What is your name?
Alexander (Alex)
What is your middle name ? (if there is one)
Luke
What does your name mean?
Alexander: "defender of man"
Luke: "light"
But they're not really important factors to me. Personally the fact that Alexander begins with an 'A' is important to me as it symbolises a new beginning as the start of the alphabet, my birthname began with 'Z' and I ended that.
Where is it derived from?
Both first and last name are from Greek, it's just a co-incidence.
How did you choose it?
I wanted a first name beginning with 'A', and remembered that I had tried to get people to call me Alex when I was younger, before I realised that I was trans and didn't need just a unisex name. Luke is also something that I wanted people to call me, but when I was even younger.
Is it masculine, feminine, or unisex?
Written in full it's male, but when it's shortened to 'Alex' then it's unisex, although more common in men.
What influenced your decision, if any?
I didn't want to go by the original name, Adam, because my ex chose it for me. Even when I got over that I was still drawn to Alex more as I'd been a little disappointed they didn't like it. My thinking about wanting something beginning with 'A' also helped, as did wanting something that could be shortened -- my birthname is very short. Also I wanted a middle name because I'd not had one before.
Is it a common name where you're from?
It's in the top ten for my birth year in the U.K. so I'd say so, it's also fairly common with slightly older people too, but not old fashioned, which suits me great, I struggle with people my own age.
Funny that this topic came up today as my girlfriend called me Alex for the first time today. I'd never pushed it because to me it's just a label, and I don't want to push things too quickly and lose her, so as long as she doesn't use female pronouns I'm fine with it, and I think my birthname has only left her lips once, followed by an apology, since she found out at Christmas. Earlier in the week I noticed that she'd changed my name in her phone to 'Alex' and I told her that it made me proud because it shows that she's accepted me and changing how she sees things, not that there was ever a problem, and that it made me really happy. Today she used it in conversation for the first time, which felt brilliant. It's the first time in over a year that someone's used a male name to me in person and not over the phone, and even that's only happened once or twice since I changed to Alex.