names are real tricky. when i first began questioning my gender a few years ago, i "casually" asked my mother what i would have been named, had i been born male. her answer? "oh, i never would have had a boy!" whoops, uhhh. sorry, mom.
i toyed with a couple of different names. i'd "jokingly" used the name 'teddy' with my email account for years (remember when bro puns were all the rage? i changed my gmail name to "teddy broosevelt" and then just suspiciously ... never changed it back...) but i had a couple of unfortunate associations that kept the name from feeling right.
in the end, i chose my name, cameron, because it worked equally well in persian/farsi and in english. kamran is a traditional boys name in iran, and while i go back and forth on the spelling some days, because i live in the united states, i went with the more familiar, english spelling. but having a name that reflected my heritage, just like my birth name, was important to me! far more so than picking a name with the same first letter. i also liked that there was an element of gender neutrality. i'm a non-binary guy, and i liked that "cameron" was androgynous without feeling particularly female.
of course, i'm not out to, well, just about anyone, so maybe it's all moot. but it's felt kind of nice, having a name for my secret self. it feels like home in a real tangible way.
