't present it as an option. Getting through customs at Dover when we fostered as2 pre adoption order was complicated enough ( Because he had a different surname from us I think they thought he was being trafficked or something! We had to have a letter from SW confiming who he was and that it was ok for us to have him with us) It was also very complicated sorting out enough paperwork evidence for his first passport, not to mention all the questions he got at school and clubs having different surname from us and as1. We just said when you are adopted officially then you will become a member of the ( our surname) family and that will be your surname. We said he could keep his old one as an extra middle name if he wanted ( this was just as2, as as1 just wanted to shed his old name ASAP.) I think that as2 saw it as part of his identity and did choose to keep it as a middle name but now says he wishes he hadn't and enjoys the anonymity of being " ordinary" at school. I just renewed his passport last week and all went smoothly this time. ( gosh , how time flies)

Thank you everybody for your views. We have bigger issues to deal with at the moment than to worry about surnames. As one respondent said - it is early days and, like most other children, Fred has deeper problems to work through. Thanks again - expect more questions as time goes on!