Angelina Jolie to adopt child from India
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Ha! Props to taz at Sepia Mutiny for calling this weeks ago.
In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, Angelina Jolie is rumored to be adopting a child from India, where she is currently filming A Mighty Heart, or as I like to call it, A Mighty Bad Bronzer Job. From The Daily Mail:
Angelina Jolie is adopting an Indian baby to add to her growing international brood, according to US reports. Sources say the big-hearted actress and partner Brad Pitt have already applied to adopt a tot from an Indian orphanage.
An insider said: “They hope to be able to bring the child home by Christmas. “Brad would prefer a boy no older than 18 months to even out the sexes but Angie has told him she can’t guarantee she won’t fall in love with a little girl.”
Ok, I’m sorry but the following quote puts me over the edge:
She has said: “I want to create a rainbow family. That’s children of different religions and cultures from different countries.”
“I believe I’m meant to find my children in the world and not necessarily have them genetically.”
Sigh… You may remember that I was rather critical of her interview with Anderson Cooper back in June, when she talked about adopting a child like it’s a matter of picking what curtains go with your pillows (”It’s, you know, another boy, another girl, which country, which race would fit best with the kids.”).
The source told US magazine Globe: “Whichever they end up with, they’d like to name the child India to honour its homeland.” The pair are rumoured to have visited the Priva Darshini orphanage in the last month.
taz at Sepia Mutiny is not such a fan of this name choice:
Seriously?!?! It’s not like they went around and named your other kids ‘Cambodia’ and ‘Ethiopia.’ How come the other kids get cool names like Maddox, Shiloh and Zahara, and you want to name the desi kid ‘India?’ Like she isn’t going to be teased enough…
I once had this girl in my class, a Latino woman, whose name was Asia. I found it confusing. Now that I think about it, I may have met an India or two in my lifetime and I was always left feeling a little … put off. Being named after a country just never seemed, um, meaningful. But INDIA, really? Brangelina, don’t you think you could name the desi kid something else, while still honoring his birth land? Those poor children will be raised with such identity issues…
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Danni wrote:
Is she trying to be the new Josephine Baker? If she is, I think she should at least admit to it.
Posted 28 Oct 2006 at 7:13 pm ¶
The Joy Princess wrote:
Umm, I knew a Black American girl named Africa!
Posted 28 Oct 2006 at 9:01 pm ¶
makethelogobigger wrote:
I would love it if Jon Voight adopted a new daughter.
Posted 29 Oct 2006 at 12:34 am ¶
kim wrote:
So, many of you would prefer the more traditional “American” names of say, William, Harold, Bill; Susan, Nancy, Emily, etc. Please, free your own minds.
Are none of you given to introspection and consideration of the way in which you have become so familiar with certain names over time that you fail to see a relationship to place?
Consider:
Erin (look it up!), Shannon, Chad, Paris, Kimberley, Virginia, Jordan, Austin, Tawanna/Tijuanna, Sydney, Kobe, etc.
Many people thoughtfully, deliberately choose to honor place, as well as the poetry inherent in the sounds of a word related to place.
But for many who make the ‘Oh, my God! Africa! Asia!’ complaint, only the bland will do.
Expand your palates.
Posted 29 Oct 2006 at 6:12 pm ¶
makethelogobigger wrote:
I’d actually prefer it if celebrities would stop going to far-off countries to adopt children and acting as if they’re accessorizing on Rodeo Drive.
Posted 29 Oct 2006 at 8:03 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Kim:
I think the point was to differentiate between naming a kid an entire continent, vs. a famous well-thought-of (I assume) city.
But you do have a point - name origins can be lost over time. Wasn’t there a car commercial about kids being named for the city in which they were conceived, and the older sister being spooked when she realized her baby sister was named after the family car?
And because I can’t talk about child names w/out deep pimping for a site that is an equal-opportunity ridiculer:
http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/
Posted 29 Oct 2006 at 8:07 pm ¶
kim wrote:
I’d love to know more about the commercial, never heard of it.
To further, though: I’ve known at least eight women named India in my lifetime, at three women named China (all Latina), countless men named Israel, even a woman named America, with whom I was presented in a cotillion (she was the belle of the ball, if I recall).
I guess it all depends on what part of this country one grows up in.
