My boy name is not able to be feminized at all. So I decided when I started picking my girl name that I would keep my initials, but go with something that likewise couldn't be masculinized (is that even a word? ). I narrowed it down to a few names that started with J and, well... I think it's obvious which one I picked! I've been Jasmine for years now, I couldn't imagine being anything but!

My 6 year old niece had an imaginary playmate she called Bombi. One day I told her about my old imaginary friend named Freddie and my experiences with him. She was quiet for a while and then said that I looked like her friend, Bombi. I asked her how. She said that sometimes Bombi looked like a girl and sometimes a girl, like you. My SO overheard the conversation and started calling me Bombi and it stuck.
What was funny was I was working in Puerto Rico a few years later in a factory working at health and safety and had a lot of interaction with the fire dept. (bombaderos) (sp) and I constantly mispronounced it (bad Spanish with a Boston accent) as Bombideros. My co-workers started calling me Bombi behind my back. It slipped out one day and the woman was embarrassed so I told her it was fine no offense taken. It spread amoungst my family and became used a lot.
I moved here and just told people my name is Bombi. Everyone here has a nickname in the VI. It's kind of a sign of acceptance in this afro-caribbean culture.

I tried to figure out a name that was similar to my birth-name, but all I could come up with from Miranda was Randy, and I'm not a Randy.  Then I decided to try my middle name, Kate, instead. I started looking through baby name books and found Kyle. Its still 1 syllable, 4 letters, starts with K, ends with E, and it kinda stuck.  My mom told me that my name would have been Lawrence If I was a born a boy, so I took that as my middle name.

bonus points to anyone who can figure out the literary/ theatre connection to Miranda Kate.

Hmm, I've only spent a short time looking up names but I like the name Lilith I like how it sounds, and I' like the history to the name

My birth name is Kevin, and I don't really like any of it's femanized forms.
When I was in Highschool, I wanted to change my name to Kir, so I chose the name Kira.
There's not really much of a story behind it, I have just always thought it to be a really pretty name

My dad called me 'Timothy' or 'Tiger Tim' as a nickname when i was little and i always really liked it. However in my head i always called myself 'Tom' after Tom and Jerry (i was 5 lol). Later i learned my great grandad was called Thomas so i chose that.

My dad also mentioned he liked the name Ethan. I like it too so i took both of them.

Thomas Ethan...Tom for short.

At first it was Liam, but I disliked that "am" sound at the end. I switched to Rowan before anyone got a chance to get Liam into their minds correctly, so that was nice. Though I was LaaaaaaRowan for a few months. (Birth name Laura) It was sweet that everyone was trying so hard. That they would catch themselves mid thought and then blurt out the right name.

I don't know how Rowan got into my head even. Just standing in the bathroom one day after deciding Liam didn't sound right. I said Rowan at myself out of the blue and there it was. Of course other people were wishy washy, so I made lists and had a couple online polls just to poke at it. Despite everyone saying they didn't like Rowan, it still came out on top. Ha! Mine.

Only ever knew of Rowan Atkinson, who I completely forgot about when I named myself. And a cat my man and I almost adopted... also named Rowan.

Middle name Murray I covered in a different thread. Short version: I didn't like the middle name I picked for myself so I just had it in a state of constant flux. I saw an episode of Scrubs. The one with Matthew Perry guest starring. His name was Murray. I liked it despite the old mannyness of it. It fit so well that I shouted it... at three in the morning... and woke up the man.

I like how all it all rolls off my tongue. Rowan Murray A_____.

Fantastic.

MRH, 

I don't think you're a nutter or wacky.  It sounds as if "Scott" just came naturally--
so what could be more "natural" than calling yourself Scott!

I think someone else (tho I can't find the post now!?) used the male name that their
mom would have called them if they had been born male.  Mine is just the opposite.
My mother once told me that she had been thinking about calling me Sandra if she
should have a girl.  So my parents gave me both my legal name and my girl name!

It's interesting to read all the stories!

Thanks for the idea!

  Sandra

I picked Chell because i really liked how it sounded, and its a shorter version of my mom's middle name michelle. (and I love portal   )

My initial screen name here was Chaunte - a morph of my male name created by my hairdresser Sue that now infamous Halloween 2003.  I wore this name for a number of years.  However, I remember the advice a secretary gave me back in the Eastman Kodak days as we were expecting our first child.  That was to say the name 100 time aloud and proud.  If you can't shout it 100 times, better look for something else.

