Well first I picked Ada, from Ada Lovelace, the first programmer, since I enjoy coding.

But then I thought about how my name was based on the one from my grandpa and I felt it was disrespectful towards my family to simply drop it for whatever I fancied. Unfortunately I disliked all the female versions of that name for various reasons.

So I asked my mom what names they came up with before I was born. Lo and behold they had already picked a female name for me! It was uncommon to know the gender before birth back then and so they had already sent it around on my birthcard together with my now dead name.

And well, it was an instant match for me. My dad seemed bummed though because I think my mom picked it and he the male name, but honestly he should lighten up a bit. After all, I didn’t go with Ada.

Another person who picked theirs from a video game. Pick the name you want to give yourself. Don’t worry about what other people think and focus on if it makes YOU happy.

At some point in high school, before I was even considering that I might be trans, I just thought about how it was a cute name. It stuck in my head for a reason I couldn’t figure out for like 4 years after that, until the reason slapped itself in my face and I started transitioning.

A friend of mine on VRChat picked it out for me and it just sort of “stuck”. They wanted to call me a nice girly name instead of my vrchat username (which is different from my lemmy account name). So they started calling me “Allie”.

So now I go by “Allie” lol. It’s very close to Alex as well. But I have been debating on changing it legally to Allison and then using “Allie” as a nickname.

For my first name I went through every name list I could find. Trendy names, classic names, unique names, fantasy names, thousands upon thousands of names… I spent around a week of dedicated browsing and as I read them one by one, if I liked it, I’d try and picture my friends calling me by that. There were a couple that I liked but only one out of all of them felt right, so I went with that. My middle name was a split decision between a couple of the first names I liked, but I liked them differently as middle names so that was also a pretty easy decision once I heard them out loud after my first name. My new last name is a mix of a unique name and foreign word that I liked and also liked how they fit together. No regrets :D

However i feel a little wierd about picking my name based on a tv show.

Most parents do it for their kids too anyway, and trans people all over pick names from their favorite videogame all the time! Just pick whatever feels right for you.

Well, I kept on running through names to see which rolled off the tongue and gave me euphoria to hear. First tried to go with Kaela…then that felt…not quite enough. So, I went to Mikaela. Ended up with a long-winded explanation with my friend group that I’m just the Sword in the Stone(the object) personified due to the meaning of my chosen name as a whole.

Ultimately, the name is up to you…but, personally, my only advice is to find one that seems like it fits you like a glove.

i also was given all names of the same initials with my siblings! Eva is suchhhh a pretty name for what it’s worth :)

I just took it from Celeste (Maddie not Madeline but eh who cares)

I picked a new full name, meaning that, in addition to me changing the given portion (first and middle), I changed my last name as well.

As the screen name shows, my first name is Angel, and my middle name is Jamie.

I picked Angel not out of any particular funny story. Even before I realized I was trans, I had resentment to the name I was given at birth, and I wanted to pick one I’d rather be called in more casual instances. Just out of nowhere, on a whim, my mind comes up with “Angel”, admiring it in how it sounds, looks, and what it feels like when it is applied to me as a name. I requested my friends to start calling me that in school, and I introduced myself as such wherever applicable. When teachers called my legal name in attendance, I’d just kindly let them know “I go by Angel as a nickname. Thanks.”, and people got pretty damn used to it. The only real goofy thing about the name for me is that I’ve always been very uncomfortable with religion due to being raised in a really strict Catholic household, but that wasn’t really some kind of intentional irony for the lulz. I just love the way the name sounds.

When I was around 17, I accepted myself as trans, but I was under the impression that I was a binary trans woman initially, so I set on changing my name to “Angela”. This was, however, because I knew very little about non-binary people and didn’t think the term could be applicable to me. Once I got to a point of being further educated on enbies, I started identifying as non-binary around the age of 20 and subsequently went back to Angel to have a name that came off as more neutral.

I ended up picking my middle name a bit afterwards though. When I thought I was a binary trans woman, the plan was to name myself “Angela Jacqueline” as my first and middle, and I was going to keep my birth surname as well. I decided that Jacqueline was too feminine for it to be suitable as a middle name when it came to the kind of gendering I desired, but I wanted to keep the initials of “A. J.” because, at that point, people in my friend circles usually either called me “Angel” or simply “A. J.”, as I wasn’t fond of going by Angela because I didn’t have a feminine presentation at the time.

I thought of merely condensing it down to Jackie to make it more neutral, but it didn’t stick too well for me, so I went with Jamie instead which made etymological sense because Jacqueline technically, by origin of the name in meaning, serves as a feminine version of James whereas I saw Jamie as the neutral counterpart of those two.

As far as the surname goes, I decided to change that once I got a clear idea that I had to distance myself from my blood relatives who effectively disowned me. Not only that, but the surname I was born with is really foreign and hard to pronounce for a lot of legal and professional administrations, and I also wanted to give a sense of spicy individuality to my whole name, having all three pieces of it represent me and no one else I’m tied to in particular.

After thinking everything through, I picked a new surname that starts with a J, which I found fitting because of how used I got to being called “A. J.” at times. In order to still keep somewhat of a cultural connection, I picked a surname that is still very common in the native country of my folks. The surname itself can also be a first name, but it usually serves as a diminutive of longer names rather than a legal name on its own. As a diminutive, it is typically seen as gender-neutral though, and it’s also a name I absolutely am in love with, but I didn’t want to have it in the given name slot because, legally speaking, it’s pretty much entirely masculine (it’s really only gender-neutral as a diminutive), so after checking all these boxes:

☑ 1. It starts with a J.

☑ 2. It’s common as a surname in my parent’s native country.

☑ 3. It’s a gender-neutral name that I love to the point of having considered it as a given name.

☑ 4. It’s mostly masculine when it is a legal given name, but fortunately and with point #2 considered, I was able to circumvent any worries about this by putting it in the slot of my surname, as surnames are typically not gendered.

☑ 5. It just sounds damn good!

The idea is that I really don’t have a given [first and middle] and a surname [last] portion anymore. I now just see myself as having three given names that were given to me from none other than myself, but no one else would interpret it that way legally speaking, so it all worked out in the end.

Also, I’m a musician, and in my stage presence, I typically am known by my full name [first, middle, and last] entirely, in a Maynard James Keenan kind of fashion. Haha!

I robbed it from the least interesting song about a girl by that name. As for how I knew it was right, I was sort of using it in my head long before I cracked.

The feminine version of my first name isnt to my liking, but my parents gave me a male and female name during pregnancy and the female name is a good fit for me, I think. I’m like 80% sure.

I have choosen a name based on what represents a strong aspect of myself.

Since I always love to learn and know more things, my Name is the word for “Knowledge of the World”.

I tried to find names with ties to my old name or personal significance, but none of them felt right. So I looked through a list of names online, and my name jumped out at me.

If your name feels right, then it’s right :)