How to choose a "new" (real) name...

[Roll]

I've been wondering how people went about choosing their "new" names lately. Was there a particular name that just sort of spoke to you from an early age? Was it experimental, going from name to name until one sounded right? Or something else I haven't even considered perhaps.

As a kid I pictured the name Jennifer, but it is way too close to my sister's name (who was born years later) to consider without being creepy. And while there's one I like now, I just feel awkward about it for some reason.

Though I have always been indecisive about names. Doesn't matter if it is pets (my cat is named Neko, which is just the word for cat in Japanese), video game characters (I steal existing character names), or whatever, I just always feel awkward about names.

[Devlyn]

  Oh lord, please let me get my post in before the "You need to blend in" crowd shows up! 

Pick the most exotic name you can. Nobody wants a boring name that makes it to those hokey baby name lists of whatever year you were born in. That's how we end up with entire classrooms full of Tiffanys! 

It was a friend who came up with my name for what it's worth.

Hugs, Devlyn

[Kendra]

I like having a name Laurie can mangle and spell wrong.

[widdershins]

I spent years trying out various names online until I stumbled upon one that felt right. My only criteria were that it had to be short (because my last name is obnoxiously long) and easy to spell (because my birth name was not and I refused to deal with that again.) But it still took a long time to find something that really felt like me. I actually started accidentally answering to it in person before I even considered using it as my legal name!

I'm not entirely sure why this particular name clicked while others hadn't, but it did, and I'm perfectly happy with it. It is a "boring", classic name, albeit not super trendy for my age group. But as someone who is happiest just blending in, that doesn't bother me.

It's really easy to anonymously try out names online, so I definitely recommend that to anyone who's unsure about whether they want to be stuck with one.

[Kylo]

For some reason I felt I didn't deserve to enjoy my name. Which is ridiculous, but a remnant of my disgust for having to even think of things like this in the first place, I suppose... as well as the strangeness in my culture of actually choosing one's own name - it's relatively rare and feels self-indulgent. However it's often necessary in the case of trans folk, and if you're going to pick a name you might as well pick one you just like. So that is what I did. I'll get used to it.

[FlightlessFootwear]

I've been considering just shortening my birth name, as it actually turns it into a female name that I sort of like. I also do not dislike my birth name at all however, and I'm not convinced that I want to change it, which is why I was considering this as a compromise.

[JMJW]

I'd go for a middle ground, a little unusual but nothing too exotic and certainly nothing stripper like. Nothing like Candy or Crystal or Kitty.

[Jessica]

Hi girls 🙋🏼 I've been "Jessica" for years in my own way.  Unfortunately my kids have a friend that my wife and I are close to who has the same name.  If it is revealed to her that I'm transgender and that Jessica is my name too, I can tell her I had it before she was born.
Smiles, Jessica 💁

[KathyLauren]

I picked mine because it sounded a bit like my old name and it kept my initials the same.  My wife had innumerable suggestions, but none of them felt like they fit me.  The fact that it appears in those hokey baby name lists of the year I was born in is a bonus.

[Devlyn]

 

[billyjeans]

Thanks for this post, I have the same question. I'm Billyjeans here but I'm trying out Quinn. I also like Sarah.


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[stephaniec]

I just use the female version of my birth name

[Artesia]

I never really liked my birth name, and despise the feminized version of it.  My middle name doesn't have a female version either.  However, as a gamer, wearing new names is normal.  I've also had the pleasure of being different people for my residents, most who suffer from some form of dementia.  Picking a name was still a process, which name did I like the best?  For here I am Artesia, my mother used a veto for that as my real name.  If you see an Artesia in ESO, it's probably me.  For real life, I believe I have settled on Claire Lydenne.  Claire was one of my name choices, but often ended up as a middle name, and finally decided to go with it as the first name.  Lydenne is my mothers middle name, so I figured I'd use that, to keep with the family using part of a parents name somewhere in the Childs name.  The few times I've gotten to hear "Claire" it has just felt right.

