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!”?
€: Thanks for sharing everyone (and keep going :3)! Definitely some inspiration in there.
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Hildegard von Bingen was the most talented and accomplished woman I learned about in my history classes at school. I like her name so I took it!
I haven’t. There’s some baggage with my (unfortunately masculine) given name than I’m not ready to let go of and I don’t have any name I actually want.
Sometimes I change the spelling to be feminine (albeit a rare name compared to the masc form) and more similar to my mom’s name (who my name was picked to rhyme with). It’s a spelling I used as my character name in a Pokemon game when I chose a girl character like a decade before my egg cracked and my friend thought it was an uhh interesting choice (expressed by friendly teasing).
I briefly had used a name when I was experimenting as a teenager, and decades later when I finally figured it out and transitioned, I decided to honor that girl by using the name she picked.
I thought about things that are meaningful to me and picked names that represent those things to me.
It’s from Hamlet 2
I got a couple different names that I’ve chosen for myself.
One is a woman who left everything she knew to find a better life for herself.
One was chosen to be similar to pronounce to my deadname but different enough to be a clear break. I followed patterns my mom used in naming all her kids, somewhat in hope that she would accept the real me.
One was chosen keep my middle initial the same to avoid having my username in a bunch of places be dysphoric and as a way of saying to my dad I hoped he’d still be proud of me some day.
And one was chosen by 18 year old me one day when I was starting to build my online presence. It was truly the first name I gave myself, even though I didn’t know I was doing that at the time. Turns out that’s the name I prefer to go by the most. Not sure how I got it in one.
My grandfather had a name that was historically gender neutral but is now more commonly feminine. He used to be bullied for it as a kid and went by a nickname. He passed away before I transitioned. I wear it with pride in his memory.
I read the numbers trilogy by rachel ward probably around 15 years ago and one character gives birth to a girl and names her Mia and I locked onto it for if I ever had a daughter. Eventually, my wife and I decided we didn’t want kids, so my hope to use the name disappeared. When I realized I was trans, I thought maybe I didn’t lock onto it for a daughter like I had thought, but for myself. First time my wife called me Mia, I turned into a goddamn puddle, so I knew it was my name. Ironically, now we want to have a baby, and Mia is suddenly off the table.
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.
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 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 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 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
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 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!
