I asked my mother what she would have called me had I been born a girl, she said Susan after my father's mother who died the year before I was born. That just didn't seem to fit.
My brothers have always called me Michelle so at first I went with that.
When I came out with my aunt, she said... well she said a lot. First was that it explained some things. I had forgotten that I had kept my fingernails long my whole junior year. I went as Dorothy on Halloween when I was five and wanted to go as Wonder Woman the next year. That I cried for a week after she made me take off her cheerleading outfit on my eighth birthday. Apparently it's my birthday and I should be able to wear what I want is not a valid argument. Hard to believe how much I had forgotten.
Oops, got sidetracked.
She said I was only third generation American on one side of the family and second on the other, why go with the English version of my name at all. Mikaela is a family name, feels right and it makes me smile when I say it.