[Hikari]

I never really went by my birth name, not even my parents called me that, they called me a totally different name, and my peer group as a teenager called me a third name, and my friends online knew me as a forth name, so I found it pretty easy to wear a new name lol

As for choosing one, I wanted some connection to my family, but not to really be directly connected with it, so I made my name an anagram of my mothers name, and changed my last and middle names to names I liked, even if they were more popular in the late 1800s than now. I did have to explain to the judge my I wanted to change all of my names rather than just my given name.

Obviously, you can't really make but so many names with anagrams, but my advice is to pick something that has a connection to something important to you, and you like. It doesn't really matter so much, unless ofc you are young and trying to get started in a career, then statistics say names might have a pretty big effect on your resume, with names that sound ethnic or even just strange tending to be skipped over. That would be the only real reason not to just pick whatever.

Also try not to waver, when you pick something stick with it, people will be difficult with you many times if you waver at all, and that isn't fair, but it does seem to be how people are.

[Bari Jo]

I personally use the female version of my birth name.  My parents already had that name monogrammed on my pajamas before birth.  Then a boy came out.  That they didn't expect.  I'm reminded of this often by my parents, so it was easy for me to just use that name, when choosing.  Plus I like the name and answer to it anyway.

Now to choose your own, I'd search names you like in movies, books, throughout history.  Do any characters or figures resonate with you?  My two favorite girl names are Helen and Penelope.  I would name my daughter Helen Penelope, Hel, for short, if I had one.  I have a boys name picked out too;)

[MollyPants]

I tried using the names my mother would have called me if I had been assigned female at birth but those never quite fitted. So I just went on a sought of trial and error until I found one that feels right.


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[MeTony]

I used to call myself Jani as a kid. And I now chose Tony.

Jani is a Finnish name. Don't know how popular. But I live in Sweden. So I decided for Tony and it fits my mind and my ears.
Tony has never been top 10 in Sweden. Hardly top 100 either. And I know noone called Tony.

[Roll]

As for choosing one, I wanted some connection to my family, but not to really be directly connected with it, so I made my name an anagram of my mothers name, and changed my last and middle names to names I liked, even if they were more popular in the late 1800s than now. I did have to explain to the judge my I wanted to change all of my names rather than just my given name.

Obviously, you can't really make but so many names with anagrams, but my advice is to pick something that has a connection to something important to you, and you like.

Actually, something related to this is one of my struggles. A large part of me wants to make a connection to my mother's name (she passed away a few years ago), but I'm worried it is a little presumptuous on my part. Maybe not for how she would see it (I can't imagine anything but love and acceptance from her), but for perhaps how the rest of my family would. In this case, using her middle name as a middle name. (She went by a combination of her first and middle name, so it wasn't just a middle name so to speak. Many women in her family had combinations of names based around a hand full of names names including it, going back generations, so would be a fairly direct familiar reference. Equivalent to being ftm and choosing a name that makes you a Jr./III/etc.) I also think it just sounds good with the first name I'm leaning most toward.

So the name in question that I'm leaning toward is Ellie as short for Elizabeth, though even just typing it here makes me feel really weird. I've never said it anywhere but my head before, and even just mentioning it is causing a small anxiety attack. (Though part of my issue is that after recently watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I now have perhaps an overly "cute" perception of the name that I didn't have before courtesy of the actress Ellie Kemper. And I'm not sure I could live up to that level of cute that is now attached to it for me. )

[Kara_Rae]

I like Ellie, it is a cute name. If you like it then use it 

[Deborah]

My birth name has no female variant.  So one day the one I have chosen along with a new middle name just popped into my head.  I liked it and so I adopted it.

Later on I was doing my genealogy and found that my g-g-g-. . .grandmother who lived in the 15th century had the exact same first and middle name.  I thought this was weird and coincidental but at least I know I have a family name.