Whenever I have questions, I always give too much background information just to make sure that my situation is completely understood. I know it's a lot. The actual questions are at the end, so you can just skip to them if you want. Anyway...
About 6 months ago I officially changed my legal first and middle names. It was a big deal at the time, as I had kind of been putting off thinking about that sort of thing until I found out a good friend of mine was getting their legal name change. I had been going by a relatively gender-neutral nickname version of my first name for a while, and I was fairly comfortable with that, even though getting called by masculine pronouns and sometimes my full name were still an issue with my family.
But around the time I finally started thinking seriously about other names I might want to be called for the rest of my life, I had some experiences with my family that sort of cemented the idea that going by my old nickname was partially enabling my family to keep stepping around the fact that I've been going through a gender transition. So I decided I definitely wanted to change my name. I was still really indecisive though, so I was trying to work with my parents to pick out a new name, and I ended up getting friends involved, too. And it started to feel like everyone else had their own ideas of what kind of name was okay for me, and it got to be a bit much. So finally I just sat myself down and decided that the only way to deal with all of that at once was to choose a name for myself that had no connections or meaning to anyone else but me. So I picked a moniker I'd given myself in my writings, which was "The Butterfly." And for my middle name I picked another Internet moniker I had been using when I first started getting gendered as female by other people who didn't know my sex (which was a big deal at the time.)
And I want to stress that I was totally set on these names at the time. It felt really, really good being called "Butterfly" as my first name, and for the first time in a long time, I felt relatively happy and stable. Even though I was also sort of homeless because I had left my parents' house after my name change plans turned into a big argument. And for a while, it was okay. But over the last couple of months, I've been really doubting myself, like I always do whenever I make a decision. I finally got around to going to the DMV to get a new Driver's License (it didn't really matter before because I don't drive), but in the end I didn't go through with it because I was suddenly really unsure.
Part of the problem I've been having is that the majority of people in my life don't call me "Butterfly." They just call me "B" for short, or they call me by my old nickname still (some of my family members). So it has started to feel like "Butterfly" isn't really my name, even though it is. Another issue is that I'm getting kind of tired of everyone I meet commenting on how "cool" or "different" my first name is. I got comments about my name before I changed it, too, and it annoyed me then also, but now it's somehow worse because I feel like everyone who knows I've had a name change thinks I chose my new name ~because~ it stands out, which isn't the case at all. I just really wanted a name that would be gendered as feminine without the precedent of being a "girl name," since I don't fully identify as a girl, and butterflies are generally viewed as feminine where I live. The other big part is that I feel like I've lost something by changing my name so completely. All my memories up until this year have me being called by other names, so thinking about the past just makes me feel bad and even more dysphoric than usual. And it also makes me feel sad, because it's like I can no longer fully connect to the few happy memories I have that stand out, because my name isn't the same. I kept my initials the same in order to maintain a connection to a childhood nickname my parents' gave me, but it feels like that isn't really enough anymore.
My middle name is also kind of a problem, because the Internet moniker I chose was based on the name of a fictional world that my Dad created and wrote stories and games about. Which is partly why I chose it, because I love my Dad and I love those memories from my childhood, but now it also feels like the name sort of... ~belongs~ to him. Because actually it kind of does. It's his intellectual property. So I feel weird about using it, especially since my relationship with my parents has deteriorated so much over the past few years and this year especially.
The other thing that makes this all feel even more complicated is that my sister and I have the same initials, and my Dad has told me that if I had been sexed female at birth, the first name they gave her would have actually been my name. And also my current nickname "B" sounds a lot like her nickname that she's had forever... So it's just uncomfortable no matter what I do.
So, basically, I'm really regretting ever having changed my name, even though I was super uncomfortable being called by my full birth name, because now it feels like I don't really have a set name at all since everyone calls me different things now and even my memories are different. And this is a big trigger for my depression and anxiety, because the main reason I stayed completely in the closet (as trans and as queer) until I became an adult was that I was afraid to come out as "the wrong thing" and then have to take it back... which is exactly what's happening right now. And I feel like I can't really talk about it with my family at all because of how against my new name they were, and I can't talk about it with my friends either because my newer friends just won't get it and my older friends will think I just regret having a "special" first name, which isn't the case at all. And also I'm not sure that my feelings right now aren't being influenced by the fact that I'm super depressed and suicidal or the fact that I cut off all my hair, because my internal perception of myself has always been very much influenced by how I look, and right now I feel completely alienated from every single aspect of my body and identity.
Questions:
Has anyone else dealt with regretting a name change?
Does anyone else feel like they've lost something important by changing their name?
Has anyone had to legally change their first name multiple times for any reason?
Is it more difficult to get your name changed a second time?
How much influence should friends/family have over your name?
Has anyone experienced or worried about experiencing dysphoria from going by a name that is too similar/related to their birth name?
Has anyone decided not to change from their birth name even though that name is usually associated with people of a gender other their own? (ex: a trans man who goes by Ashley)
If being misgendered by strangers who read/hear your name and make assumptions about your gender wasn't an issue, would you still feel like changing your name? (I think about this one a lot)
How did know know what name was right for you?
