I am headed off to college soon and I thought that this would be a perfect time to introduce myself with a gender-nonspecific name. The problem is, I don't have one in mind. I've gone by the same name, Cathy, all my life, so I feel a bit strange introducing myself with a name that no one calls me. I was thinking that it would feel more natural, and also be easier to explain to old friends and family, if the nickname was based off my real name, Catherine.

However, all the names I can come up with feel gimmicky or unnatural. I think this comes from some sort of natural bias I have against picking a name for myself--it feels more real if it's just something people decide to call you. Like, if Bob decided that he should be called "the flash," because, 'oh man, I'm so fast!' it would be just be silly and kind of meaningless.

Anyway, enough rambling. I'm looking for name suggestions, past experience storytelling, or just general advice. Think you can help me?

one guy at my university decided to introduce himself as zander because he thought it was cool, there's acctually an option for name and preferred name in your application, so even if you've not legally chaged your name my uni woudl call you what you wished to be called, some naturally took advantage of this and made their preferred names god jesus or something less than safe for work..... it may feel a bit weird but no one is going to contest your name and eventually you'll get used to it.

I always liked laurie as a gender neutral name myself.

Here is a list of the most popular Gender Neutral names, if that helps. One close that I see on the list Keeps the Ca sound, Kayden.

http://www.yeahbaby.com/popular-baby-names/article.php?page=144

This is what middle and last names are made for.
I know it may sound weird at first.
I wish I could say I am in the same position, but my name shortened is already gender neutral.

You could probably spin some story about how Teri/Terry (sorry, I can't think of a good gender-neutral spelling off-hand) came from the middle part of your full name. Seldom has a good idea too. If you can do something with your middle name you can claim (and it won't be a stretch) that there are a few Cathys in your group so they just took off on your middle name. Or drop the Cathy link, find a gender-neutral name you like, and just say it's an inside joke/thing/whatever.

Ken/Kendra, I love what that page says about Casey and Morgan.

Actually for mine, I considered Kendall. Actually my GF considered it and really liked it. Kendra btw no one calls me in RL outside of the site and my myspace. So actually If I wanted to change it to Kendall in the future, its still quite possible realistically. I only picked Kendra since at the time I was picking based off of really no thought lol.

       Could always think of a name that comes from interest that you have, or even other languages. My nickname which might become my legal first name in a few years is Japanese, and my sister helped me and her friends think of it because she knew I was interested in alot of Japanese things.^^

       Hope this helps alittle.^^


       Oh btw, my sister has a androgyne friend that is neutral who helped me find a name. Zie said:   "You could theoretically use a word in another language (or English) that zie likes the sound of, maybe something that describes zir. "

      Which is another way to figure out a name for yourself.^^
Hope that helps some too. 

Spacekat is gender neutral.

Sam/Sammy short, common and not to wierd.
I haven't met many guys named Sam in a while though....Last one I met was like 2-3rd grade.
Knew 3 girls named Sam/Sammy...ok, so maybe Sam isn't to common in my experience. XD

How about Cat?  It's simple, somewhat neutral and is based on your birth name.

Melissa