What advantage is there to changing the last name during the name change process? I heard that it is better for younger transitioners then older ones. Personally I can't think of any reason doing it would help, short of breaking off from your past.
Quote from: Angel on July 28, 2008, 10:20:23 AM
What advantage is there to changing the last name during the name change process? I heard that it is better for younger transitioners then older ones. Personally I can't think of any reason doing it would help, short of breaking off from your past.
That's exactly it. I wish I had changed mine (34 years ago). Once my family name outted me and a couple of times attracted suspicion. Since I was "disowned" anyway, I should have changed it.
I changed all my names, including my surname.
Why?
Well first and foremost to sever my link with the family name and to then offer some protection to my Children.
I also changed my surname in an attempt to make myself less traceable.
Buffy
Truthfully, I just never thought about it.
I never considered my last name a plus or a minus. It was my first and middle name that disgusted me and had to be shed.
Looking back, there would be and are many reasons to change the last name also. You are making a fresh start that way.
Sarah L.
For a long time I planned to change my name to "Emonds" whether I transitioned or not, but now that I've met my other mom, I realized how important me keeping her name is to her. It's a good name, unique, so I'll keep it. I'll be JAS instead of JAE.
I had been going by a different last name for the last three years. I really liked (and stil do) the flow of it. It was hard to tell people I knew who only knew me by my "new" last name about the name change. I just laughingly said I was going back to my maiden name!
BUT, when the time came to finally change my name legally a couple of months ago, I kept my original last name to maintain the link to my mother and my daughter who are and have both been there for me.
It was bad enough that they "lost" a son and father but to not even have a common name for them to cling to was too much for me to bear. Yes they did gain a daughter and a ??? (I've told her that I'll always be her daddy).
I never did discuss it with them as I did not want to even have it be a question in their minds.
Without those links, yes I would have changed it but that is a SMALL sacrifice on my part in return for everything I have gained by transitioning.
Jennifer
Quote from: Angel on July 28, 2008, 10:20:23 AM
What advantage is there to changing the last name during the name change process? I heard that it is better for younger transitioners then older ones. Personally I can't think of any reason doing it would help, short of breaking off from your past.
I considered it at first, but quite a few people got annoyed with me, saying it looked like I was ashamed of who I was, and was trying to "run away" or hide.
So I left it.
Still, now that the dust has settled, if my marriage fails and I actually save up some money again someday... I'll probably change it. Aside from my parents, I have zero contact with anyone from family. And there's something appealing about "finishing this" and *totally* defining who I am, on my terms. I've had a fictitious last name for many years which feels much more "me" than the legal one.
~Kate~
I would never, ever change my family name.
I changed my last name when I got married but it never felt right. I went back to my birth surname after my divorce. I will be keeping that name.
I am proud of my family, love my family, and have built my life with my birth surname. I like it, so I'm keeping it.
Some days I envy you guys and girls who change all 3 names to something totally unrelated to your birth names. But for me, keeping my initials and a name similar to my birth name is important to me. Maybe I'm just not as wild and crazy as I thought! LOL
Jay
It depends on how rare your last name is and whether you want to be in control of people finding out about you. I prefer to out myself to people on my terms, so I changed the name.
Lia
I am changing all three. My original last name out of respect for my parents, who are both gone now, and out of respect for my ex. I don't think that she is going to change her name after the divorce.
And lastly for me, as a total break from being male. And then I can sue Jennifer Lopez for stealing my initials, J LO. ;D >:D
Janet
I haven't changed my name yet, just picked one for most part.
Because heritage is important to me, and my last name comes from a part of my heritage I am proud of, I will most likely keep my last name. I also wanted to try to keep my initials if possible, makes it easier to me, plus I kinda love having the Initials of a Security system (ADT) lol
It's an odd thing...
I kinda associate my birth surname with the "male" line of my family, so between that and being female now (almost)... and the fact that I'll never have a biological child to carry the genes on... and if I ever did get remarried, I'd lose the name anyway... it already feels like I've abandoned the name. Like I've broken my "obligations" to it, and IT has disowned ME.
