Basic Trope: A character is renamed after being adopted.
- Straight:
- Bob Jones is renamed Charlie Smith after the Smith family adopt him.
- Bill the dog is renamed Clarence after being adopted.
- Exaggerated: Bill the dog is adopted by the Smith family and renamed to Clarence, only to be given to the Doe family and renamed Daniel, who is then adopted by the Jordan family and renamed Ellis, only to finally be adopted by the Williams family and renamed to Francis.
- Downplayed: Bob's last name is changed to match his adoptive family's.
- Justified:
- Charlie Smith's original name was Penis Hitler.
- Bob was a Doorstop Baby left on Alice's front porch. When she adopted him, she named him Bob because she doesn't know his original name (if he even had one).
- Bob's original name was extremely unique and made him easy to identify, and his adoptive parents are worried about someone (like his Abusive Parents) tracking him down.
- There are legal or cultural reasons to change Bob's name: for example, his adoptive parents want to make paperwork easier.
- Inverted: Alice Smith changes her name to Barbara O'Brien after she adopts Bob Jones.
- Subverted: Alice Smith finds an abandoned baby that she adopts and gives the name Bob. She then discovers that the baby had been named Bob by his birth family.
- Double Subverted: ...but it's revealed that the people claiming to be his birth family were actually lying, and we still don't know what Bob's original name was.
- Parodied: Everyone in the show is revealed to be adopted, with different names from the one(s) they were born with.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Bob Jones is adopted by Alice Smith, who considers renaming him Charlie, Daniel, Ellis, or Francis. It's unknown if he actually gets his name changed.
- Bob's legal name remains the same, but he receives a new nickname from his adoptive family, and he's only addressed by his nickname afterwards.
- Averted: Bob Jones retains both his names even after being adopted by the Smith family.
- Enforced: "Let's change Bob's surname to Smith when he gets adopted to show that he's part of the family."
- Invoked: "Now that you've been adopted into the Smith family, Mr. Jones, would you like to legally change your name to match theirs?"
- Exploited: Before he was adopted, Bob Jones was banned from the ice cream store. Now that he's been adopted, Bob Smith is allowed in (as the sign specifically forbids Bob Jones).
- Defied:
- The Smith family discusses renaming Bob Jones, but explicitly decide against it.
- Bob is old enough to tell his adoptive family that he does not want to change his name.
- Played for Laughs: Bob admits that he's happy that he was adopted into a family that named him something normal, as his biological mother had intended to name him Holden MaToosh.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob's name change triggers some sort of identity crisis, potentially to the point where he develops dissociative identity disorder.
- Bob's adoptive parents want to change his name. Bob doesn't want to change it, but since he's legally a minor, he can't prevent them from changing his name. This leads to tension between him and his adoptive family.
- Played for Horror: A couple has lost their child, and so regularly adopt children to take their place, forcing them to change their name to their lost child's name (even if the new adopted child isn't the same gender) and behave like their old child had.
Back to Adoptive Name Change
