Like many others, I've used several different names for myself. The 1st name I tried was "Roberta" which was just using my real name's female variation. This was when I was 9/10. When I got more involved in cross dressing in my mid teens, I felt "Roberta" was just too lame and really wanted to see my female self as her own person so decided to be a bit more creative, and chose the name "Laura" for 2 reasons. 1-it would have been my name if I was born a girl 2-it was coincidentally the name of my girlfriend at the time. I really loved that name and really connected to it and it is still one of my favorite girl names. However, once I broke up with Laura, I couldn't continue calling myself that. So one night I was watching my favorite show "Who's The Boss?" which starred my first celebrity crush, Alyssa Milano. I though about using her character name "Samantha" but didn't like how the show always shortened it and called her "Sam". I decide to use her real name because it was truly feminine, unique at the time, and she was and still is extremely hot. So that is how Robert became Alyssa.