Anyone else feel that way?
~Kate~
You do bring up an interesting question Kate, most women do change their last name when they get married. As a girl keeping my old name really isn't that important (this branch of my family name will die out anyway, there are no male children).
I wonder if FtM's have a different opinion on this. Males normally keep their family name?
Very interesting question.
Sarah L.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on July 29, 2008, 08:54:29 AM
You do bring up an interesting question Kate, most women do change their last name when they get married. As a girl keeping my old name really isn't that important (this branch of my family name will die out anyway, there are no male children).
I wonder if FtM's have a different opinion on this. Males normally keep their family name?
Very interesting question.
Sarah L.
Not keeping mine :'(. I really wish to do so, but I must settle with a clever play on my original. My family (total count of 4 in the US) is most likely the only people to have this last name in my entire state, so I shall change my last name when I do my second name change. If I still lived in Greece, I would not have this trouble since my name would not be so out of place, but I do not plan on going back for any other reason than vacationing and visiting family. Decisions, decisions.
i'm keeping mine as i have given ALL my children wifey's maiden name to start with, even new people at work don't associate them with me, even if they call me daddy. some people are just oblivious, which is fine with me. i'm not explaining anything i don't have too to anyone.
Warrior Princess Mickie
I changed my last name for practical reasons. First, it didn't SOUND very nice with my name, April, and second, which was even more important, was that it was a bit long. By shortening it, it became easier to use in business and social matters.
If I were to make an appointment over the phone, for example, whenever I'd give my name, everyone could spell April, but the last name sometimes needed to be spelled severall times
It was just more convenient to shorten it.
Interestingly My last name actually means Son of Thomas
To some peeps it's reeeeely important. They need that distance, especially if they have no family support. Others chug along with what they got. Me....I kept my whole name, but go by my given middle name, Beverly. So, now, hmmmmmm.......when my spouse/partner and I introduce ourselves, it seems strange to them, that partners would have the same last name. I've told some, that Marcy had her last name legally changed to mine; "wasn't that nice of her?"
All true. When we were married as male and female, she DID have her last name legally changed to mine.
I love it! The situation, I mean.
I always did prefer skating the edge.
Pick your new name, if that's what you want, and enjoy your new life!
Bev
Posted on: July 30, 2008, 10:52:12 AM
Quote from: Aiden on July 30, 2008, 10:22:04 AM
Interestingly My last name actually means Son of Thomas
My last name in old Irish means, "don't bug me, or I'll rot yer taters and steal yer woman" (my interpretation. Of course, I don't speak gaelic much.....)
Bev
Interestingly some of the name sites have found say that my Last name is just English name, though it exists in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales as well
I didn't change my last name, not because I like my family (they don't like me), but because the last name is cool and reflects some of my personality. You can't go wrong with a name like Morrissey. ;)
And my middle name is my original name before it was quickly changed at birth and registered as a male name (Ashlyn-Rose, as ultra sounds, docs, parents, etc, expected me to be a baby girl, and when I was born I wasn't 100% that way, and converting to male seemed like a much better idea to the doctors at that time.).
I changed my entire name, mainly because I did not want to leave any clues for my family. I wanted to cut them off as completely as possible. Same old story, I guess.
I liked that my birth name was very unusual, but it was feminine (well, my middle name was unisex but tending toward feminine). I have always loved my birth surname because it's very uncommon and cool, although it did wreak all sorts of havoc on people who couldn't spell it or pronounce it. And, of course, my surname was really my father's gift to me...for a long time, I wanted to maintain that tie because I have a daddy-son fixation (don't ask; I'm sure it all goes back to the father-son relationship that I never had).
