Originally, I wanted Austin because I was born in Austin, Texas. It was on a list of unisex names. My birth name is indisputably female and have bugged the hell out of me since I was very young. By high school, the only people who really used that name were instructors and strangers who were reading it off a form of some sort (or my dad when he got mad). My parents used a shortened version of that that wasn't as a bad at home. However, when I proposed Austin to my friends, they unanimously vetoed it into oblivion! They knew why I had picked it, but they all thought it very 'random', 'hard to say', 'hard to remember', 'unfitting', etc. I liked that they were supportive and tried to suggest names even. I went down the list of unisex names (consciously crossing out the ones leaned towards the feminine side). I also had a thing about how it looks and the spelling of it. Finally, I just decided to settle with Deven. Everyone liked it. They used it immediately and it stuck very quickly.
Now, when someone uses my birth name, it takes me about 5 seconds (sometimes longer!) to realize who they are talking about. It's weird, but funny. I've literally, asked "Who??" a few times—not as an attempt to correct them, but because I had genuinely forgotten! But there's an exception. My extended family still uses the birthname, but I rarely see them.
