I have a sudden very urgent feeling of needing my new name to be settled. Not legally, but socially. Back the beginning of the year, I started my search for a neutral name. I have since started passing very reliably, live as male everywhere but work, and decided that I am in fact ready for something completely masculine. Back in February, I started using my chosen name here in the chat, and then later with a handful of friends. At the time, I tried to bring it up with my partner, but we either had a misunderstanding or he wasn't ready. (He's been very supportive and I'm not interested in this being at all negative about him)

He is now reliably using my pronouns, and uses whatever name I ask him to in a given situation. I switch between a nickname of my birthname and my male name. But when I asked him what he thought of it, he admitted to not particularly liking the name, and thinking that something else might be more fitting. We went through some suggestions and concluded that most of the names he liked were not a fit for me either. It was a completely reasonable conversation, but I noticed after that I started having second thoughts about my name. That maybe I don't want it forever and maybe I only like it because it's the only male name I was ever called. It's fairly trendy for babys these days, but rare for my age. I've got a few other options, but now I really don't know.

This is the most uncertain I've been about this in the six months since I started using it. And I suddenly feel like I'm not real without a name. To the point where I've had a few panic attacks over it. I'm not entirely sure what I am looking for here. Has anyone else had doubts about your name? How do you decide if it's really right? How do I not freak out over this?

Hi RE,

My preferred name for 3 years has been Cynthia. I am changing to Rachel. I liked both and tried out one but now I am sure about Rachel. It is a big decision and yes it can be a bit nerve racking until I just said to myself give it a trial run and if you want to switch then just do it.

I picked a couple different K names before settling on Kristina. Not sure why, but I sometimes have doubts about it. A bunch of people know it and use it, and its growing on me to where I don't think about alternatives anymore.  In NC though you can only change your name once, so I better make sure I get it right the first time!

Not sure if that's helpful, but it's not unreasonable to have doubts. But I have no idea how to overcome them, lol.

Me and my wife argued about our daughter's name right up until the day after she was born. Then she came up with Quinn, and I kinda caved. I liked it, sort of, but didn't want to concede after months of disagreement, lol. Now, it's grown on me after a week.

All you can really do is pick something and try it out until you no longer feel the need to search for alternatives...