But the unusualness of my last name would have made me very recognizable, no matter what I took as my first name. And it didn't go well with any of the first names that I came up with. So I went through a phase during which I tried to come up with a whole new name with the same initials as my birth name. That didn't work, and I was a bit nervous about having the same initials anyway. I figured that if my parents ever tried to find me, they might take those initials as a sign that they were on the right track.
Eventually, I came back to my alter ego from high school. I used to write a lot, and this alter ego was sort of a replacement for my imaginary friend, who had left me a few years earlier. I was writing a science fiction novel about my alter ego, and I took his name as a nickname in my senior year. More than fifteen years later, I took that name as my legal name, although I made a couple of changes to distinguish myself from the character in the book. First, I took a different middle name that alludes to my FTM origins. And second, the character in the book was always known by a diminutive version of the first name--a shortened version with a "y" added on. But I never, never use a diminutive of my first name, and it drives me nuts when other people try to do that.
I went from a strange and unusual surname to one of the commonest surnames in the country. Call it protective coloration.
All of this came to nought one day when my father unexpectedly came by the place I worked. I had worked there for ten years but had changed my name only a few months before. I was getting ready to quit so that I could sever the last ties to my old life and so that I could go to graduate school...and my father came by to drop off a Christmas gift. He hadn't done that in several years, so I wasn't expecting him to do it again. Naturally, he asked for me by my old name. The receptionist, who was relatively new, had no idea who that person was, and my father was about to leave. Then one of my coworkers, who happened to be passing by, blurted out that I had changed my name. She told him the new name without thinking.
It's hard to blame her; as I said, she wasn't thinking. I was nice about it. But some of my other coworkers were saying, "Gee, I can't believe you did that!" She was mortified, poor thing.
My parents seem to be abiding by my wishes. They have not bothered me again.
I will not change my name again. My name is my chosen name. Every syllable, every symbol, every double meaning. All of it is MINE.
The birthday gift was a piece of poetic irony: a framed keepsake "name origin" print. My original given name was featured prominently at the top, followed by the name's origins and meaning and a prose poem about what kind of person the name supposedly describes. I cannot imagine what my father must have felt when he left it for me, knowing that I had cast off that beautiful, carefully chosen name to take on something strange and masculine. But I still have the print, along with the handwritten note that my father left for me that day. It was probably my mother's idea, not my father's, to get that particular gift, but I guess I will keep it, and his note, till I die.
So it seems that I haven't quite cast off all of my past, have I? A few things I do hang onto.
I love my family and feel that changing my last name would be the equivalent to spitting in their faces.
The only people I know, trans or otherwise, that change their last names are the ones who have ->-bleeped-<-ty home-lives and hate their folks.
Greetings Everyone!
I personally changed all my names, but at the same time did not really cut from my family history; let me explain...
My first name, Isabelle, actually came from a family member that meant the world to me. To me one of the greatest things I could do to honor her memory was to adopt her name as mine. Of all my family she was the most understanding of me as a child and perhaps the only family member who just accepted me for me...may Aunt Isabelle rest in peace. I think spending so many of my summers with her and her being none judgmental of me really helped to shape me in so many ways.
I also changed my surname, but again I did not really make a clean break from my family on this either. I simply went back to my mother's maiden name (which she abandoned after her second marriage by keeping her ex's last name). I went with Saint-Pierre, so in reality I haven't broken with my families history and brought back an older family name. The only one who was slightly offended by my choice in surnames was of course my father, he took it as a personal slap and it has taken a lot of work on my part to rebuild the bond with him over that.
As for my middle name, I had ALWAYS hated my middle name! So given that I was changing my name, why not take the opportunity get rid of that God awful middle name? My middle name actually took me the longest choose. I went through about 20 of them before finally hitting on the one that was "right"...it just flowed, it sounded good with my other names but more importantly it felt right.
And so that is how I came to be known as Isabelle Jacqueline Saint-Pierre...
I changed my last name because it was a little bit long, and it was just easier to work with a shortened version of it for business reasons. By shortening my last name, it became more convenient as well as just sounding better with my new first name.