Names?

[Hannah]

I’m just curious. How did you get to your new name?

I’m still trying to decide mine. My mum told me once that if I was born a girl, I would have been called Rebecca, and by rights, I can’t help thinking that I should maybe take that, but when I was in school I had an immense crush on a girl called Rebecca, and so that sort of feels a little bit “uncomfortable”, if that makes sense?

Jane or Janie’s a bit of a placeholder for me since I’ve always liked the name, but I’ll eventually find one that just ‘feels like me’. I mean, it’s not like a character that you can put on and take off like a costume, so it’s quite a big decision! 🤣😂🤣 I do want a “normal” name though and nothing too unusual.

I know that some people go with the regendered version of their own name – Terry-Theresa or Nicholas to Nicola, for instance.

[Hannah]

I don’t know how to edit posts here, sorry.
<p style=”text-align: center;”>I just wanted to add that, bearing in mind that I’m literally only just starting on a journey,  one thing that did strike me was that while I’ve always considered “dressed-me” as being Jane and “work/outside-me” is my birth/real name.</p>
I’vebeen OK with that but talking in the chat, I’m still not used to having anyone address me as Jane. I probably missed a few messages, forgetting that people were talking to me! Absolutely nobody in real life has ever met Jane and won’t do for a while until I’ve got some sort of confidence up… But it was still slightly odd to see people calling me that! 😂

[Anonymous]

Hi Jane,

My given name cannot be feminized. I saw the name Gina around the same time I discovered my female side. The name felt right from the first time I saw it and I have been Gina ever since.

[Quinn]

I had a female name I love (Kate–I know it’s common; it just fit for me) that I went by for years, but since I’m bi-gender, before I did a legal name change, I needed to find a name that worked for me in both genders. I actually did a lot of research! I looked at the most common names for boys and girls from my birth year, to try to identify something that fit my age and peer group well (look here to check by decade: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/ ). I looked up lists of unisex names, etc. Whenever I found one that rang a little bell with me and that would work for both genders, I put it on my list. Then I narrowed down my list to a small number of top choices, ran those by friends and family for feedback and to see what associations they had, and then picked one that worked well and made me feel giddily happy. Even so, it’s taken me a long time to settle into this name–I think specifically because I use it in both genders! Fortunately, a name for just one gender is an easier process!

I’d recommend not choosing a name that’s too creative unless you want extra attention for it and people asking you to repeat it and spell it for them. I think names that are “too normal” are only a problem if you need to distinguish yourself with a public persona–for instance, I needed to choose a name that, together with my last name, was not the same as any prominent writer, so that my work wouldn’t get mixed up with theirs. This is not because I’ve had huge success with my writing–I’m still working on that!

I chose a middle name that was much more “out there” but that I love, and I get to have that available as a backup if I ever need it.

Oh, in case you’ve never done it, I want to make sure to mention that changing my name legally took a bunch of time, cost a bit of money, and was a lot of work–but it wasn’t burdensome after that. I didn’t too much mind filling out a bunch of paperwork, finding ways to fax court orders to some companies I have accounts with, running around to government offices, etc., and that was the worst of it for me. However, in less supportive areas or just if you run across one jerk, I could imagine it might be much more of an effort. I have a transguy family member who has decided not to change his name legally yet because of concerns about some of the people in his life and worry about persecution–although the recent election makes it seem like there might be less of that coming up! Anyway, I think just changing your use name and not changing it legally is a great option for a lot of people, too.

My biggest priority for a name is that when people use it for me, I feel affirmed in who I am–not only my gender but also my personality, my ethnic background, etc.

[Hannah]

Well, as much as I liked Jane I felt that it just didn’t “feel” right when people in the chat were calling me it, so just to experiment a little, I’ve done something slightly similar- in that I looked at the gov’t statistics site for the names from my year of birth and looked at the girls names for the one which had the same popularity ranking, which was Hannah. Much the same reasons as you- I wanted something “age appropriate”.  I really do like that name anyway and it sort of feels a bit like mu parents kind of picked it, so I’ll stick with it for a bit and see if I get used to it. 😁

I can imagine the whole business of actually making it legal is an undertaking – you can pay something niminal like £15 for Deed Poll, but then there’s actually getting your birth certificate changed, a new bank account, utility bills and everything else – all things that I would need to look into and take advice on when it came to it…

And that’s before you’ve got things like Facebook who love to strut about calling themselves the biggest ally in the world but who’ll ban you in a heartbeat for using a fake name if you can’t provide the papers to prove it! *Grumble grumble*.

 

[DeeAnn Hopings]

[postquote quote=90299]

The system times out and prevents you from editing after 10 or 15 minutes (can’t remember exactly) after the original message is posted.

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