So Annie has semi-legally been Annie Rose Muller for Ventura County DCFS purposes since October, but now it’s new-birth-certificate official, and I thought I’d explain why we picked her name.
First of all, why rename her? This is actually controversial in adoptive circles, and if she had been old enough to talk or answer to her name when we first got her, we might have done things differently. I asked her bio parents why they picked her old name of Shaelee, and they just liked the way it sounded, so it wasn’t a historic family name or anything. It wasn’t a name we would ever choose, no one could ever pronounce or spell it, she herself could not say it when she came to us, and because of privacy, we decided we would change it. We have deep reasons for why we picked everyone else’s name when they joined our family through birth, and we didn’t want her to feel that we cared any less about her name/identity or that she was an outsider in our family. She is a Muller!
There is a lot that those of us who grew up in caring biological families take for granted with our identity. Our name was selected by our parents, our story is one of parents who loved each other and made a family with God’s blessing, we have family lore that we can lean into that helped shape the way we are today. (For the Willetts, the importance of education goes back generations–we are teachers and educators–and for the Tata side of the Muller family, the Italian heritage is all about valuing the family.) Our kids absolutely have imbibed the stories of their great- and great-great-grandparents after whom some of them are named, and it’s part of who they are. For a child who is not growing up in her family of origin, not all of those things are a given. A lot of his or her story is about things that happened to them, outside of their control, and often the biological family heritage includes criminal activities that can be a source of shame or confusion and other mixed feelings. So it was very important to us to give Annie a name that highlights our hopes and dreams for her, how precious she is to us and to God, and that her identity is so much more than the things that happened to her before and when she was born. Having special needs and being adopted will always be part of her story, and we will never hide those things from her or treat them as shameful, but they are not the full picture of who she is.
So Annie. Obviously we love traditional Biblical/British names. Anne has always been on our short list. It means “grace” and “favor,” so it’s a wonderful expression of what a blessing she is to our family. Of course I love the name so much because of Anne of Green Gables. Anne is one of the most beautiful examples in literature of a girl overcoming childhood adversity and beautifying the lives of everyone who comes in contact with her over the course of her life. Reading the Anne books, it’s hard to believe that adoption had such a stigma 120 years ago, but it did. We love that Anne learns to be happy in her own skin. We love her deep, life-long friendships and the loving partnership of a marriage and the beautiful, happy, delightful family she eventually has. She is always more than just a neglected orphan who found a forever home. Anne is a role model I want all my girls to emulate. Anne Elliot is also probably my favorite Jane Austen heroine. Again, she is so much more than the unloved sister in a self-centered family. She endures heartbreak and loss and chooses to cultivate a quiet and gentle spirit instead of spreading her pain to others. She has a firm moral compass and is deservedly beloved by those whose esteem is worth having. Her declaration that “women love longest, when all hope is gone” is one of the most romantic speeches in English literature. Her happy ending makes me the happiest of all Austen’s novels. I look forward to reading about both amazing Annes to Annie as she grows up! And after four kids with the traditional name changed to a nickname by a father fond of nicknames ending in a long-EE sound, I thought we might just go with the nickname sounding variation right off the bat. Plus I was hanging out a lot with my sweet friend Annie Shaw as we debated names, and she mentioned her legal name is indeed Annie, which she loves. Also, Anne Rose doesn’t sound as good as Annie Rose.
Rose is the middle name Annie’s birth parents gave her. We felt it was important to keep part of her birth name as we added our own, because Dan and Shawna do love her and are part of her story. Her previous foster mom, Mariana, always loved the Rose part of her name, as do I. Mariana, Shawna, and I have all been known to call her our little rosebud. My first niece who is in heaven was named Beverly Rose, so the name has a beautiful association for our family, as well. So that’s why she’s Annie Rose!