CHYNNA is has Chynna does

[Chynna]

Nevermind the title I'm encryptic at times

The question being:
1 How did you choose your "gender correct" name?
2. How many and what where the different names you tried first before commiting to one?


Names I've gone through and sometimes still use!  since HS:

Ashanna
Anieka
Lakeyah
Princess (more of a title than a name because I wasn't quite a queen yet!)LMAO
Domonique'
Siniaya
and of course CHYNNA

Only 2 have stories behind them
Siniaya & Chynna


Chynna White

Ps my intials are the furtheist thing from my original ones
SDK
vs
DCT

[Melissa]

Well let's see:

1. I took a list of my favorite female names and narrowed it down to 1.  Coincidently it starts with the same first letter as my male name and that came in useful.

2. 1 name really.  By the time I considered possibly changing it, too many people knew me as Melissa.  I ended just changing my middle name from a generic 'Anne' to a more meaningful 'Emily'.

Melissa

[stephanie_craxford]

Hey there Chynna.

I've always liked Stephanie and I can't for the life of me remember why but it was my first and only choice, and like Melissa the ititials match my previous name.

And for Melissa, I'm not that the "Annes" of the world would be too happy to find out that their names are not meaningful.

Steph

[Melissa]

I was talking about for a middle name.  I chose it originally because it was so common and I couldn't think of anything else at the time, therefore, to me it was not meaningful and was generic.

Melissa

[Bdnewgirl]

Mine is what my mom said she would have named me. Good thing I liked the name it is the only one I use

Hugs
Brandi

[Nero]

Melissa Emily - I love it!

Nero

[Melissa]

Melissa Emily - I love it!

Nero

Thanks. 

Melissa

[stephanie_craxford]

I was talking about for a middle name.  I chose it originally because it was so common and I couldn't think of anything else at the time, therefore, to me it was not meaningful and was generic.

Melissa

I see.

Steph

[wolfie]

1) It was my grandfathers name, Acentino
2) Names I tried (for VERY brief periods of time) were Max and Tim... but not very italian of me. 

I think it's great that we get the opportunity to pick a name for ourselves and that we can pretty much make it anything we want.

When I went to get my name changed, I looked at the form and thought "I could write Batman on this and that could be my legal name, or Sir. Tino the third". Not something I would actually do... I guess I was mad with power!!! 

-Tino-

[Kimberly]

My first name choose me, as odd as it sounds.
My Middle name is my parents choice, and it seems that pretty much everything agrees with their pick.
My Last name is exactly what it should be.

^*wink* Easy!

[HelenW]

HELEN is the only female name that starts with an "H" in the top 100 names for girls born in 19×× (year of my birth) 

I feel ambivalent about it - I may change it and, yes, a number of people know me as Helen ("Plain old" seems to be an appropriate prefix to that name, somehow, in my mind) so I feel somewhat of a resposibility to remain consistent.

I'd like to keep the initials, though.  And I like my middle name better, Christine - so I may go by that instead - H. Christine W.

I'll drive off that bridge when I get to it.
h

[Melissa]

If you don't like 'Helen', then choose something you do like.  You don't have to go with a name that with the same initials as you male name and you don't even have to go by the same one as your birth years.  Many TS women will actually end up looking younger than their genetic counterparts, so you could choose a more recent name if you want.

About using the middle name, that's one reason I chose the one I did.  It gave me the option.

Melissa

[Nero]

Helen,
Many TS give certain recommendations for choosing a name:
Try to feminize/masculinize your given name if possible.
Choose a name with the same initial as your given name.
Choose a name that was popular the year you were born.
Choose an ordinary, everyday name, not a unique or unusual one that will "stand out".

But that's all they are - recommendations. I wouldn't adhere to them too rigidly. Rules are meant to be broken! Just as Melissa said. Choosing a name with the same initial as their given name makes the name easier to get used to for some, but more importantly, it has to be a name that you like and can handle answering to for the rest of your days.
Unless you really can't find a name that suits you, I don't feel you should stick with a name that you feel ambivalent about.
That being said, I really like the name Helen. It's feminine and elegant.
Some other H names I like:

Harriet
Heidi
Hilda
Holly
Hope
or you could just add an "a" to Helen - Helena (beautiful, though it has a sad connotation for me)

Good luck.
Nero

[Mario]

It goes back 20 years. It was the only name that "felt" right. Plus it had to be an Itallian name.  My last name is Santucci. The initial is the same as my birth name, although that did not matter.

                                                 Marco

[Melissa]

                                                 Marco

Polo! 

Melissa

[heatherrose]

When I first started to transition I called myself Tammy Renee. This is a name I choose because it is close to the name that I was given at birth, not much thought was given to it.

I was in chat one day and Taylor (a F2M ts.) signed in and told how his mother had been the one that had renamed him. This profoundly provoked me to thought, I then was able to somewhat understand how my mom must be feeling. Here is her eldest child, who she has sweated, cried and fussed over for many decades, rejecting everything that she had given "him" over the years, including his name.

When I spoke with my mom the next time, after she corrected herself for calling me by my former name, I recounted to her Taylor's story, how it made me think and how I felt. I asked her what name she would give me. She asked if I was asking what she would have named me if I have been born a girl, I told her no. What I was asking was, if she had had another daughter what would she have named her. My mom told me that she has always loved the name Heather Rose. So please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Heather Rose

Always love,
Heather Rose

[Elizabeth]

Heather Rose,

That was a lovely story, thanks for sharing it with us.  My story is much more mundane.  I did a search for the most popular female names throughout time. I found a site that had it documented back to 1880. They had the top twenty names from each year.  There were five girls names that never left the top twenty.  Of those five, Elizabeth just felt like me.  It still does.  I don't see me ever changing it, except legally.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Chynna]

A lot of you have asked me how I came up with such a mysterious\unusual name.

Simple
write before I transitioned fulltime as a TS I had a lot of asian friends (mostly chinese)
I lived in china town
have chinese\japanese symbols like everywhere on my body.
Had a chinese boyfriend
Can speak, write and read, chinese

You get the picture.
Hence I was "named"
Chynna Doll
Chynna for short..
it means  "one's who's breast defy gravity!"
Ok I made that last part up but it sounds good at the office christmas party...

the other names where just products of an over active imagination and a person with way too much free time on her hands

SI-CHI
Chynna

[Chaunte]

"Chaunte" is a morph of my birth name.

The first time I became me, I was going to a Halloween party.  THe stylists who transformed me asked what name I was going to use and I replied "Sheila."  THey looked at each other then me and replied "Naaaaaw!  To plain!"  They morphed my name and I went by that.  In fact, all the women at the party simply assumed that name without my ever having to say what it was.

I think like a number of us, I started to accept the person I am as a result of tha party.  Given the frosty reception at home, making the Siberian winter feel like Bermuda during the summer, I came out to a few female friends that I knew I could trust.  One of these women, fluent in French (added 6/17: and French Canadian by descent), changed the spelling to what I use today.  Chaunte Marie Joyeux O'Connor

[Kaitlyn]

Mmm, Kaitlyn doesn't really have any deeper meaning for me and is relatively newish but I picked it because it feels warm and comfortable, like it fits maybe. It also has the added convenience of being decently popular when I was born and sharing the same initial. At first, I just feminized my given name into Kristine, but something about it didn't mesh. For a while I thought of just picking popular pleasant sounding name, like Jennifer. It was just too generic and impersonal. So I gave some thought to the sounds and letters I liked and found a name that had them all together. Now, the more I hear it and see it, the more it feels right =)