Name signs

[miekopatrick]

Ok I'm not sure If I'm doing the right thing. So both my youngest sons have names that are actually word with established sign (Chance and Seven)

I have been teaching them and signing their names using the sign for "chance" and the sign for "7". Is this correct being that their name is actually a word? I don't want to accidentally offend anyone from the Deaf community... please help

[jenml]

No harm in using it for now if your goal is for communication... but name signs are very special in ASL and they are given to you by a Deaf person (sometimes it takes years to acquire a name sign).
For kids, and using signs for early communication, there's no harm in making one up for yourself, which can always be changed later by a Deaf person. Many Deaf people start out with a sign name and it changes as they get older.

You can also research this forum for a deeper discussion on name signs which was on going for a while (I'll try to find it, too...).