Posted 29 Oct 2006 at 11:56 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>countless men named Israel
That actually is a name, though. Israel = the name Jacob (Abraham’s grandson) is given in the Bible. It became the collective name for his descendents. So it’s a case of the country taking its name from a person, and then devout believers returning the favor.
Posted 30 Oct 2006 at 11:25 am ¶
Stefanie wrote:
First, Lyonside, I have long visited that baby names website for a laugh, and I’m glad you thought to share it with everyone. Too funny.
What kind of bugs me about naming the kid India is not that it’s a placename and is fairly untraditional as given names go. It’s that it just sort of seems like, “Here are my kids, Maddox, Zahara, Shilo, and the Indian one, India.”
It’s like they didn’t try hard enough and just named the kid after the thing that makes it different (its deshiness), or that they will always see the kid as “the Indian one”.
I’m sure that’s not really how Pitt and Jolie will think about the child, but the name just kind of comes off that way to me.
Posted 30 Oct 2006 at 1:52 pm ¶
kim wrote:
“Actually is a name, though.”
Amazing. They are all names, names of places, things, people. When presented as such, you don’t mock it, or seek to have someone justify it.
That anyone here claims to truly be “bugged” by the name, for its lack of originality or “coolness” seems spurious and specious.
I am afraid this is all sounding as though the initial poster’s dismissive comment of the inviolable human dignity of this child , (…is going to be teased enough/have a hard enough time as it is) seems to serve as an intractable, irreversible given.
Defend your choices for being annoyed, couching your argument in a language that puts the impetus on the name as being some sort of outlier, which makes it, therefore, weird, and you are still grieving that someone did not do things your way.
Posted 30 Oct 2006 at 8:19 pm ¶
Bohwe wrote:
Until Angelina puts in the labor and sacrifice Baker did, than she cannot be on Baker’s level. While Angelina gives one third of her salary to causes and speaks on behalf of the U.N., she isn’t exactly doing anything life altering. Baker, gave up her citizenship , became a spy for the ally forces, worked with the civil rights movement, spoke out against the feudal system of Ethiopia, and died penniless trying to maintain her Rainbow Tribe. Angelina should never be compared to Baker, because Angelina isn’t trying to go broke. And Baker had more to lose than Angelina.
Madonna on the other hand, as always been a Maverick. So noone really knows her motives, nor should we. Madonna with that fine husband of hers can do whatever they want. lol
Posted 31 Oct 2006 at 2:50 am ¶
Sky Bluesky wrote:
I would hate to be an Indian child named India. Especially an Indian child adopted and taken out of India, only to be saddled with the name India. It’s just horrific, as is the whole “rainbow family” thing. It certainly looks like she’s getting her kids based on skin color instead of “I fell in love with her immediately” or whatever her supposed rationale was.
Other choices for a name, as long as they’re going for the obvious: “Bradson” or “Bradgirl,” “Child,” Adopted,” or “Not From Around Here” (which can be adopted to the nickname NFAH!).
Posted 06 Nov 2006 at 5:29 pm ¶
NIAMH wrote:
What sickens me about this whole saga is that the media sends out the message that this practise of adopting children out from their normal environment is acceptable behaviour. CNN recently dubbed Jolie as “the second coming of Mother Teresa”. The media see her as some sort of saviour swooping into these orphanages and doing the children a favour by taking them out of their home countries.I don’t think so. Taking children out of their environment and shipping them off to hollywood, can be just as threatening or damaging as any other.It is merely patronising to assume superiority over third world countries and their ways of life- like a eurocentric attitude. She is turning these children into commodities. She may initially have good intentions but is seriously misguided and obviously hasn’t taken into account the serious implications that are inevtibaly going to happen. In later life the children will feel misplaced and will feel no real connection to America.
Posted 09 Apr 2007 at 9:26 am ¶
sunil wrote:
there are probably more meaningful names in the Hindi language than in any other language in the world. Beautiful names with deep meanings. But I suppose the parents Brad en Angelina dont want any confusion about the origin of their children later on:
Hey, where is the one we adopted from India? Oh you mean “India”???
Come on, at the very least, make SOME effort and call the child it IS SUPPOSED TO BE CALLED IF YOU WANT TO NAME HIM/HER AFTER HIS/HER ORIGIN:
An Indian would call the child Baharatiya (if male) or Bharati (if female) in such a case…
Sunil
Posted 14 May 2008 at 9:16 am ¶