trans* persons and names

[Acecream]

First of all: this thread doesn't have to be about me personally, I'd like to have it as an open space for people who want to try out names, but–

HOW DO YOU ALL FIND YOUR NAMES?????? It seems to be a pretty impossible thing.

yeah, so... I'm an trans non-binary person trying to find out it's name. Actually I'd say I'm quite out of the closet for a while now... I mean: People I interact with do know my right pronouns and I'm currently doing hormone therapy^^

But somehow I still didn't really change my birth name (no trans* person has to do so of course!!!) and it starts to feel kinda weird (in the beginning I was like, cool, you don't have a deadname, that's actually amazing). Also because in my head I don't refer to myself with this name anymore so it doesn't seem to fit (I still want to keep it as 2nd name I guess)

I spent a few months elsewhere and people there do know me with another name that my (not yet) deadname. So I already practiced and it felt... good? normal? but even if I like the name and I like when people use it I don't FEEL that it's MY name. So, yeah, how did you all find your names? Cause I need one. And I want to be sure.

Also I want to have this fancy trans* identity card that exists in my country as long as I can't legally change my registered sex and I need to decide which name I want to put on haha

Of course I have people I could ask to use different names for me – but I don't want to tell people another name when I might change it in a few weeks again. I have the urge to be sure myself, so I don't want to tell it everyone (I'm sure close friends wouldn't mind to try different names). But I don't want to use I name for just a few people – elsewhere different groups of people (who all knew I'm an enby) knew me under different names and it stressed me a lot whenever there was the possibility that those groups might interact in a certain way.

 

So, does anyone here have tips how I can find out BY MY OWN which names fit? Lol

How did you know? Did you change it more often? Did it feels "special" or did it just feel "normal"?

 

Also, if you want to feel free to try those names to refer to me/talk about me, I'd love it :):)you could try out neo/meo (both variants!), mati and mio (but I already experienced this name in use so that's less urgent)

Edited October 5, 2022 by Acecream

[Pyr]

Maybe pronoun and name testers like this and this miight help you?

[Merli]

Also trans enby here.

I choosed a name by mixing random letters, deciding that this might work, tested it out a bit as a username online and now when I moved to completely new place just used this name instead. I don't really feel anything special about it, but I like it better. It has taken some time to get used to it, but it's fine now and have never felt wrong.

I don't hate my deadname either, and thought I wanted to keep it as second name for a long time but have changed my mind on that. 

I don't really have any advices to give, but this is how I've done. Hope you find your name, all those you mentioned sounds cool

[A User]

I based it off my birth name, bc i still have attachments to it

[BuySomeCheese]

Often, your new name is something you might have to "grow into" a bit. As you said, it'll feel good and comfortable and all, but probably won't start feeling like You for a short bit

Personally, I took my Legal middle name and made it my first name, as it's a traditionally masculine name. I masculinized my Legal first name and made that my new middle name. That helped with the connection, as it was already pretty darned similar lol. I'll probably change my first name again when I move out and start Properly transitioning, but that's what I use for now- it took a good year or two of my favorite people using My Name before it felt like Me. I'd only consider changing it again because of bad family memories attached

[Acecream]

On 10/6/2022 at 10:56 PM, A User said:

I based it off my birth name, bc i still have attachments to it

yah that's not that easy with my name as there is no good sounding masculine or neutral variation haha and my name doesn't have that much different letters so you can't really create new names out of it

I'm tending towards meo right now. talked to a friend who knows me since many years about their opinion which one fits me most haha. well, we'll see

thank you all

[Nagito]

It's okay to inform people about using another name than you were using before. Think about your own comfort. Here you can check a base of 200+ gender neutral names – don't look on the "popularity" part because it's connected to the base of PESEL.

Talking about how I found my name… it's very weird story because I literally took it from a random Brazilian football player, lol. I just changed the -i ending to -y.

[A User]

14 hours ago, Acecream said:

yah that's not that easy with my name as there is no good sounding masculine or neutral variation haha and my name doesn't have that much different letters so you can't really create new names out of it

I'm tending towards meo right now. talked to a friend who knows me since many years about their opinion which one fits me most haha. well, we'll see

thank you all

totally get it

np tho

[Jeeperz_]

Stole mine from the greatest author of all time

[A User]

On 10/14/2022 at 6:21 PM, Fanz_0__Fire said:

Stole mine from the greatest author of all time

who is?

[Jeeperz_]

7 minutes ago, A User said:

who is?

The wondrous tragedy of Franz Kafka 

[flowingleaves]

oh gods i went through so many name and pronoun changes over the years that my friends STILL joke about it but theyre all still amazing about using my proper one! i went by my initials for a while, then i tried out some other names, but i eventually settled on andy-short-for-andromeda. i liked that i could have a more masc nickname with a more fem full name, the andromeda galaxy is very pretty to me, and im a huge mythology fan and i liked having a name from mythology. i still occasionally question if i like my name, but im pretty happy with it. i guess my advice would be to just... steal one from something you like? media, myths, celebrities, just steal their names. (this just makes me sound like the fae lmao) i think that if you already have a positive association with a name, it might make it easier to use? ig?

[rationalcucumber]

My first name was borrowed stolen from my favourite character at that time, my current name - Mika - I chose because it reminds me of my second favourite character - Nika Mickiewicz, but it's more masculine, it's an alternative spelling of Micah (more fitted for my home country name rules), also in my native language it sounds rad hearing a feminine sounding name combined with masculine pronouns. I found it on one of those baby names websites, and though it still feels weird when someone calls me by it because I'm not used to it, right now I feel it really fits me. 

What I did was just talking to myself about myself, using the name. I imagined someone calling me over by this name, talking with me using it, etc. And you know when you see someone and their name just fits their personality? I was looking for that feeling when choosing my name.

Edited January 7, 2023 by rationalcucumber

[im-celeste]

Another trans enby here- I found my name by exploring a sort of aesthetic. This is gonna sound (potentially) really weird, but I wanted to explore a kind of "night" aesthetic (???) which I thought fit me pretty well. Eventually, I stumbled on the name Celeste, which had nothing to do with the game or the owl from Animal Crossing- just, it felt right. So I asked one of my accepting friends to call me it, and then I introduced myself to new people with it, and it still feels kind of... weird. But with time it has gotten better, and although it still doesn't feel quite right, it still fits better then my (technically) deadname. So, I think it's worked out pretty well. You just have to try it!

[Keith]

I've choosen my current name - no, it's not Keith. Keith is more of a nickname (it might became my name soon though, cause it's growing on me) - completely randomly... About two years ago, after I've been identifying as a trans person for a year ( I think??), I woke up and decided to call myself Eryk/Eric, because who's gonna stop me anyways?? 

But if you have trouble with choosing your name, maybe try to name yourself after something you like? For example after your favourite character, or your favourite thing (by naming yourself after your favourite thing I meant that you can try to look for a name similar to the word that describes this certain thing)!

[hemogoblin]

I found names easier to find when I stopped and gave myself some direction. Figuring out what I liked in a name was a more helpful step than just spending thousands of hours mindlessly scrolling through baby name sites. At first I tried searching based on things that I liked (ex. I like geology, so I tried out some rock/mineral names), but it turns out I didn't like those as names. I always liked the symbolic meaning of my names, so I started searching by name meaning instead and almost instantly found names I liked. There was definitely a degree of luck in that, too, which you can't control!

[Rinpochard]

I chose my online alias, Robin, because I felt a weird connection to the name before even choosing it. It's nowhere close to my real name, which I am not changing, at least yet, and it gives me a sense of security?