How did you pick your name?

[Guest Alice International]

Why did you choose the name you wanted? What was the meaning to that name? I really do not like the name I picked for me. I need ideas!

[Guest GinaInside]

Hi,

Since I was about 6 yrs old, I felt like my middle name was supposed to be Renee. For many years, I tried to accept it as my first name but it just did'nt fit. During my last attempt at Transition, the first name Gina came to me by an odd twist of fate; a misdelivered piece of mail! I was about to toss it back in the mail, and something inside me said "Gina Renee". It felt so wonderful, so right! I told my TS friend Candice, and she said, "Yes, that name fits you." After so long, I felt a little more complete.

Hugz,

Gina Renee

[Guest Risu]

Many trans people have a name they have desired as their own since they were very young. Names comes from all sorts of places. Names can be from characters in movies, books or games we love, other times they're deceased relatives we were close to or inspired by friends or maybe a class mate.

I have a TS friend named Candice and she shared with me that she too had a lot of trouble picking a name. It was her roomie who gave her the name Candice and though she didn't share with me the meaning behind it, it seemed extremely important to her. Similarly, often times parents tell us "I was going to name you --------------- if you had been born a girl/boy, and sometimes it is those names that fit.

There is no rush to pick a name unless you have a court date to have your name changed legally, otherwise you need to take time, take an inward journey and find the one that works for you. Look up lists of baby names, just brainstorm until you find one.

I too struggled with choosing a name for a long time. It was too hard to find one that fit me right. There are many names I like, but none that I want to use to identify me. Finally I realized there is a name I have over looked for a long time because I thought it was too common and oddly enough it fits and I love it.

A very wise lady told me in a thread I had started about my name issues to write any prospective names down on a piece of paper and put it somewhere you'll see it every day. If you can see it everyday for a whole month and still love it and identify with it then that might just be the right one. I have been doing this every day for 4 days now and I still love the name I am considering so far.

If Alice is a name you're considering I have to admit I love it and if not, I love your username here anyway. Dana is by far one of my most favorite singers of all time!

Ultimately, just give it time and try to enjoy the journey. It will come to you when its meant to and when you've opened yourself up to it. For now keep trying on names you like until you find the one you're looking for. Just like shopping for shoes. It has to be your size, style and something you like.

*hugs*

~Risu.

[Guest Andrew Parker]

I'd attributed the name Andrew with manliness (what a coincidence, it means warrior man). I'd always play online games as male so I used Andrew as my name. I ended up using that when I first came out and my parents shortened it up to Drew. I changed my middle name about a million times. I didn't have a set middle name until about a week before we submitted the paperwork for the legal name change.

I do kinda wish I had stuck with the same initials but Drew just fits me.

[Guest Tara Ann]

Tara was the name of the first girl I liked. She made my day, week, month, year and decade by kissing me on each cheek when we were like 7 or 8 years old. Ann is just a name I've always liked. I've been thinking about changing the name recently though.

[Sally]

I have told the story before but sometimes the name just comes to you when you need it.

I have always tended to gravitate towards art in many forms, mostly music and writing but sometimes through images in photographs - maybe the muse just hang around with me but when I started to research transsexuality and transitioning on the Internet I decided to open a new Email account in a female name.

You would have expected me to have gone back through the various names I had used for myself during all of those years of cross dressing and hiding from the world but instead I typed Sally Michelle Jackson and it seemed to fit just right.

In a quiet time, maybe late in the evening listen very carefully and a name just might find you - they are out there looking for the people that they match.

Love ya,

Sally

[JJ]

I have called myself by the name John or Johnny since at least age 5 and can no longer remember why except a vague memory of it being connected to our family Dr who I adored. (I lived full tilt as a child getting injured often and was also prone to pneumonia and other things so I saw him often. Very often. Usually everyone else was angry with me but he was kind and seemed to really see me as no one else did even then). His name was John and his son John Jr. (and I believe an only child)had been killed in WWII. I do remember wishing I could be his son. About that time I began thinking of myself as John and would only let other kids call me that when we played games or make believe.

I didn't really chose the name. I AM John.

Johnny

[Guest Ney'ite]

My name, Bette, comes from my favorite Showtime TV lesbian drama show, "The L Word" (not the new one, but the original one). The main character, played by Jennifer Beals, was Bette Porter, and I just totally related to her, and the whole lesbian culture (at the time I had no idea why). So the name has stuck with me ever since and now I am legally Bette.

[Guest Abner]

I tend to use a lot of different names, and over time I've only acquired more of them. I feel an attachment to my legal name, and I feel okay when my family uses it for me, but when I'm with my friends or meeting new people, I have different names I would rather use. For example, Tuesday, Kizzy, and Abner. Tuesday just seemed to be a day of the week I associated with, Kizzy was a shortening of an uncommon jumble of letters I usually have for a username, and Abner I got from Get Smart (TV show from the 1960s).

