How did you choose your name?

[Amanda Butterfly]

My mother had once told me that if I had been "born a girl" that my first name would have been Amanda.

[V M]

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V M

[Angela H]

How were you all able to choose such a beautiful name?  I mean, there are literary a lot of names out there to choose from. There's a few names that I am considering, I'm also considering the name that my own mother had reserved for yours truly, until I was born physically in the wrong body.  Also, how difficult is the process of legally changing your name?

In my family all the girls (there are five of us, yes five!) have the same middle name as my mother. I was super thrilled when she told me that she wanted me to take her middle name as well! So, the first criteria when choosing my name was that it would pair well with my middle name (Beth).

The second criteria was that I obviously didn't want to pick the same name as anyone else in my extended family or circle of friends. This actually blocks quite a few really good names because my extended family is gigantic! (Mormon families, lol) Rachel, Jessica, Emily, Amelia, Lara, Krista, Kirstie, Laurie, Nicki, Sara, Heather, Amber, Jennifer, Mary, Kaitlyn, Elizabeth, Nancy, Michelle, Kathleen, Abigail, Debbie, Laura (again), Cindy. Those are all the ones I can remember.

I asked my Mom what my name would have been if I was AFAB and she said Samantha, but I wasn't interested in a name with a gender neutral diminutive, so I settled on Angela.

[CuriousCat94x]

Just be aware that it has political connotations in some countries.

I barely googled the name "Tory" and ran into said "political connotations".... I know, I know I'm replying almost a year later, no excuses here haha.     

@Dena  Tory is a beautiful name, but I don't think there's a Spanish variant to it.    That being said...

I'm thinking about changing my name to.....  Julia

Julia because it is similar to my "rebirth" month, July. It is also a somewhat common name in both Spanish and English, but I'm not sure it suits me, what do y'all gals & guys think?  (assuming this thread is still alive )

P.S. Thank you all for replying and sharing your stories. I hope to continue reading more in the future and that this thread will help others out somehow.

[sarahc]

Sarah is my "online name." My real name is something else - I won't be disclosing it here.

With that said, I had two rules for picking a name...

1) It couldn't be a name of any of my relatives, good friends or wives/partners of good friends. That eliminated a LOT of potential names.

2) It had to be a name consistent with my personality and cultural heritage: down-to-earth, not too girly nor too formal, English/Scottish.

With those restrictions, I came down to a list of four names from which I picked one. My name isn't tremendously common, but it's not unusual. Although I am not yet presenting female, I have told several people what my new name is, and they all agreed that it was a good choice for me.

"Sarah"

[CynthiaAnn]

Cynthia was a popular girls name when I was growing up, I had many friends that had this name. It always resonated with me.

C -

[graspthesanity]

It was rather simple. I always liked the name Jamie as a male name and at the time I wanted something gender neutral, because I thought I was fluid. I also had written a story when I was growing up about a guy called Jamie, so I wanted to connect with the lonely closeted trans boy in me, to be very honest.

[ReubyLouise]

I was picked on a lot in school and my first name, Charles, got many locker room laughs with the variations of it with my last name. So at 19 I changed it to my middle name and only went by it, like my father did.  Never used my first name after that.

So when I transitioned in 1990 I just used a feminine version of that name.  At first they let me add it to my name on my ID. Then, in 2002 a doctor signed a paper, allowing me have my gender changed on my ID. But my Social Security still retained my birth gender.

Then in 2011 a bill was passed that made me change it all back. So after having a completely female ID for 9 years and living female 21 years, I had to go back to my birth name, Charles.  After having too many problems with everything, I finally went back to living male. For eight years now I have lived this half-existence that I have no clue how to live. 

Then, at the end of 2017, a series of events happened and I found myself on a trans roleplay site being changed into a girl in virtual life.  When trying to choose a middle name, I chose Louise, my mothers middle name.  On the site I eat a lot of reuben sandwiches and have a sister named Reubeca.

While on that site I found out the bill that made me change my name actually led to another that makes it even easier to not only have the ID name and gender changed, but the birth certificate too. So I told my wife that I didn't want to go back to the feminine version of my name. She came up with Ruby. So I went with Reuby Louise. Louise is actually hers, her sister's, and their mother's middle name. So I feel I am honoring a lot of people with my new name.

Good thread here.

ReubyLouise

[F_P_M]

My parents always said had I been born male i'd have been named Ryan.
I never much minded the name but i'm not sure it's ME. Maybe a middle name?

