Terminology used in describing children fathered by enemy soldiers in different conflicts vary.

In Norway, for example, the neutral term used to characterise children fathered by German soldiers and Norwegian women during WWII is “krigsbarn” (war children) or "tyskerunge" (German kid). The French used the expression “Enfants de Boches”, and the Dutch “moeffenkinder”. The term “Wehrmachtskinder” introduced by Drolshagen (2005) might be meaningful with regard to describing children fathered by German soldiers in occupied territories during WWII, however, is not applicable as a concept describing children born of war in conflict and war across time and nation. In Vietnam, for example, the children of US soldiers and Vietnamese women were called “Bui doi” (dust of life) (Grieg 2001:20). Many other expressions are used to describe children born in different wars, common for most are that their names have a negative touch.

In 2006 a group of researcher working on the topic decided to apply the term ‘children born of war’ (Mochmann 2006). This concept was applied by R. Charli Carpenter in the analysis of children born of sexual violence and exploitation in conflict zones (2005, 2007) and was considered the most appropriate concept as it is objective and embeds all children who have one parent who is part of an army or peace keeping force and the other parent a local citizen independent of time and geographical context, type of conflict and origin of conception.

Children born of war may be defined as “a child that has one parent that was part of an army or peace keeping force and the other parent a local citizen"