help on choosing a name

[Everyone]

There have been very few english male names that feel right for me. and the few that have felt right I can't use as my new name. However, tons of Japanese male names feel right. I can't use those though, because I have no Japanese in me. The only reason they feel right is because I'm more used to Japanese names I think lol how can I get past this so that I can find more american names I'm ok with? if anyone has any suggestions, please tell me. I need help with this lol

[Bones]

Why can't you have a Japanese name? So what if you're not Japanese. I've seen Asians with names like Bill or Jim..If you feel more comfy with a Japanese name, then I say go for it. Afterall, it's the name you have to live with, so pick something you will like.

[Everyone]

Why can't you have a Japanese name? So what if you're not Japanese. I've seen Asians with names like Bill or Jim..If you feel more comfy with a Japanese name, then I say go for it. Afterall, it's the name you have to live with, so pick something you will like.

Thank you =] I think asians with those names are from america. and I'm not from japan. But I think I might go with a japanese name anyways.

[owl]

You should go with whatever feels right, i think the most popular trans male japanese name is Kai, i know about 5 of them, : P

[Fencesitter]

You should go with whatever feels right, i think the most popular trans male japanese name is Kai, i know about 5 of them, : P

Kai is also a common German unisex name. It is used almost only for males in northern Germany, the more you go south the more females also have that name,  but it's still uncommon for females. Even further south, in the German speaking part of Switzerland, about a quarter or half of the Kais are female. As a German name, Kai is pronounced like the part of the face "eye", but with a K before it.

If you choose a Japanese name or anything else exotic, please consider that many people will ask you how you got that name, even strangers - for the rest of your life. Just out of curiosity or to get a "nice weather" like conversation topic. But that question can be a challenge for transsexual people. I don't know if it would be fine for you to deal with this question over and over again for the rest of your life. You either have to refuse answering the question which would be considered rude and bizarre, or you have to lie each time, or you have to find the right fuzzy formulation to not out yourself, or you have to out yourself. None of these options are elegant or something you would feel good with. And people sometimes won't be satisfied with a simple answer but ask even more and more.

The name I got at birth was a common name, but extremely unusual for my age group in Germany. Most women who had that name were in their 70ies or 80ies. And almost EVERYONE I met asked me how I got that name and that was very annoying to tell the same little story over and over again as even a blunt and simple answer usually triggered further questions until we got through the whole story. I must have told this story about 500 times in my life, and this questions-answers game usually took about 2-5 minutes and it was almost exactly the same scheme each time. I did not want to refuse answering though as it would have been somewhat rude and would have killed the "getting acquainted" atmosphere. I really hated that, and there was not even a trans outing issue involved there.

[kyril]

Pick something that's ordinary for your date and place of birth. It doesn't have to be top-20, but if it doesn't show up in the top 500 or so you're going to get questions. And they'll be hard to answer. They'll be especially hard to answer if they come from anyone who's FTM-aware. Japanese names are probably out of the question unless you have a seriously compelling back story or are willing to admit you got a name change.

More general advice: Lots of us are in the age range of people who are having kids right now and are affected by our generation's particular taste in names. That means we're likely to find something very attractive about names like Aiden, Cayden, Jayden, etc. as well as other recently-popular names like Kai which was mentioned here. Those generally aren't good picks for guys who expect to go stealth - practically no current adults have those names. Except trans guys.

(Oddly, the MTFs don't seem to experience the same phenomenon - I don't see a flood of Madisons, Emmas, and Abigails on the ladies' board.)

I picked a name that I liked, a classic name that's well-known and easily pronounced. Its baseline popularity through the historical data was in the lower half of the top 500, but it experienced a marked upswing just a few years before my birth year, fell just short of the top 100 for that year, and continued to increase in popularity until it plateaued in the high 30s in the early 2000s. So it's a reasonable name for someone my age to have but also a classic name and a name with particular appeal to today's young adult generation. And I like it.

But even so it didn't quite feel like "me" until I used it for a while. That's an important thing to understand if you've always been known by one name: you can get used to being called almost anything. Just as long as you don't hate it, you'll be alright.

[LeeIam]

Perhaps you could compromise?

For example Benjiro is a Japanese name meaning peaceful one or enjoys peace.  It could be shorted to just Ben if you don't want to explain it or if you are happy to you can say Benjiro. I'm sure you find something that fits.

I gave my friends a short list of names and asked them to decide which one suited me most. It turned out to be an old celtic name. Im an anglo-african so I don't really look like your typical Liam. But it works.

[justmeinoz]

If you have a look at  list of Japanese names, I wouldn't be surprised if you found a few that sound English.  Ken comes to mind for a start.