I'm honestly tempted to just keep the shortened form of my first name which it turns out is gender neutral. Obscurely, (the masculine version is dutch) but still realistically could be a male name.

So.. Jen Ryan? Not sure that flows lol.

I also toyed with going by Jin, the mispronouciation of my short form name. I originally started going by the shorter form of my name when we moved to the UK because I got sick to death of people purposely mispronoucing it (it's not even a wierd name! they just couldnt help themselves in mocking my accent! jerks )
I got tired of the awful nasal "Geeeee naaaaaah" they'd call me so I shortened to "Jen" and got misheard as Jin which i found far far less irritating.
I actually found Jin kinda cute. Buuuut it's a Japanese name and calling myself that feels a bit weeaboo. Ahem.

I've always really liked biblical boy names but to be honest I don't know if I want to totally change my name. I'm used to my name, it's my name and I dunno, it feels wrong personally for me to go by something totally else. So i'll probably just stick with Jen/Jin (20 years on people still can't understand my accent ahahahaha)

I doubt i'll do a new signature if I get that far either. I didn't even change my signature when i got married. Nobody can read my scribble anyway.

to be honest i'm not sure how far i'll take this. I'm still getting used to pronouns and the whole concept that i've been sort of repressing my whole life.

it's funny though because for ages i've wished I could stop "being me" and in a way, transitioning is sort of like being reborn isn't it? I'll still be me, but... not quite me? I dunno. Sort of like a butterfly emmerging from a crysalis.

I finally have that ability to emmerge reborn and i'm scared of it and keep trying to talk myself out of it. *headdesk*

[Linde]

My parents always said had I been born male i'd have been named Ryan.
I never much minded the name but i'm not sure it's ME. Maybe a middle name?

I'm honestly tempted to just keep the shortened form of my first name which it turns out is gender neutral. Obscurely, (the masculine version is dutch) but still realistically could be a male name.

So.. Jen Ryan? Not sure that flows lol.

How about make it Dutch, Northern German, Skandinavian, and call yourself Jens?  There is no doubt for any person from these areas that you are male, but most Americans would not know this for sure?

[F_P_M]

I have considered that for sure heh.

I'll figure it out. Whatever feels right and natural. Tbh I don't usually get called by my name anyway these days. I get called silly nicknames.

[Victoria L.]

My 'chosen' name is actually the name my parents would have given me had I been born AFAB. I have tried other names, though. Namely when I joined these forums. When coming out to my mom recently she had some hold-ups calling me by my chosen name, though. =/ I don't know if she's simply not "ready", or if we may actually have to pick something else.

Recently, I've noticed that my chosen name is an incredibly common choice for trans woman, which makes me think I wouldn't mind going with something else after all. It's sad, because I didn't choose the name like the others did, it was pretty much chosen for me. But, in the end, no one would know that difference. If I could avoid one of the most cliche trans woman names, that might be nice.

[LaRae]

I'm keeping my birth name, as I was fortunate enough to be born with a gender-neutral one.

[Rae321]

I haven't completely settled on my true name yet but i have a good idea of what it will be.

My mother decided i was a girl until i was born with a penis and ruined all her baby shopping.  she had a list of names she liked.
Jenni and Maggie were top of the list so one of those will be my first name. My mother is ambivalent about it. I could change it to Charlene Dainty McMuffintop for all she cares but I like both of the ones she had picked and I think she secretly likes that and just doesn't want to push me in any direction.

My daughter, Anilesa Rae, was stillborn 13 years ago.
Rae will be my middle name. Her mother and i both cried when i asked her if i could use it without upsetting her. We've always stayed close and she's been my biggest cheerleader on this journey so far.

I've always gone by my middle name so I think I'll just go by Rae in general. But the sound of Maggie Rae or Jenni Rae has a great ring to it in my ear.

All that being said my advice for anyone struggling to find their name who is at a dead end is to pretend for a while that you are having a child of the gender you feel. Imagine having to come up with that name. Whatever motivates your choices in naming your child will steer you in a good direction for finding your own name if you don't have an obvious one that you want. The love you would feel for your child should be akin to the love you feel for your new, and rather infant, self even though many of us loathe ourselves in many ways.  So this trick not only helps you pick a good name with good meanings it also helps exercise that self love that you know intellectually that you deserve.  <3

[Rae321]

You could easily be a Julia with that face. Or a Juliana, Luliana, Julianita, Jovita, Lulija, Julita,  etc. Your photo is very beautiful with dark curly hair and soft cheeks paired with full lips and deep eyes.  I think it could be a great fit and if you like Julia there's a ton of variations when you start looking at all the romance languages it's used in that are really exotic in their pronunciations from spanish french and italian to greek romanian and even russian. It's a name that flows very latin off the lips but still carries a modern softness to it's acoustic assumption. I won't tell you what name you should have but if you're looking for votes of confidence in that one you've got mine. <3<3

@Julia1996 I wish my mom could give me advise lol unfortunately she does not like the idea of me being myself. Julia is a very nice name, in Spanish Julia would be the feminine version of Julio, which is my birth month. I don't think I look like a Julia though. 

