I have legally changed my name twice, but the first time was to a gender neutral name I didn't particularly want cause it wasn't legal to change to a name of the opposite sex in my country back then. So, it was common practice for trans people to first change to a gender neutral name at the beginning of transition and then change to their preferred name of the opposite sex once they got the legal gender marker changed at the end of transition, which also required for them to get sterilised.
And that's what I thought I had to do as well. But, as luck would have it for me, the name law was changed in the beginning of my transition (September 2009) and I could change to the male name I wanted just a few months later while still legally female! But if I had just waited a bit for that law to be changed, I wouldn't have wasted time and effort on that first name change, but at least it was for free. The second name change costed money, but it would have either way.
But legal technicalities aside, I have not changed what name I want to go by once I had made my decision. The gender neutral name I went by legally for a few months was Joan, because it was what was closest to the name I actually wanted but couldn't legally change to until later, which was John. It's the name I thought of when I was 15 and had just figured out I'm trans before I went back into the closet again.
But at that age, I couldn't decide between the names Izack and John. It wasn't until I was 19 and contemplated coming out as trans that I ultimately picked John cause it sounded better (a friend of mine jokingly told me that Izack sounded like "I suck") and easier to spell.
Although recently I've been wanting to maybe change it to Lamont, but it's too late now. I've had the name John for 9 years now (8,5 years legally) and everyone has finally gotten used to using it for/about me. So I feel like it would be unnecessarily obnoxious of me to change my name again now. So I'm likely gonna stick with John. I just wish I had thought of Lamont sooner. Cause I think it sounds so awesome and would look/sound really good together with my surname which also starts with "La" and cause it's not a Christian name. But woe is me, I guess!
There is no male version of my birthname though, which is Sara. Closest would be Sam or the more unusual Saar, I guess? So that wasn't really an option for me. Though I did take one of my father's middle names for myself additionally to John, cause I used to have my mother's middle name additionally to Sara. Also, my parents had no male name intended for me prior to my birth. They were deadset on getting a daughter. Well, they did and they didn't.
