Not much. I made my name my middle name and chose a first name that was similar to my birth name (in an unsuccessful bid to keep my parents from being angry. What an idiot). Now absolutely no one will call me by my name. Kind of sucks.

  My birth name was Jaime which can be used for both genders so i've decided to keep my original name. 

I love my name. Took me months to choose it, with the help of my mom - I had a really hard time picking. It has a common, easy to use nickname, but is uncommon to run across in this area. I actually settled on it when I was down to about 4 names because when I tried signing each of them, Nikolai flowed most naturally in my handwriting. Which is great, considering all of the name change paperwork I've needed to sign. It's Russian, which works well since I love Russian language and literature, and has a few good namesakes, like Nikolai Gogol. It's not perfect - I still run across a few confused pronunciations and spellings (Nickoli, really?), but I can't imagine being anything else. My middle name was just a sudden instinct, and it works great.

Nikolai, my daughter's first crush had your name, and going through boxes the other day I found stacks of notes and crayon drawings with "I love you Nikolai" all over them.

And I can't sign Felix for the life of me. Or my kid's last name, which I'll be taking. I looked up how to make capital cursive F and T on the internet, and decided to keep my old signature, as it's a unrecognizable scrawl anyway and doesn't have visible letters in it. XD

I was originally going to go with a name my parents had planned for me had I actually been born male.  Thus the JR (Jacob Ryan) in my user name.  But I just can't make myself like the name, so I've recently chosen a different name that I do like and am sticking with that for the moment.

Oh and I guess in case you're curious, the name I picked was Eli.

Nicholas ... Nick.... is the name of a protagonist's lover in a screenplay I wrote...
And signing it looks great, too, much better than my old female name which was
by far too old fashioned and clumsy for my sparkling personality

I don't hate my birth name but I don't care for it either.  It means "Serenity" and my life is FAR from peace.  Since I haven't officially started transitioning yet I am thinking of several names and right now I really like "Malachite".  It may not be my final name but I do know when I do change my name legally it will be a name from an anime show since anime has been a big part of my life. 

I don't like my female name at all.  I've always hated it and felt like it described someone else, not me.  Now I'm getting upset every time someone calls me it in public, even though I haven't told any of them to call me Devin (I did change my Facebook name to Devin at one point, but I changed it back so my friends from work would be able to find me).

I like my chosen name-- Devin Scott.  It's what my parents would have named me had I been born a bio boy, so in a way I'm sort of free of the pressure of having to live with a name *I* chose.  If I had to choose my name myself, I'd always be questioning if it was the right one.  But taking the name my parents would have given me takes that pressure away.  I know that it doesn't have to be the perfect name because I wasn't the one who picked it.  Also, had mother nature been right in the first place that would have been my name anyway, so there's a bit of rightness to it-- like by taking that name I'm righting a wrong and putting things the way they should have been in the first place.  It just feels right.

I was thinking about this today since I just filed my name change paperwork with the county clerk's office. I've been going by Alex for years now so it seemed natural to change my full name to Alexander (my birth name is the female version). I never considered anything else. The middle name I chose is a name I've always loved (Sebastian) but don't know how well it fits with my first and last. Eh, not a huge deal. Overall I'm pretty satisfied. I seriously can't wait til it's all finalized.

I love my chosen name! Weston Elliott - it flows nicely and I feel like it'll survive the times. It doesn't sound hyper-masculine either, but it's clearly male, which is something I was going for.

My birth name, Ko, was different from my legal birth name, Patricia Nicole. My parents decided to name me Ko regardless of my sex - they wanted to go with something Japanese since I was born there. When they informed my grandmother, she kinda went ape->-bleeped-<- on them and forced them to pick a "real" name. I ended up getting legally named after my other grandma, but I've never ever ever gone by Patricia or Nicole, not even to my grandma who thought Ko wasn't a valid enough name. All my life I've been looking to get it changed.

