How are young orphans with anonymous parents named?

Question

Like say that an infant or young child is put on the doorstep of an orphanage, and there's no indication of a name. How does the child obtain a name if they're not adopted by the time they're an adult?

Answer 1

They are named by someone at the orphanage. The child doesn't just sit around nameless.

Answer 2

In the olden days, orphan babies were often named after the person who had found them. Or the people in the orphanage sought inspiration in the location or circumstances in which the kid had been found. Some orphanages had fixed lists of names that were used in alphabetical order.

Edit:

Check this PDF of a NY-Times article from 1903:

"FUTURE OF FOUNDLINGS; Infants No Longer Named for Chance Localities"

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.ht...

I also found this snippet on foundlings in Spain:

"Often they were named after the saint of the day they were found or the patron saint of the town.

For surnames, they received Expósito ("Foundling"), which marked them and their descendents as people without pedigree, or the more compassionate usage of choosing one among those most common among the population.

In 1921, Spanish law allowed that the paperwork for changing the surname Expósito was cost-free. "