[Fencesitter]

You could also choose two names, without a hyphen in-between. The first being a normal name for your age, place and the way you look (race/ethnic group), your "stealth mode" name. The second being the exotic "I love that name" name. You can even live with both names, good friends using the exotic name like a nickname and strangers, new acquaintances etc. only getting to know about your normal name. Even if you don't plan to ever go stealth at the moment, you might change your decision in the future and it's good if you have at least one name that causes no trouble.

It is also a nice idea to let your parents decide the normal name or give you a short list of their favorite names for you and you pick one of them. Whoever asks you, you can tell them that of course your parents chose your name as they liked it, point. 

As for trans women... here, the younger they are, the more they reason like kyril or me when they choose their new name. The elder they get, the more original and fancy names they tend to choose. I have often tried to talk them out of this before it was too late, but they were just like "I like that name and it represents all I want to be as a woman so I'll pick it no matter what other people think, point."

It's often two names with a hyphen in-between which means you always have to write down both in forms etc. They tend to pick names of flowers or other extremely feminine, often English or French names, which are extremely uncommon for their age and country, and a hyphenated combination of two such odd names is extremely rare here. Plus such names are often commonly used as pseudonyms by whores and ->-bleeped-<-s and as stage names by drag queens. Great.

Choosing such a name does not help you get acceptance or credibility from people who know you're trans. And it can be a real passing killer if your passing is neither 0 nor 100%, which is often the case for elder trans women. Even if you pass before telling your name or people are just unsure whether you're trans or not, as soon as you tell them you're Joséphine-Chantal it's GAME OVER or people at least become very suspicious. And here in Germany, it's easier to get a permission to build a chemical plant in a nature reserve than to get the permission to change your name again if your name just does not work. It just makes me sad whenever I see a trans woman choose such a name for a life-time of misery. We transmen usually don't have this "name kills passing" issue, or not for long, but still...

[sneakersjay]

Another compromise would be to pick a name that would have ordinarily been given in the decade you were born, maybe with something in common with the Japanese name you like, then use the Japanese version as a nickname.  That way, when people ask, you can say it's a nickname.  And since most nicknames are bestowed by relatives for many odd reasons usually not known by the bearer of said nickname (since they usually came about when the person was a baby) most people don't delve into the whys of a nickname as much.

Jay

[Renate]

You can pick an age-appropriate name that's very common in one country
and still have it virtually unknown in the country where you live.

Personally, I think that that's fun.

[Fencesitter]

You can pick an age-appropriate name that's very common in one country
and still have it virtually unknown in the country where you live.

Personally, I think that that's fun.

That was exactly my case, the name my parents had given me at birth was in the top 10 list in both their countries in that year, but  not even in the top 200 where I grew up. And that caused more fuss than fun.

[insanitylives]

This is coming from someone who has a horribly misspelt birth name, and a very obscure middle name.

Make it something that people can either sound out or know.
The questions. Get annoying. FAST.

[Zack]

This is coming from someone who has a horribly misspelt birth name, and a very obscure middle name.

Make it something that people can either sound out or know.
The questions. Get annoying. FAST.

THIS.

I chose, what I thought, was a pretty normal name and easy to spell.
Obviously people disagreed. I had constant questions, everyone thought it was foreign even though it was of English origin.
It was a unisex name, I've since changed it to Zack (Zachary), not legal yet though, because my parents now know I'm FTM.

So I went with 'going for a name that I liked and wanted' but in the end all the comments I got just weren't really worth it. And I was worried it was obvious it was a name I've chose personally seeing as it didn't fit with the year I was born, which in turn can lead to people being more suspicious if they already think you're FTM.

[Trickster]

Can I just point out that us Asian peeps have American names half the time to prevent people from making fun of us, and the other half the time to prevent people from assuming we're not citizens? Seriously, I'm Samuel for a reason. I get enough crap about my last name - pronunciation, oh-where-is-it-from, questions which pretty much boil down to asking about your pedigree, how long I've been in this country (23 years. Oh, how old are you? 23 :|)/if I'm an exchange student/blahblahblah...dude, no lie. Insanitylives is right on, the questions get annoying. Fast. I don't even want to know what it'd be like if my parents didn't Americanize my first name. My accent? Typical californian.

If you're willing to deal with it, then go for it. People do pry, a lot of the time past the point of polite conversation. I've come up with some snarky responses myself, but then again I've lived with my name my entire life. My male name is a direct variation of my female one, so the adjustment was easy. If you're getting used to it, it might be kinda difficult to have the confidence and familiarity right off the bat to own it enough to feel comfortable fielding those questions. Ymmv though, just something to take into consideration.     

[Shang]

--Lots of Asians have Americanized names because Americans can't always say the person's name.  I had a friend who went by Cindy for this reason.--

You can also go by any name that's been time-proven, or name that has a vague link to your family.  I chose a name that seems meant more for a pen name than anything, but the first name has vague link to Eastern European roots (which I'm part) and my middle name is a common English name (which I'm also part) and my last name is French (which I'm also part).  I just went with what felt right, but also has vague links.

