Respecting names: Ethiopian transnational adoptee name changes, retention and reclamation

ABSTRACT

Although changing, retaining, or reclaiming names can be powerful statements, there is a confounding lack of research concerning naming practices in transnational adoption. Drawing from 40 in-depth interviews with adult Ethiopian-origin adoptees from North America, Europe and Australia, this paper examines how the personal names of transnational adoptees can be used to displace from and alternatively reconnect with home cultures. More specifically, transnational adoptees discuss the loss, retention, and reclamation of original ethnic names through the lens of ethno-racial respect and culture keeping. Moreover, studying Ethiopian adoptees, who typically differ from their adoptive parents in ethnicity, birth nationality and/or racialized identity, will elucidate how an immigrant background and a Black racial identity plays a factor in adoptee naming experiences. Therefore, this paper positions the naming practices of Ethiopian transnational adoptees within the sizable literature on immigrant and African American names.

KEYWORDS:

• Personal names
• transnational adoption
• Black identities
• culture keeping
• respect
• Ethiopia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Christian influences in Ethiopia date back to the 1st century AD while Islam came to the nation in the 630’s AD.

2 The study has received ethical clearance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Institutional Review Board (IRB #: IRB-FY21-103).

3 From a disciplinary perspective, works on respect proliferate in moral philosophy and to some extent, social psychology (Buss 1999). The often-referenced genesis for this work is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s treatise on moral theory centering respect for persons (Atwell 1982; Bratu 2017). Based on Kantian philosophy predicated upon the notion of inherent human worth and dignity, moral philosophers argue for universal bestowal of respect on all persons by virtue of their personhood (Janoff-Bulman and Werther 2008).