Hello my dears :3
So rn I’m going by Jamie and there’s a lot I really like about this name. Its meaning works well (she, who supplants), it’s the name of my favorite skater when I was a kid, it does have a nice ring to it.
But when I chose it to play with, I didn’t know where my journey would lead to. Now that I do I’m just not sure I like the ambiguity.
That being said, I wonder, how did you all pick your new names? Does it have a special meaning to you? Anything in particular that made you go like “Yes, that’s it, that’s me!”?
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When I was an egg, I identified quite well with the term tomboy, and when I watched a TV show there were two characters with the same name that were pretty tomboyish. And the name fitted my requirements and I liked it. So it’s my name now.
I had picked a name from a video game I really loved and had intended that to be my future daughter’s name for over a decade but eventually realized that the person I really wanted to have that name was me.
And I never wanted kids, so it was always weird to me that I had a name picked out, but I was never the most insightful person.
I liked when Codsworth from Fallout 4 called me by it. I had liked the idea of a lot of names before, but it was the first one that really clicked. When that robot first called me Assface, I knew it would be my name.
I picked mine from a song. It wasn’t special and I’m not exactly fond of the implications since she’s a traitor in her original context. I just like how it sounds
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, JOLEEEEEEEENE
I picked Riley from ig my long time favorite bands frontladys performance name (so not really her name). It just sounded rough and cute at the same time, which i guess fits me and my friend likes it too.
Not sure if i can have it as my legal name though…
I liked that one too, Rilee in my case. When still questioning I’ve had a list of ambiguous names, Jamie and Rilee were the last two contenders.
Oh i had an american teacher once and her name was Jamie. Thats a cool name too!
I just went to the female version of my name. My nickname everyone uses stayed the same as it’s gender neutral. (I’m not really called Theresa, I just use that online because I like it and did consider it once. But I think it doesn’t work well with my last name)
I am now imagining your last name is Bereza. And yeah, I see why you did not pick that name.
i entertain this idea, too. in your expierience, did people adapt well? i am worrying that they will just use my name and ‘forget’ that things are different now. that they can more easily keep up the he/him stuff?
my fem version would be pronounced basically the same (a bit depending on the speakers main language) so i fear my great legal coming out would slip below a lot of people’s radars …
I think I changed my presentation enough for people to adapt well enough. Everyone in my life except for my family is very supportive and leftist though, so I think I had it pretty easy. My dad took some time to adapt but now (2 years after coming out to him) he’s doing pretty well. My mom still misgenders me every time we see each other but I don’t think it would be any different with a different name. I would wager she’d not even use it most of the time tbh.
I had some anxiety about strangers not knowing how to gender me when I introduce myself with my nickname. And that actually did happen a bit but I think by now I’m far enough along with the physical changes that I’m read female pretty consistently by new people. In that transition period I just told the friends I was with to aggressively she/her me so others get the message lol. And when I sign up for anything official it’s obvious because my full name is 100% fem. Also, I think it’s pretty cool to have a gender neutral name because I’m not 100% woman either, I think.
I went for a summer job to The Netherlands. One of the coworkers’ name was Saskia and I thought it sounded cute. Apparently this name is quite popular there, while almost unheard of in Poland. If anyone knows the name here, they either know it from The Witcher or because of Rembrandt’s wife. I know it may sound weird that I picked a name after coworker, but I did not have any feelings for her and I don’t even remember what she looks like. It’s just the way I learned about that name and it stuck
That’s my mothers name! Although she usually abbreviates to Sas.
Saskia Hamilton
I haven’t totally settled yet, but I was named after my maternal and paternal grandfathers, so I’ll probably end up switching to my grandmother’s names instead. I just feel like if I don’t set a rigid rule for naming myself, I’ll end up changing it every month. I’m very indecisive.
I just feel like if I don’t set a rigid rule for naming myself, I’ll end up changing it every month. I’m very indecisive.
Yeah, same struggle here. And I’m quiet good at being indecisive.
My parents had one picked out for each gender (I was successfully hiding it on every ultrasound image) and now I use the name they picked for a girl.
That’s a beautiful approach. Not a lot of hope that my parents will accept me when coming out, but if they do, I might ask if they had anything in mind.
Thankfully my parents are very accepting especially my mother. She was so happy when I told her that this was the name I chose. She told me the name before because it came up what my brother and I would have been called a few years before I came out and I savoured it ever since :)
I’m Tanis, pronounced TAH-niss and my parents gave it to me when I was born.
I made the decision of keeping it. I like it.
Did update my middle name from Michael to Ashley though.
I nicked my name from a health care worker in the hospital I was in while I was first figuring out my gender. I changed the spelling to feel more me
Awe, what an honor. Do they know?
i’m not done yet but i can give you my thoughts.
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‘add an e to my given name’: would be pronounced the same (at least with a ‘good’ french pronounciation), would be easy, not to much of a decision and basically okay. maybe it would be too easy for ppl to keep old habits, though?
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‘pick the name my parents had in mind for me as a girl’: not to much of a decision. unfortunately i know a person of that name. would be weird to steal the name.
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‘pick the name of a distant person you venerate’: i got one (1) idea. i am into it. but i again know a person of that name. would be weird.
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i had a ‘council of (two) friends’ come up with a suggestion for naming me: would technically still be a given name. 🙂 they had an idea that i basically like. but the overthinking hits. they came up with a shortened version as a name that could stem from at least two diffrent greek names. i’d be staling the long form for my passport from my greek teach! but i wouldn’t want to transscribe the modern pronounciation, rather a classical one (sounds better in german majority contexts, i think). here’s the real problem: i couldn’t find an instance of that name in classical greek texts. 😟 now i am a sad philologist.
maybe it’s version one then. since i don’t really like having a shortened name as my legal name. that’s for friends and family.
while i wrote this i got a new idea to search for the name in #4. (i am out of the field and don’t have access to the big corpora anymore). at least i got a lead. :))
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Borrowing it from fictional characters you like would be a rather common approach. Greek and roman goddesses, flowers, and gemstones are also normal. Otherwise, it’s reasonable to just open a baby name book/website and see what you like.
Heh, now that you say this, I always loved the idea of naming a daughter Eskarina, from Pratchett’s discworld. She’s this young girl, gifted with magic powers and goes out into the world to become the first sorceress (women were only allowed to become witches before). And she (almost) doesn’t take anyone’s shit.
Though, I believe legally where I’m from, I’ll only get to pick from “real” names and that’s mostly in the case workers discretion.