After about the 13th time, it started to not fit me anymore.  It was like a dress that you bought at the store, brought it home and found that it really wasn't you.

What seemed more appropriate was a simpler morph of my birth name, and thus I became Shauna Marie.  Almost right away, it fit like a glove and I have yet to cringe at the saying or hearing of my name.

I do not remember adopting a female name for many years. I guess unimaginative me coould not get beyond "Hey me!" Years ago Susan just surreptitiously started showing up. Last year, while getting serious about this, I started a list of female names I like enough that I would name myself them at new birth. I tried a bunch, picked middle names, even names using my male initials, thinking I might backdoor the name transition by switching to using first and second initials, sort of from Bill Adam Smith to B. A. Smith to Betty Arlene Smith, or whatever.

Nothing sounded as good to me, for me, then Susan. Kay is a commonly used middle name. Nothing exotic here, including me.

SusanKG

Quote from: Shauna Marie on April 30, 2010, 09:38:27 PM
  However, I remember the advice a secretary gave me back in the Eastman Kodak days as we were expecting our first child.  That was to say the name 100 time aloud and proud.  If you can't shout it 100 times, better look for something else.

This could possibly be the best bit of name choosing advice I've ever heard.

Not really sure how or exactly when I came up with the name. I started using Laura a few years back when signing up for forums online. I've always liked the name. I've been trying to figure out what I would use as my middle name for a while now and have come up with Emily. Again, it seems to have come from out of "nowhere". For my last name, it's sort of a tribute to my mom. I've chosen to use her maiden name of Vincent. Thank you for starting this topic. It's been really interesting reading about everyone's experiences.

I picked mine early on. When I was 12 or so I asked my parents what they would've named me if I had been born a boy and they mentioned the name "Jesse". Ever since then I've felt that Jesse fit so much more than my given name. When it came time for me to pick, I immediately jumped on Jesse. It just had too much of a connection by that point not to be my name even though there were tons of other names out there to choose from.

My advice is, pick something that feels right. Just go by feel, not necessarily what you just think is a cool name. I'm really glad I did. I transitioned to the new name almost flawlessly.

I picked my name early on in childhood also

Both names I've always liked, both are names of girls I met at school and liked and had likened myself to be like them

Well I was talking to a good friend of mine, one of the only people who knows about my crossdressing and such, and I told her that I secretly really love the song "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton.  Later that day she playfully called me Nessa because of it.  I liked it so it stuck.

It wasn't that long ago that I picked my name.
My favorite name in the world is Nathan, and for the longest time I thought it was going to be my name. I really loved it, and it was similar to my birth name (Natalie. Bleh ), so i thought it was perfect. But then I realized, if I were to ever have a son, Nathan is the name I would want for him, not for me. After mulling that over for a while, I figured out that it didn't really fit me anyway. So the search for the right name continued.

So one day, a while after coming out, I was having a conversation about my transition with my best friend. She asked me what my name would be, and when I told her I didn't know, we started listing of names together. Since I'm horrible with coming up with names, I stole all of mine from TV shows. So I started listing names from Glee. Finn, Kurt, Will, Artie...
And then, there it was. Noah Puckerman. Noah. It's perfect. We both loved it. And so my name is Noah.

My middle name was much easier. Robert is my brother's name, my dad's name, my grandpa's name, my great-grandpa's name...I wanted to honor them all, so that's my middle name. Similarly, I wanted to keep my last name.

Noah Robert. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

And that was my long-winded and unnecessary explanation. XD

I don't know what name I want to choose yet... I think about it a lot..

My name is Dante, and I chose it because it's awesome .

It just clicked a long, long time ago. No special reasons or meanings read into it.

It didn't factor into my decision at all, but after I changed it I found that chicks dig it .

Quote from: Teknoir on May 09, 2010, 02:54:52 AM
My name is Dante, and I chose it because it's awesome .

QFT! I love the name Dante. It sounds so BAMF(Dane Cook, anyone?  )! I was thinking about it for a middle name.