[Fencesitter]

Make it something that people can either sound out or know.
The questions. Get annoying. FAST.

I can relate to that, and insanitylives' advice is very wise. Both my old first and my last name could be spelled in various ways, and my version was the less usual one. It was very annoying.

Another good advice:
Take care that your new name does not clash with your last name. My former name had that particular problem when pronounced the German way and therefore caused a lot of confusion. It was awfully annoying and any forms filled out by others ended up looking horrible or even difficult to read as the wrong name was scratched out. Sometimes people could not find my file because they had not corrected the mistake etc. I'll invent a similar example here. Imagine you are called

Marilyn Denberg - and everybody thinks you are called
Mary Lindenbergh - as it seems more usual.

Or Alex Andermiller - Alexander Miller, Tony Obrigado - Tonio Brigado etc.

And don't believe that stressing the pronunciation will be of any help. I did this and even left a lot of space between my first and last name. People usually still got it wrong all the time. And once they got it right, they still spelled it wrong for other reasons. Maybe that's what made me transsexual - the name alone was reason enough to transition  . Oh, the horror!

One more advice:
don't choose a name which sounds good in a foreign language's pronunciation but sounds horrible or ridiculous if pronounced in the way of the native language of any of the countries where you live or plan to live in the future. It's even more important if the name has sounds which people cannot pronounce where you live. You'll have the trouble to correct people all the time or even teach them how to pronounce that exotic sound. And you will still shudder very often as many people will pronounce you the horrible way no matter how you try to correct them. The French name Alain, for example, has a nasal e like in "errr..." in it and just doesn't work in English or German. Jacqueline with German pronunciation is absolutely awful, it sounds like "jacket-line" in German (Yuck-err-lea-ner). 

My new name is very common and usual for my age group in each of the countries where I live or have my roots, has only one possible spelling, does not clash with my last name. You can even pronounce my first and last name together in many languages (German, French, English, Spanish etc.) and they never sound like foreign names. I love this great "native passing" as it spares me boring "Where are you from? Are you a foreigner?" questions (sometimes I got this with my old name) and gives me the freedom to disclose as a foreigner only when I want to. My new name is heaven on earth.

[Osiris]

Don't pick a name because of what you are into now. As you get older your interests shift. I knew someone who was very into Japanese stuff like anime and we ended up giving each other Japanese nick names. I'm happy I no longer go by that nick name anymore, it really didn't suit me after all.

[Trickster]

Kvall, I was trying not to say it, but I gotta agree with that. I'm not Japanese, but it's one of the top three guesses people throw at me. As an Asian-American, it makes me reallly uncomfortable when people pick up AA stuff who...well...aren't. Like I said earlier in my post, there are stereotypes us AA dudes have to face down on a regular basis. I just feel like...I don't know, non-AA dudes, we're not a trend. Our names are a part of our identity, not a fandom you know? It's like...you don't get to cherry-pick culture, dude. The jokes can get under your skin after a while. If I AM AA and *I* don't get to have a cultural name just to make my LIFE easier, it seems unfair that some white dude can come along and pick up a name one of my bros should have as an option to them and not deal with the ching-chong, dog-eating, meek and mild, asexual, always-a-foreigner-never-a-citizen stuff.

Hey, you like our food, music, like to travel to our countries, our media, language, cool. Go for it. We can geek out together. I'm glad to share these things that are important to me with other people. There are just some things that...yeah, don't sit well with me and a few other aa peeps I know. I don't know if I'm expressing this right. I know the intent wasn't malicious, but still...yep. My two cents. Same reason i didnt go with a middle eastern name I really liked. I figure if I cant walk a mile in their shoes, I have no business jacking their name.

[Fencesitter]

Don't pick a name because of what you are into now. As you get older your interests shift. I knew someone who was very into Japanese stuff like anime and we ended up giving each other Japanese nick names. I'm happy I no longer go by that nick name anymore, it really didn't suit me after all.

Oh, I know a young trans guy who chose several bizarre demoniac names plus Kain as his new names as he thought that it's frigging cool, and he made the official name change. I just wonder what happens if he ever becomes a Christian, Muslim or Jew. At least, the German law which is usually horribly strict about name changes allows you to change your name for religious reasons, e. g. your name is Mohammed Ramadan and you become a Christian and want to get rid of your old name, or you have Spanish origins, are called Jesús and become a Jew etc. That's this guy's unique chance - even if he wants to get rid of his stupid names for other reasons, he might still fake religious reasons and get through with it. Had he chosen other stupid names than openly religious (satanic) names, he'd be stuck with them forever.