How did you choose your name?

Contributor: butts butts
Just curious as to how everyone chose their names, or did you keep your birth name? Did you cruise baby-name sites, or did you already have one in mind before that? Did you just use a different version of your birth name, or go by your middle name?
05/29/2012
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Contributor: butts butts
I personally spent a while checking out baby-name sites, it took me a while to narrow it down to something I liked and identified with, that also clicked for other people.
05/29/2012
Contributor: thisisadeletedaccount thisisadeletedaccount
I don't plan on a name change, but during the time when I considered it, my plans were to either use the masculine form of my birth name, which I like because it's slightly obscure, or else use the name my parents would have given me if I had been assigned male at birth, which is very different from my current name but which i still feel a connection to.
05/29/2012
Contributor: Peggi Peggi
I am cis, but a lot of my friends picked names similar to their birth names. Something like changing Matthew into Maddie, Rocky to Roxanne, or something similar. I have one friend who had an incredibly supportive family and she took her grandmother's name. Others kinda play around with a few names they like until they find the one that suits his or her identity.

I have ONE friend, and I know this is totally rare, but she knew she was female when she was 7, and her parents went as far as picking a new name for her. She is 28 now and still goes by that name. It's what she grew up with and she says it fits her well
05/29/2012
Contributor: brevado brevado
Semi-random
05/29/2012
Contributor: Mwar Mwar
One of my friends changed her name to a name similar to one of her idols.
05/29/2012
Contributor: britanny0620 britanny0620
I identify as Genderqueer but when I used male names in the past, they came from nicknames I was given by friends. I've gone by Brett (which I believe is the masculine equivalent of my name) and by Rycki (Ricky) because it was a nickname given to me by my sister. If I were to use another male name, I would probably do so by raiding baby name sites until I found a name that suits me.

I have several trans friends, one of the which went through several names before he finally decided on one. The first one he chose was a variation on his (already androgynous) middle name. The next name he chose was a name I had mentioned was my favorite, and he also liked it. The following few names had been names he chose for characters he was writing about. The name he ended up legally changing it to was a variation of a name that he had always liked but the original name had been too biblical for his liking. His name change was legally approved a week ago
05/29/2012
Contributor: lukas24 lukas24
I chose the name I'd used for myself in my daydreams when I was a child. I don't remember why I chose it at that point, I just like it.
05/30/2012
Contributor: viserys4king viserys4king
i based it off a nickname someone gave me, elaborated it and am very happy w/it.
05/30/2012
Contributor: butts butts
Quote:
Originally posted by lukas24
I chose the name I'd used for myself in my daydreams when I was a child. I don't remember why I chose it at that point, I just like it.
Haha, I had a male name that my imaginary friend used for me as a child, but it's not the one I ended up choosing.
05/30/2012
Contributor: vitriolicvertigo vitriolicvertigo
As a GQ person, my name is perfect because it's unisex. I love my parents for picking that one for me ;D
05/31/2012
Contributor: Phosphorous Tick Phosphorous Tick
I just always loved the name Vincent
before that thought I wanted my name to be Dante, then I decided Vincent was better suited for me.
05/31/2012
Contributor: Selene Selene
I sat down for a few hours, went over every name I had used since I was 3 (starting with Jessica). I had then pooled in names I liked, some I heard and some I made up. I slowly crossed off what didn't feel right, what I thought didn't fit me. If a name gave me a mental image of something that wasn't me, I crossed it off. Eventually I came down to only 3 names, tried them out for a while, seeing how out thought I would feel being called that. Eventually I stuck with Selene, something nice and short, soft that flows easily off the tongue, also an easy nick-name as Sel.
06/01/2012
Contributor: Rab Rab
I looked at baby name sites and happened across a male version of my first name, but my middle name is unisex in pronunciation so I just have to get the spelling changed
06/05/2012
Contributor: DarthTaco DarthTaco
Raphael was my favorite Ninja Turtle :'P.
06/09/2012
Contributor: Thomas90 Thomas90
I changed my name 3 or 4 times before i settled to Thomas. I just searched name sites day and night seeing which ones i like, and i eventually went for the one i used as a kid, before i even came out as trans. Weird eh?
06/09/2012
Contributor: butts butts
Quote:
Originally posted by Thomas90
I changed my name 3 or 4 times before i settled to Thomas. I just searched name sites day and night seeing which ones i like, and i eventually went for the one i used as a kid, before i even came out as trans. Weird eh?
sometimes you just know before you even know what "knowing" is, eh?
06/09/2012
Contributor: Faeboy Faeboy
I knew I wanted to name myself after an angel, so I scoured for all the angel names I could find, and then named myself after one who was the bad guy in my favourite comic series. Much cooler than just picking 'Michael'.
06/10/2012
Contributor: TheirPet TheirPet
Nobody really ever called me by my birth name but used the male version of my name as a sort of nick name. It wasn't a big jump when I had to legally change it. Unfortunately, I had a very supper feminine middle name that has no male equivalent so I just kept the initials the same and sat down with my mother to talk about what a good alternative would be.
06/11/2012
Contributor: radioboy radioboy
The name I chose is a masculine form of a nickname I had as a kid, which was a shorter form of my birth name. It's semi-androgynous as at the time I identified as GQ, but still fits me now. For my middle names, I went with the name I would have been given, and my father's name.
06/11/2012
Contributor: AnotherBrother AnotherBrother
My name was chosen based on things I find personal to me. From there I just narrowed it down to several names and tried each out for awhile, just calling myself that name. From there I used whichever name "stuck" the best.
06/13/2012
Contributor: jesseftm jesseftm
When I was young I wanted to go by Logan because I really liked it (I was probably 14 or 15 at the time), before that I went by Kevin briefly (in middle school) because my mom told me if I'd been born a boy that would have been my name. When I got to college I started using Elliott because I dreamed it was my name. Now I just go by Jesse (which is sort of the "male" version of my birth name) because it's the only one that really felt like me. I ended up keeping Elliott as my middle name though.
06/18/2012
Contributor: sodapin sodapin
Quote:
Originally posted by butts
Just curious as to how everyone chose their names, or did you keep your birth name? Did you cruise baby-name sites, or did you already have one in mind before that? Did you just use a different version of your birth name, or go by your middle name?
Lol I basically did all of the above, but eventually asked my parents to rename me but it ended up being a male variant of my birthname as well as a name I had considered while searching baby name sites.
06/25/2012
Contributor: FindingJames FindingJames
When I was in 3rd grade there was this older boy on my bus who was named James. I fell in love with that name, but I didn't know why at the time. After I found out I was trans, I knew that's the name I wanted. I tried out a few other names, but in the end I stuck with James. In 7th grade I had to write a book to read to the kindergardeners at my school, so I needed some names. I used a baby name website for that. I really liked the name Oliver. That's half the reason why my middle name is Oliver. My best friend died a few years ago, and his initials were JOS. I wanted those to be my initials to be JOS as well...kind of like a tribute to him I guess. That's the other reason why I chose Oliver as my middle name instead of a different name that I also liked.
07/10/2012
Contributor: Demonise Demonise
I have a trans friend and he just chose a name he liked. But he wanted his mother to like the name as well, so he asked her opinion, which was very sweet.
07/11/2012