After I came out, I had zero intention to change my name. But when I came out to my parents I realized that "Ko" was always going to be a girl in their minds so I ended up coming home and searching for a name that would fit me. I found Wes on an online list and it stuck out to me; I ran it by my friends and they thought it fit me too so I started going by that. Kinda did the same with Elliott. I wanted a middle name that I could switch to if I disliked Wes sometime in the future.

The only thing I regret a bit is not having a name that is easily as pronounceable in Spanish as it in English. Now I'm always gonna be seen as a gring@, despite being half Chilean and living the majority of my life in Latin America.

My name is simply something that's always felt right for me, in a way I can't quite explain. It is a quite common name, which means that I'll lose the "oh, what a beautiful name!" comments I used to get for my old-fashioned and unusual birthname. I keep my initials. My middle name is a masculinized version of my original middle name, but my first name couldn't be masculinized so I picked an entirely new one.

I am ok about my name even thought its annoying how it always end up in a dicussion about what pronouce people should use with it (since it got dooble pronoucing and I not sure which one I prefern.
--
I just like got use to it, and I like it so much better than my old name,
another thing I like about my name is its very boyish, since I cant change my name legally too a 100% boy name its cool to have a name people actually consider a boy name anyway.

I went with the name that my parents had planned to give me.  (they expected a boy, and even though they did get one, there was a slight detour).   I learned about it fairly young, having asked my mother, so it was always kind of in the back of my head throughout my life as "the name I should have had"

So yeah I'm pretty happy with it

I've actually been fighting with my name for the longest. At first, I was just going by the shortened version off my middle name (Ren) but realized I did NOT want that as a first name. I tried going by Seth as it was what my mother would have named me but...it just didn't feel right.
Then I tried Angel. It was okay, but not me.

After some digging for my heritage and chatting up my great grandma, I found out that my great, great grandpa was full blooded Cherokee and that was why the Native side of my family actually speaks to me at family reunions (my racist 'white' side of the family segregates them like jack asses and will flip ->-bleeped-<- if any of the 'innocent white children' go near the 'dirty red folk'. -_-). Apparently, it's ALSO the reason a lot of my 'white' family hates me. o_O' Cause I'm 'tainted' by 'red man' blood. >_>

I said ->-bleeped-<- them. lol
So, in honor of my grandpa (who I have some faint memories of, since he use to visit me all the time when I was little and would tell me stories while I was on his lap), I have decided to go with Sequoya. I honestly love the name and it feels like ME.  Even shortened (Seqya pronounced Sick-ya by friends), it's just...me. Before I ever realized my heritage was so strong, I was always drawn to Native culture. I couldn't explain it, but since I was little I fell in love with their beliefs and ways.

Ironic thing is that one of my roomies claims I can't possibly be part Cherokee at all. -_- He says 'You're too pale!'. I just laugh at him because my skin naturally has a darker tint, however, I haven't been outside for more than 10 minutes at a time in over 15 years. Of course I'm not as dark as I use to be! Stick me outside for a hour, though? BAM. It's obvious where I come from. XD

My therapist told me to think of my name as a tattoo. To pick something I would not regret and could live with.
As my beliefs are spiritual (hell, I'm thinking about working on dreads despite goin for a management major) and I feel increasingly drawn to my bloodline, I couldn't pass up a name that called to me.

Quote from: RenM on January 01, 2012, 12:23:16 AM
I've actually been fighting with my name for the longest. At first, I was just going by the shortened version off my middle name (Ren) but realized I did NOT want that as a first name. I tried going by Seth as it was what my mother would have named me but...it just didn't feel right.
Then I tried Angel. It was okay, but not me.

