I have several names that I like, some a bit more than others.  How did you choose your name after transitioning?

I knew that I wanted to keep all of my initials the same, so I went to one of those baby name sites and looked up lists of popular boy names for the year I was born, and wrote down anything that started with 'M' and 'A'. Crossed some off immediately, altered some from their generic forms, made different combinations.

The first name came fairly quickly, but I was back and forth about the middle name up until I wrote it on the court documents. There were two that I really liked. Strangers who find out my middle name really like it and think it's very cool. My family thinks it is a bit weird, but they would've thought the other one I liked was weird too.

I also wanted to keep my initials the same, but I didn't want a 'genderbent' name so I went for a different one that started with the same letter. I genderswapped one middle name and kept the other middle name the same, because i feel that it's more unisex (and my name is/ was so long that it often gets dropped from anything less official than my passport anyway).

Baby name websites are pretty great. There are some that will give you a random name/ combination of names if you don't want to scroll through the alphabetical lists. They often give you the meaning of the name, and the origin, and you can see what names were popular in what year/ country so you can pick one that's the right 'age' for you, if that's what you want.

Once you've got a few names, try them out first. Practice writing them, go to one off events with that name, use the name at Starbucks when you're there alone - so you can get an idea of which one feels right.

Also there are many cis people that use their middle names/ change their names - I've got grandparents on both sides and an aunt that changed their names for no real reason other than they liked another one better, and no one objected - so if you pick one and change your mind after you've started to tell people, you can still change it. When/if you change it officially, pick a good middle name/s as a backup! Middle names are also a good place for names you like but feel are a bit outlandish ;)

My name is transitioning with me. I was Stephen at birth. Currently I'm going by Stevie, but when I can change it on paperwork, I'm going with Stephanie. It just seems to be the easiest way and I will have an easier time with not having to have people learn a new name. I'll continue being called Stevie and just use the full name on documents.
Oh, I'm also keeping my middle initial, but changing it to my grandmothers name.
I think the biggest change I'll have is when I marry my partner I plan to take their last name. 

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The main character in a story I'm writing is named Semira.

- S has always been my favorite letter (do people have favorite letters?). So my name would have to start with an S.
- A name whose second letter is a vowel is also pleasing to me. sE
- I prefer names that end in a vowel. And for a female name, I find A to be the most pleasing. se___A
- I like names that can be shortened. Semira can become Semi. Semi by itself still starts with an S, still has a vowel for a second letter, and still ends in a vowel (not an A but that's alright).
- Finally, I like names that are relatively uncommon. In the US, Semira is uncommon. However when I google my birth name including my last name, I come with with tons of people with the same name. Ugh.

Quoting myself from another thread.

I liked Semira to start with and when I gave it some greater thought it fit all of the things I'm looking for in a name.

I looked up the top 100 female names from social security for my decade that I was born in.

From there I made a shortlist pf about 5 names.

As I had already come out to my close family and friends I polled everyone to

A: Get a favorite among those who I spend the most time around.

B. Make sure that no name on the short list had bad associations to them.

This led to a close first and second place, and I picked from those.

For me picking a name was a strategic process.

Wanted my name to have been heard by most of the population, not be ambiguous to gender, be appropriate for the decade I was born in, liked by those in my life, and loved by me.


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For some reason I just like Wendy, just seems right. So I checked the internet for girls names in the year that I was born and sure enough Wendy was in the list. I also knew a Wendy at school when I was kid and she was a little bit of a rebel and I so am I, so it just fits.

My name is basically the male version of my old name. For some reason I really liked having a name starting with L since there aren't many names like that in Finnish and this name just felt right. Middle name had a complete change and it's the same as my grandfather's middle name.
I had the whole thing figured out very early on, even before I had my first appointment at the trans policlinic. It just was very clear for me. I didn't really have to worry about having a name that would stand out from the others born in the same year as me since they're both very common Finnish male names, the middle name having ranked in top 10 boy names for like a hundred years.

My wife did. I'm a big person, she must have been thinking of something germanic and she blurted out gertrude one day followed immediately by Trudie and it stuck. Gertrude means strong spear. At one time this was true, with 5 kids.


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When I first came out as m2f to a friend, she asked if I would just take the female version of my name. I hadn't thought of that, and I didn't like it anyway, and I had already picked a name I've always liked, so I said "no, but this xxxxx is my new name". My friend really liked it. However, when discussing the issue of what I wanted to be called with my parents, my mother didn't like the name I had picked at all. So I asked her if she had picked a girls name for me back before I was born. She said she had, and told me what the name was, so I immediately said "well that will be my name then". Luckily I hadn't legally changed my name at that point, so it was easy to use the name my mom wanted. I think this helped her accept me as I am now.
But I used the name I had originally picked for myself, as my middle name.
That way we were both happy.

I wanted a very short first name with the same initial I'd been using and that was either one syllable or sounded fine reduced to its first syllable, so that weeded out a lot of options. I was all over with middle name options.

It took a lot of checking baby name sites, rankings for my birth year, and running potential names past my family. I particularly didn't want a name my siblings had bad associations with (or automatic terrible nicknames).

I actually had a first name for myself picked out long before I seriously considered transitioning, but it was knocked out early in name selection for being in use by a young cousin. I wasn't completely sure what I was going to pick until I redid the forms right before taking them to court. I swapped in my original (very common) first name pick and a much less common middle name so the full set would be a bit more identifiable.

I guess I am lucky.  My male name is Terry.  My female name is Terri. Oh, and my middle name is Lee, so that works out quite nicely.

~Terri

The names I am liking are:

Artesia Claire
Clarissa Dawn
Larissa May
Arya Jade
Yona Anne

None of which were common in my birth year, if ever.  Funny thing, when I typed my list, I put them in the order of preference.  Without trying to.

Mum choose my name.

I was named after my father who died a few months before I was born, I was named after him and still to this day I'm named after him.

Sophia = Wisdom in Greek.  Still bouncing between spellings. I like the meaning behind the name, as it is appropriate for our situations.

You can try a name out with your friends as a nickname before you commit to it. I started using my middle name and it kind of stuck. I like the name I picked as my new middle name a little better (it has a better nickname) but there are a couple of problems, including who in my family has which name. My name is a little unusual but it always was so I don't mind that. I'm going from "old lady name" to "traditional but less common" and that's okay. Being on the spectrum I'm a little detached from names but I did realize by the end that I totally would mumble my first name such that I was always having to repeat it because I really, really hated my old name. I can say my new name without tripping on it.

Quote from: Maybebaby56 on July 03, 2016, 06:26:26 PM
I guess I am lucky.  My male name is Terry.  My female name is Terri. Oh, and my middle name is Lee, so that works out quite nicely.

~Terri

I'd have to say that worked out pretty well!

I decided on Karen over thirty years ago and have long since forgotten the reasons for choosing Karen. My decision to change my last name was to toss out my old identity and spent about a month on a final decision.

So Payne comes from my students (teaching martial arts), most of the labeled me "the giver of pain", seemed fitting so I elected that for my last name along with it sounded good to me.

I spent an epic 10 minutes to decide my name because I already knew what kind of name I wanted and that reduces the list to about 5 names.  I selected the ones I liked the most and now I had decided on Sarina Naomi from what I refer as my legal but utterly disliked by me name of Oliver James.

                                       Love,  Sarina!

Hey Sarina, you have some lovely legs on you girl!
I am well jealous!