@Mary T We can just say that we're time travelers and that is how we have names from the future lol 

@emma-f Ultimately I believe that I will end up using the name my mother was going to call me had I been born correctly. Another part of me tells me that I should be original and take control, but I don't know 

@AlexanderDS I hope to find my own name in such a way where I just feel it. Like I said in a previous post, I've been at this for months and can't pick a name lol I did manage to narrow my search a bit though 

@SallyChoasAura That is an interesting concept. I can definitely broaden my search for a new name, I can already think of several names

@Violet Sorry about your loss I know how it feels to lose loved ones, everyday just gets better as we try to move on and our loved ones will always live through us. My ex-girlfriend is by far the only person who I'm out with, slowly but surely I will eventually come out to the world. Step by step I will not fall, she has accepted me for who I am and I am very thankful to have her as a friend. I feel bad as I did break her heart, but she understands. I will definitely ask her for suggestions, soon I will post a new list with possible names  I just need to narrow it down a bit I'll definitely need to create a new thread for that though

@am3579 I will also need to ask a friend for help lol hopefully I can find a name that suits me well enough. 



Off topic: I've been replying with "@name" and combining several replies into one post. I feel like if I reply to everyone individually the thread will become extremely clustered, or that I'll have too many posts. Is replying to everyone individually (as I originally intended) better? Or is grouping several replies into one post good? Sorry I'm new to this world of forums haha 

[aliceafterall]

At first I thought I would want a name based on my old name, but I decided I wanted to distance myself from it, so I went with a name I loved the sound of, Alice.

Alice is also a personality I associate really strongly with, and she's always been my favorite character from any book.
My girlfriend likes to call me Ali and it makes my heart flutter when she uses my name, so I think I chose right!

[Rae321]

At first I thought I would want a name based on my old name, but I decided I wanted to distance myself from it, so I went with a name I loved the sound of, Alice.

Alice is also a personality I associate really strongly with, and she's always been my favorite character from any book.
My girlfriend likes to call me Ali and it makes my heart flutter when she uses my name, so I think I chose right!

I can relate to this as I stare down the rabbit hole and wonder how far it goes for me. I have a feeling that the further I go into this transition the more correlations I will find with Alice in Wonderland.

[gracefulhat]

I haven't completely settled on my true name yet but i have a good idea of what it will be.

My mother decided i was a girl until i was born with a penis and ruined all her baby shopping.  she had a list of names she liked.
Jenni and Maggie were top of the list so one of those will be my first name. My mother is ambivalent about it. I could change it to Charlene Dainty McMuffintop for all she cares but I like both of the ones she had picked and I think she secretly likes that and just doesn't want to push me in any direction.

My daughter, Anilesa Rae, was stillborn 13 years ago.
Rae will be my middle name. Her mother and i both cried when i asked her if i could use it without upsetting her. We've always stayed close and she's been my biggest cheerleader on this journey so far.

I've always gone by my middle name so I think I'll just go by Rae in general. But the sound of Maggie Rae or Jenni Rae has a great ring to it in my ear.

All that being said my advice for anyone struggling to find their name who is at a dead end is to pretend for a while that you are having a child of the gender you feel. Imagine having to come up with that name. Whatever motivates your choices in naming your child will steer you in a good direction for finding your own name if you don't have an obvious one that you want. The love you would feel for your child should be akin to the love you feel for your new, and rather infant, self even though many of us loathe ourselves in many ways.  So this trick not only helps you pick a good name with good meanings it also helps exercise that self love that you know intellectually that you deserve.  <3

I'm sorry for your loss Rae, this must be very difficult for you. We never experienced a still birth, but have had multiple miscarriages and we're unable to have children. I too always went by my middle name. My now legal name is Jamie Kyla, and I was so happy to finally go by my first name because it was inconvenient to always have to correct people. My niece was named after me, Kylie, and her middle name is after her dad, Rae. So Kylie Rae  Rae is s great name. Oh and I chose Jamie for safety reasons. I want an ambiguous name and wiki showed Jamie as 50/50