But really my preferred name depends on the day, my mood, my location, my company, anything.

[Guest Gwendolyn Elizabeth]

I did things kinda backwards. Last year I realised that the name I ordinarily use as a username on websites and such was really too masculine. So I played around with it and came up with "gwenbeth". And then from there I decided that "Gwendolyn Elizabeth" had a good sound to it and it would give me the same initials as my old name. Of course by now everyone knows me as Gwen, so im stuck with it (-:

[Guest Mew_Peaches]

My parents joked around that if I had been born a boy - or with a boy body - that they would have called me Axel. Once I heard that, I thought "Holy freaking good I love that name." No one actually calls me that in real life, but I say it's my name online.

The thing is, I was named after my mom's best friend, who she was in love with, who died.so, I'm also with going by the make version of my name, which is Chris. I don't like it as much as Axel though. Plus, Axel reminded me of Kingdom Hearts when I was little.

[Guest Donna Jean]

.

My birth name was....

Donald Eugene...

Donna Jean is what I've known it should of been my whole life....

Now, it legally is.......

Donna Jean

[Guest]

Process of elimination. All the names I really wanted were taken. Megan was about my 10th choice. But, like my given name, I'll get used to it.

Love, Megan

[Guest Ney'ite]

My name comes from Showtime's lesbian drama series "The L Word" (not the new one out now, but the original), Bette Porter, played by Jennifer Beals.

[Sakura]

A lot of trans folk seem to have thier names picked out long before they decided to transition. I never really did. thinking waaaay back on it., for the life of me i can't remember ever having one i called my self or thought of my self as , even when i began transition i was kinda the girl with no name . i gave a different name to each new person i met.

Then one night my mom came to me and goes " well... if you are going to do this , we can't keep calling you * sakuras male name * " so she set to work trying to rename me , bouncing names off me. none of them really fitting me . after a few hours of getting no where . she went and got a box she had kept since before i was born. inside was a list of both boys and girls names. i recognized my male name at the top of the boys list. i shutter when i think how close i came to being named , Robert Alan or David Lee, in hind site my old name wasn't sooo bad , any way after joking about that, we went over to the female side of the list. at the top of that list she had circled Jennifer Ann , Jennifer sounded nice , but i guess 21 years had changed her mind about the middle name , so she changed it from Ann to Nicole , and it stuck . So i had the honor of being named twice by my mom. i think it was away for her to cope with the change, by having some hand in it .

Meaning of Jennifer: Jennifer \j(e)-nni-fer\ a girl's name is pronounced JEN-ee-fer, JEN-if-er. It is of Welsh origin, and the meaning of Jennifer is "fair and smooth". From Gwenhwyfar, which also can mean "white waves". Variant of Guinevere.

Jennifer Nicole

[MackenzieB]

A pair of dice, a shady alley... Actually I picked it because it sounded good at the time. I was tired of being a Kathleen and Caitlin sounded fine. Am I keeping it? Nope. I've been thinking about what I want to do for the legal name change. Might be Lindsey... Kelsey... I have no idea at this point other than it won't be Caitlin.

[Guest Lacey Lynne]

My given guy name is L- with five letters, and I wanted to stay consistent with that arrangement. Upon perusing names which would match that, LACEY immediately registered strongly positive with my subconscious which I've learned to trust. Lacey It will be upon my legal name change, hopefully, soon after SOOO many delays.

I've always loved the name Lynn and had a crush on a girl named Lynn back in high school. Placing the E at the end developed mathematical symmetry with Lacey but also just plain rocked, so Lynne it is. That, too, will become part of my name.

The surname I'll adopt belongs to a registered nurse in Metro New York City whose reports I did quality control for some years back. She was SO competent and SO smart, I just had to research her on the web. Real-world-pretty New York Italian girl whose name I loved, loved, loved and, moreoever, which matches in so many ways. That did it. I shall adopt her surname too.

Peace Lacey

[Guest Stormrider2112]

Not going by it yet, but I picked Kylie after a few days of trying out writing different names, and something in my subconscious wanted something that started with "K" (I make awesome majuscule Ks, and almost all of my female cousins' names start with "K" or a hard "C," like Karen, Kelly, Kristin, and Colleen), and the way I write Kylie in either my normal "metal" handwriting (lots of sharp angles and long strokes on my y, g, j, etc...look at the logos of most any European power metal band, and that's my typical handwriting ) or my cursive just felt so right! I was also conscious about NOT picking a name that I also knew someone as...mainly because that would feel so awkward, both for me and the other person ("Hi, I named myself after you! And umm...I'm not a stalker!"). My middle name, Lora, is a tribute to my grandmother, since she wanted a granddaughter named after her mother that died young, and also there's a tinge of OCD since my last name starts with M (KLM). Lora was an initial choice for a first name, but because there are about 5 million variations of spelling my last name (it was misspelled 4 different ways on ONE page in my senior year high school yearbook!), I didn't want an uncommon variant of my FIRST name to boot! (I've seen a few "Kiley"s before, but all were men).

