So I’ve been struggling for months to find a name that clicks with me. I keep stumbling on names which feel like the one, then a few minutes to a few days later the name loses its sway on me. I feel like I just have to finally pick something so I can move on with my life, but I’m really not having much success. I keep telling myself that I can change it again later if I end up hating the one I pick, but it’s hard enough to get people to change how they address me once. It’s weird because I’m very infrequently this indecisive, but this choice has me really circling the drainpipe. Idk how to find one that speaks to me which I don’t feel like I’ll regret. I’m really feeling for my parents having to name me in the first place now—this shit hard lol
Did anyone else have this experience? How did your name come to you? Does anyone have any advice for me?
My best advice is to keep it simple and natural. Start using it online, you’ll get used to seeing it, and the rest will follow.
I started by reinstalling my OS to have my full chosen name as my user account, and taking a nice femme selfie. I own a domain and custom email, so I set one up for that name that will slowly gain more and more of my digital identity and accounts until the old email is basically just spam where I’ll probably just keep it as an archive in case I miss something in the migration and slowly let it fade into the background.
I don’t know how I will feel in the future, but as it is now, I expect being deadnamed will just be a part of the process, so I’m not too hung up on it.
I had a chosen name and a legal name prior, so it’s not an adjustment to have old friends and acquaintances not catch the memo, and anyone who is just being toxic about it can be eliminated very easily even if it’s family. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve disowned each other.