[Rae321]

I'm sorry for your loss Rae, this must be very difficult for you. We never experienced a still birth, but have had multiple miscarriages and we're unable to have children. I too always went by my middle name. My now legal name is Jamie Kyla, and I was so happy to finally go by my first name because it was inconvenient to always have to correct people. My niece was named after me, Kylie, and her middle name is after her dad, Rae. So Kylie Rae  Rae is s great name. Oh and I chose Jamie for safety reasons. I want an ambiguous name and wiki showed Jamie as 50/50

Thank you.  It was very hard.  She died 3 days before her delivery date and it had a profoundly immense impact on her mother and I and our parents.  It was like a black hole that pulled all the joy and life from living for a very long time. But over time it bonded me much closer with her mother and my parents and a grown up version of myself than anything else ever could have.  She became an eddifice of understanding, empathy,  and love in which I still grow to this day and her loss has become less of a terrible memory and more of a defining event that helps me relate to myself and understand my world better.  In fact her loss and my father's have helped me to come to terms with who i am today.  I know in my heart that both of then would want to,  deserve to,  and would work hard to know the authentic me that is Rae and to deny them that out of fear and transphobia was a heist,  robbing them of their daughter and mother.  I can't repay that because it's too late but i can give that to everyone else i still have and everyone else who will ever know me.  It drives me forward now one step at a time, with breaks for crying of course.  So no matter what first name i take i have known since i first accepted my identity in a sobbing fit on the floor of my office that this was my true name.  Every fall her mother and I visit her cairn by a river in the mountains of central Idaho for her birthday and this will be the first year we both do it in our authentic skin. 

Sorry to go on and on,  this isn't my grief thread and i apologize to everyone who just wanted to read about picking names. But this is why i advice the child naming excersice for choosing a name.  That bonded love is something that we owe to ourselves and our names should be special for us as they will be us in a way that nothing else will because we'r send then out into the world as our emissaries when we attach them to our missives.  And to your thought of ambiguous names,  i go by Roy in my professional life and everyone misnames me Ray literally all the time so i have a suspicion that this will be a hilariously easy way to transition professionally because my clients have never met me and only a few will notice a shift as that guy they always call slowly gets replaced by this girl who develops in their ears.  Phone jobs are a blessing in this time i tell ya! XD
And while I've only ever known male Jamies personally ive always thought it was a feminine and beautiful name.  Not to mention it looks good on you.  <333

[gracefulhat]

Thank you.  It was very hard.  She died 3 days before her delivery date and it had a profoundly immense impact on her mother and I and our parents.  It was like a black hole that pulled all the joy and life from living for a very long time. But over time it bonded me much closer with her mother and my parents and a grown up version of myself than anything else ever could have.  She became an eddifice of understanding, empathy,  and love in which I still grow to this day and her loss has become less of a terrible memory and more of a defining event that helps me relate to myself and understand my world better.  In fact her loss and my father's have helped me to come to terms with who i am today.  I know in my heart that both of then would want to,  deserve to,  and would work hard to know the authentic me that is Rae and to deny them that out of fear and transphobia was a heist,  robbing them of their daughter and mother.  I can't repay that because it's too late but i can give that to everyone else i still have and everyone else who will ever know me.  It drives me forward now one step at a time, with breaks for crying of course.  So no matter what first name i take i have known since i first accepted my identity in a sobbing fit on the floor of my office that this was my true name.  Every fall her mother and I visit her cairn by a river in the mountains of central Idaho for her birthday and this will be the first year we both do it in our authentic skin. 

Sorry to go on and on,  this isn't my grief thread and i apologize to everyone who just wanted to read about picking names. But this is why i advice the child naming excersice for choosing a name.  That bonded love is something that we owe to ourselves and our names should be special for us as they will be us in a way that nothing else will because we'r send then out into the world as our emissaries when we attach them to our missives.  And to your thought of ambiguous names,  i go by Roy in my professional life and everyone misnames me Ray literally all the time so i have a suspicion that this will be a hilariously easy way to transition professionally because my clients have never met me and only a few will notice a shift as that guy they always call slowly gets replaced by this girl who develops in their ears.  Phone jobs are a blessing in this time i tell ya! XD
And while I've only ever known male Jamies personally ive always thought it was a feminine and beautiful name.  Not to mention it looks good on you.  <333

Rae I hope you will start your own story thread soon.