[Guest Talon]

I chose my name, Talon, because I liked it since I first saw it. When I heard it the first time I wasn't aware of it's literal meaning because English is not my first language. But I'd already grown fond of the name and decided I wanted it so when I found out, it didn't ruin it for me. I don't think it would have mattered if I had known to start with. The reason I like the name is because I like the way it sounds and how it looks on paper. Also, I like names that are not really, really common but not too out there either But it takes a lot before I would classify a name as out there It was important to me that it was a personal name that was just slightly unique. For some reason it was important to me that I didn't have a close acquaintance with the same name as I wanted to find my own.

My given girl name did not start with a T but I was unable to find a name similar to the girl name that I liked so I decided that similarity/the same letters or sound would not be selection criteria for me.

However, I live in Denmark and Talon is definitely not a common name here. It's actually not even a name. So for my full name, I decided to put something else in there too that is a bit more common so I have that to use if I am in a situation where I need to give my name but do not want to attract attention to myself, have to spell it out etc. So my full name is Jamie Talon *last name*

II once posted a thread about choosing a name and it turned into a longer discussion. If there's anything of use in there, the thread is here :

http://www.lauras-playground.com/forums/Index.php?showtopic=37824&hl=&fromsearch=1

GOOD LUCK!

All the best,

Talon.

[Guest Nicholas]

I'm like Donna on this one. My birth name was "Nicole Elizabeth [last]", and my chosen (and soon to be legal) name is "Nicholas Eli [last]." I've always loved my last name, didn't even want to give it up for marriage, so no issue with changing it; I've always felt really uncomfortable being called Nicole, hated it, so people always called me Niki-- which I didn't care for that much either, but what can you do? Now everyone calls me Nick, as that's how I've introduced myself since I came to college. My family does too, though with some slip-ups.

I love the name Nicholas and am proud to wear it. It feels like it fits me perfectly.

For a while I wasn't sure what to do for my middle name, but Eli is a nice biblical name, as well as the name of my college's benefactor, often heard in our chants and fight songs. So, I've taken a liking to it. My sister says she thinks it sounds like a country bumpkin name though, hahaha! Not too bothered, though. I think it's fine.

[Guest Teagan]

Initially, I had picked "Jennifer." I went to my first support group meeting, and was introduced to Jen, Jennie, Jenna, Jennifer, and Jen. Decided to pick a different name. My old name started with T; I was named for my grandfather, who was Irish, and I wanted to keep that connection. I looked at Irish names starting with T and "Teagan" reached out and smacked me. Felt perfect.

[Guest NatashaJade]

I had originally picked the name Virginia and wore it for a year or so until I found out my spouse hated it. A lot. So I sat down with her and we talked about it and I told her I was married to her and not the name and if she wanted to help me find a new one, I was all for it.

So we looked up the most popular birth names from 1970, the year I was born. And as we went down the list, I would like something, but she wouldn't and vice versa. A few hundred names later, we came to Natasha and it just worked for both of us the way we had easily agreed on our children's names. It was just the right name for me for a lot of reasons, so it is now my legal one as well.

xoxo

[Guest Amanda Whyte]

Mandy rhymes with the name I was given at birth so I expanded that to Amanda and people can call me Mandy.

[Guest Robin Winter]

I had originally picked the name Virginia and wore it for a year or so until I found out my spouse hated it. A lot. So I sat down with her and we talked about it and I told her I was married to her and not the name and if she wanted to help me find a new one, I was all for it.

So we looked up the most popular birth names from 1970, the year I was born. And as we went down the list, I would like something, but she wouldn't and vice versa. A few hundred names later, we came to Natasha and it just worked for both of us the way we had easily agreed on our children's names. It was just the right name for me for a lot of reasons, so it is now my legal one as well.

xoxo

Yeah, my wife hates Shilo too...which disappointed me since I wear it so comfortably online,and I really feel like it fits my personality. She offered to help me pick one, but has yet to actually do so. I've been giving very serious consideration to the name Heather, but for some reason I can't seem to commit to it, even though I can't think of anything else and I keep coming back to it.

[Guest ~Jamie~]

-shrug- It was my name for the first 13 years of my life. Most close family members still use it.