After some digging for my heritage and chatting up my great grandma, I found out that my great, great grandpa was full blooded Cherokee and that was why the Native side of my family actually speaks to me at family reunions (my racist 'white' side of the family segregates them like jack asses and will flip ->-bleeped-<- if any of the 'innocent white children' go near the 'dirty red folk'. -_-). Apparently, it's ALSO the reason a lot of my 'white' family hates me. o_O' Cause I'm 'tainted' by 'red man' blood. >_>

I said ->-bleeped-<- them. lol
So, in honor of my grandpa (who I have some faint memories of, since he use to visit me all the time when I was little and would tell me stories while I was on his lap), I have decided to go with Sequoya. I honestly love the name and it feels like ME.  Even shortened (Seqya pronounced Sick-ya by friends), it's just...me. Before I ever realized my heritage was so strong, I was always drawn to Native culture. I couldn't explain it, but since I was little I fell in love with their beliefs and ways.

Ironic thing is that one of my roomies claims I can't possibly be part Cherokee at all. -_- He says 'You're too pale!'. I just laugh at him because my skin naturally has a darker tint, however, I haven't been outside for more than 10 minutes at a time in over 15 years. Of course I'm not as dark as I use to be! Stick me outside for a hour, though? BAM. It's obvious where I come from. XD

My therapist told me to think of my name as a tattoo. To pick something I would not regret and could live with.
As my beliefs are spiritual (hell, I'm thinking about working on dreads despite goin for a management major) and I feel increasingly drawn to my bloodline, I couldn't pass up a name that called to me.

Sequoya is a beautiful name. In my family, red blood would be considered black (and therefore dirty), but no one would doubt based on your external appearance. Skin is an unreliable marker of heritage.

Nope, I love my name. Keaira Raine Finlay. I could see fictional characters with that name. And no shortage of vowels in it either

Thank you kindly, good sir!
Yeah, my family is...well, special. They are some of the most backwards, racist, sexist, lgbt-bashing people I know. o_o At least the 'whites-are-the-best' side is. I just sorta shake my head in shame thinking I come from a part of that.

I do love my name now, though, and honestly can't wait to see it on my DL.

When i was little i used to pretend my name was michael. ive always loved the name, and im very happy with my choice. it sounds nothing like my birth name, so the transition wasnt so easy for my family and close friends at first, but they all have it down now.

Oh, man, I am in such a tough place with my name.   I've hated my birthname ever since I was born.  and when I was real little (before I knew I was trans) I had this name picked out, I just loved it.  At the time, it was mainly because one of my favorite shows had a girl with that name, and then one of my favorite comics had a guy with the same name spelling.  The name was Jean.  At the time, I thought it was completely gender neutral, I didn't know the name was pronounce differently for a guy. 
So for years that name grew on me.  and I still love it.  and I ended up legally changing my name to Jean.  with the female pronunciation.  But then people who know I'm trans would wonder why I changed my name to a "girls'" name.  or people who didn't know that I was a guy/trans would think I was a girl just because of the spelling of my name. 
And so that's when I started having doubt about my name.  and I've started spelling it the male was of "Gene." 
I just don't like the looks of that spelling.  But, I feel a lot better for people to think that's how I spell my name than for them to think that I spell it the "girl" way. 
But I don't what I'm going to do with my name legally...
I think to think about it for a few years.

I never much gave the name more thought, it was pretty clear to me what it should be. Although, I did consider what names Mom would've given to me if I had been a XY-boy but seriously, I dislike all three of them.

My name change won't be legal for a long time but I've been "teaching" my friends and family to call me Lauri which is basically a male version of my original name with only the last letter changed.
Middle name was also pretty easy to decide. Mom told me my name would've been Jussi if certain circumstance had been fulfilled but I don't like that name. It's just too common Finnish male name. But my grandfather was called Jussi which was derived from his middle name, Johannes. That name also seems be very common in my family so I'll fit into the "theme" nicely.
So, in the end and quite quickly I decided my name will be Lauri Johannes. I've heard some people change their lastnames, too but I'm too fond of mine so that'll stay the same. Although, I was intrigued to change it as well to a name our family had long, long time ago, which is Salama (direct English translation is "lightning").