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I think that a name, that you will live with the rest of your life, is a personal choice. I wouldn’t feel right about making specific suggestions. So just some ideas to think about. A lot of us choose to feminize our birth names and that can keep a kind of connection to family have a feeling of familiarity. Christopher to Christina, Michael to Michelle, etc. Andrej Pejic simply added an ‘a’ to her birth name and now is Andreja. Others, choose names that mean a lot to them for whatever reason. Is there a female relative that was or is particularly supportive, a role model in our community that helped you in your self exploration? Maybe there is another form of your birth name in another language like French? That might be both feminine and sophisticated.
Those are some of the things I thought about when making the decision..which was more of a process in my case. In the end, I decided to keep my given, birth name, since it is used as a name for both genders and I’m comfortable it. I also don’t have to fear being ‘dead named’ either by accident or by those that might refuse to recognize my gender identity. Of course, not all of us have unisex or gender neutral sounding birth names. I changed only my middle name which I took from my Grandmother who I am very close with. It was a personal choice that I’m very happy with. When I was younger, I thought a lot about choosing a different name. I went through a period of wanting to be called names of celebrities I admired like Britney, Alicia, Paris, Brandy, Marissa, etc, or more exotic names like Aurora, Valentina or Angelika.
In the end though, there wasn’t a personal connection with any of those names and I constantly went through a process of deciding on a name, then feeling emotionally or personally unconnected to them. On the other hand, some do seem to take names from celebrities and are happy with them.
Anyway, this is just my perspective on the topic and as I said, it’s an entirely personal choice. I would just suggest considering a name that reflects you, that you have some connection with and maybe even is unique to you…or not 🙂 It’s entirely up to you. 🙂
Naming myself was one of the things that took a long while, however when I arrived at Sophie, I sort of knew I had always been a Sophie. And that I was born that way, which resulted in a rather awful pun on the last name, but that sort of fit too.
So I guess when you know you are trans you know, and when you see your true name, you know that too.
Think this was one of the key influences for me:
Those two questions “Who are you? Where does the world come from?” just haunted me. I always liked to ponder the really deep questions when growing up, and sometimes philosophy was the only thing that kept me going; the search to help me understand “Why?”
When you suffer a lot in pain in life, that question comes up all the time, particularly when it is joined to a religious ourlook: “Why was I born this way? How could God have been so cruel?”
I still don’t know why exactly but I do know that the person I am now just *couldn’t* have been born any other way. A world without trans people is a world without me. And I think it is *good* that we exist, and that in general we are *really* good people: the world would not be at all improved by getting rid of us. And finally I think it is very good indeed that my children exist, but again “no me, no them”. I ponder that a lot still, and still don’t really understand. But it does help.
Hi Mason,
My last name is an altered spelling of my male first name, that name is Neill. I was Neil before my name change. I chose that because I wanted to remember for all time the man that helped me become the woman I am.
Failing something like that, how about you become Mason Asher Banks. Banks (of the Ohio). Sorry about the last bit, I couldn’t resist it.
Jenni Neill xxx
When I changed my name, I just went with what my folks would’a called me if they knew I was a girl. It’s got Jean in it, which is my mother’s middle name, my grandmother’s, and my great grandmother’s. The last name I didn’t touch, because it represented my family heritage and it would feel wrong to me unless I was gettin’ hitched. Oddly enough, not having to choose my name made me all the happier with it. It felt like a real birth name, and it makes explaining it to people way easy. Maybe there’s some psychology there too but I’m no egghead.
If you wanna change your last name, according to me personally, it’s gotta be something meaningful to your roots. To say where you came from, and where you’re headed. To say to whom you belong, and who belongs to you. It’s the family name, after all.
Jenni’s idea crafting a new name from an old one, I like that. Anne using cultural heritage as a basis, I like that too. I agree with Riley though that it’s a personal decision and ultimately and entirely up to you. May you be pleased with the name you grant yourself, Mason!
Mary
All of the trans people that I know have kept their last names since it does not identify their gender. But of course everybody hates their given (dead) name.
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