Lost and Found
By T. Daily, An Adopt4Life Community Parent
Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana and often associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," which translates as: "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten."
In every culture, names have meaning. They can connect us to the past, our personality, or purpose.
We know words have power and what a child is called can be a form of limitation or liberation.
When I first learned of my daughter’s name, I was concerned to be honest. She’s a Black girl with a disability who just joined our family, and she’d be going to a new school where she’d be the minority. Not to mention, her three middle names are just as unique as her first. I didn’t want her to have to worry about one more thing that made her stand out from her peers. In her file from the agency, the adoption worker noted the meaning of her name was unknown. It’s an Afrocentric name so there was an assumption it was fictitious.
That didn’t sit right with me. I doubted her name was an afterthought and decided to do a quick Google search. I eventually found out the name was two words from a different language, which translated in English means ‘God’s gift’.
Despite how beautiful and original her name is, my daughter prefers to use her initials when introducing herself. Like all children, she wants to blend in and have a ‘normal’ (Anglo Saxon) name instead of the name her maternal grandfather chose for her. At first, I went along with it because I didn’t want to stress her out whenever we met someone new. But over time, I realized I was doing her a disservice by normalizing this form of erasure. What kind of message was I sending to my daughter if I allowed her to think something was wrong with her name? When I addressed it with her, I explained that her name is directly linked to her cultural identity and there was no need to be ashamed. Especially because there was a lot of thought and prayer put into choosing her name and it’s a reminder of the blessing she is to others.
In contrast, my sister and I each have a first, middle and last name with five letters and two syllables. We love our names and have prided ourselves on their simplicity and familiarity. Many immigrants Anglicize their names as a strategy to be accepted in society with the hope that if they can hide their ethnicity, they have a higher chance of being successful.
As a Black woman, each time I write my name I am reminded that it is not my own and it does not represent my family. My relatives were bought and sold and were given the identity of those who owned them. They were catalogued on slave ships and listed alongside cattle and other personal property. I have no idea where my family tree begins other than perhaps somewhere in West Africa.
As adoptive parents and caregivers, we’re fully aware that we will be raising children experiencing loss, grief and trauma. We know some adoptees will spend a lifetime connecting the dots of their life story. Similarly, Black people in North America are in a perpetual state of an identity crisis as they try to make sense of present-day circumstances with roots in colonialism. We are grappling with being estranged from our homeland, language and culture. Parenting through this trauma is complex yet inevitable. Our children’s experiences are not so foreign to us because we understand what it is to lose parts of yourself.
My daughter doesn’t want to change her last name and I had never planned to. She shares the same last name as her biological mother and siblings, and it gives her a sense of belonging that I could never provide. Recently, she casually mentioned she may hyphenate her last name with mine…as open-minded as I am about this, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited at the possibility.
The opinions expressed in blogs posted reflect their author and do not represent any official stance of Adopt4Life. We respect the diversity of opinions within the adoption, kinship and customary care community and hope that these posts will stimulate meaningful conversations.
