My lovelies, I want to hear the wonderful stories of how your name came to you.
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@Willow I started writing stories about people named Alex or Alix in middle school.
In my late 20s I realized just how many of those characters were versions of me. I was basically already Alex.
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@Willow There is so much to this...
Nicola is a feminine version of my necronym, and I've been using some version of "Nicola" in games since I was a teenager, long before my egg cracked. As for why "Nicola"... I hated "Nicole", I was a major Doctor Who fan, and the actress who played Peri on the show was named Nicola, which was a name I liked far more. So...
The name "Nicola" in its variations... the meaning has more meaning to me now than before. "Victory of the People". I wonder if my parents would have named me that if they knew its meaning...
Finally, my necronym, in its entirety, came from my grandfathers. I wanted to keep that part of me; I wanted to keep that legacy in some form, even after transition.
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@Willow The first time I remember considering the name Juniper was when my then-spouse and I were thinking of names for our first child. I realized looking through baby name lists that I really liked nature names, and Ex wanted a name that started JU. Based on that, I suggested Juniper, but Ex didn't like it. We eventually settled on a different name, but Juniper lodged in my head. I suggested it again for our second child, but it didn't work for Ex then, either. So when I finally realized that I was trans, it was still there waiting for me. I didn't reach for it right away. When I first came out (to the same ex), I was asked if I had a new name, and I blurted out something different. That name had some meaning to me, but it was also too close to my deadname and otherwise didn't feel great. Still, that was the name I used for the first few weeks of coming out. I knew that it wasn't right for me, but I wasn't ready to switch. I even wrote in an early coming-out e-mail something along the lines of: "I may have an update on the name in the next few weeks; I am strongly considering Juniper instead." I don't remember exactly how I got to the point of actually switching to Juniper, but I don't think it took very long.
When I told Ex I was going to go by Juniper, they immediately asked if they could call me June. I didn't like it but felt too conflict-averse to say no, so they started calling me June constantly. That at least led to my telling everyone I introduced myself to "not June" preemptively. My wives (and some friends) now call me Juni for short, which I do love 🥰
I did later learn that Ex's sister had planned on using the name Juniper if she had another daughter, but I got to it first.
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@Willow one of my favourite poems is Jabberwocky, the first stanza of which Lewis Carol published as satire of the trend at the time of "discovering" (read: fabricating) anglo-saxon verse. so he published a poem which was almost all made up words.
i used to use random words from that stanza as character names in games. Mimsy was my favourite. in a game where i needed a nickname and a longform name, i decided Mimsy could be short for Miriam.
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@Willow one of my favourite poems is Jabberwocky, the first stanza of which Lewis Carol published as satire of the trend at the time of "discovering" (read: fabricating) anglo-saxon verse. so he published a poem which was almost all made up words.
i used to use random words from that stanza as character names in games. Mimsy was my favourite. in a game where i needed a nickname and a longform name, i decided Mimsy could be short for Miriam.
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@miriamrobern @Willow I love that! I do always think of Jabberwocky when I see your posts
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@Willow one of my favourite poems is Jabberwocky, the first stanza of which Lewis Carol published as satire of the trend at the time of "discovering" (read: fabricating) anglo-saxon verse. so he published a poem which was almost all made up words.
i used to use random words from that stanza as character names in games. Mimsy was my favourite. in a game where i needed a nickname and a longform name, i decided Mimsy could be short for Miriam.
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@Willow …
after enough iterations of playing Mimsy/Miriam, it kind of stuck in my head as *me,* with Borogove a close second (even if it sounded vaguely masc). this may have been underscored by the fact i was using it in… ahem… a lot of text-based genderbending erotica games.
so when i came out as a woman, it was a pretty simple decision. im officially Miriam Borogove Robern (at least in Canada), with Mimsy as my nickname/mom-name. (we're "mama" and "mimsy" and both "mom")
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@Willow …
after enough iterations of playing Mimsy/Miriam, it kind of stuck in my head as *me,* with Borogove a close second (even if it sounded vaguely masc). this may have been underscored by the fact i was using it in… ahem… a lot of text-based genderbending erotica games.
so when i came out as a woman, it was a pretty simple decision. im officially Miriam Borogove Robern (at least in Canada), with Mimsy as my nickname/mom-name. (we're "mama" and "mimsy" and both "mom")
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@Willow …
later i was delighted to discover that im not the first "Mimsy," and that has been used as a nickname for Miriams before me.
later, friends shortened it further to Mims, which i love, and one of my coworkers calls me "Mim" like Mad Madame Mim from Disney's Sword in the Stone.
but mostly, im named for a nineteenth-century shitpost, which i like to think is very apropos.
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@miriamrobern @Willow I love that! I do always think of Jabberwocky when I see your posts
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@Willow Mine is very, very boring. I made a list of criteria:
1. Unambiguously feminine
2. British or Jewish (my ethnic background)
3. Not implausible for a cis woman my age
4. Has several nicknames which could fit different personalities (because who knew how I might change?)
5. Ideally, same first initial (I liked my signature, which only has my initials)
And then I hunted through baby name lists until I found something I liked that fit the bill. “Becca” has never felt like it’s a perfect expression of my soul or whatever; it’s just pretty nice and a definite upgrade from the original. -
@Willow There is so much to this...
Nicola is a feminine version of my necronym, and I've been using some version of "Nicola" in games since I was a teenager, long before my egg cracked. As for why "Nicola"... I hated "Nicole", I was a major Doctor Who fan, and the actress who played Peri on the show was named Nicola, which was a name I liked far more. So...
The name "Nicola" in its variations... the meaning has more meaning to me now than before. "Victory of the People". I wonder if my parents would have named me that if they knew its meaning...
Finally, my necronym, in its entirety, came from my grandfathers. I wanted to keep that part of me; I wanted to keep that legacy in some form, even after transition.
@NicolaElle I love Nicola! My Second Life name was Nicola Escher, named after one of my favorite femme fatales, Nicola Six (https://livesinlit.com/nineteen-years-old-nicola-six/)
I did think about Nicola for me, but my stepfather is a Nick, and I didn’t dig that association.
(I also dated a Nicola at university in Scotland briefly, but we won’t mention that. And she actually went by Nikki.)
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@Willow didn't put much thought into it, tbh. I wanted something short n sweet, with the same first initial as my birth name. it works
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@Willow didn't put much thought into it, tbh. I wanted something short n sweet, with the same first initial as my birth name. it works
@Willow also not particularly gendered, that was the other metric
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@Willow my first name I had picked out long ago, long before I reckoned with being trans. A twin sister I never had, an echo to myself, a "what if?"
I joke that it took me 35 years to decide to come out, and about 35 seconds to pick a name.
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@Willow@chaosfem.tw Kasdeya was an angel who was cast out of heaven for teaching the human race about medicine, poison, abortion, psychology, and hypnosis. she's almost like the Abrahamic equivalent of Prometheus. I could probably write a 12-paragraph essay about what all that means to me lol
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@Willow Mine’s rather mundane. When I was young, somewhere around ten maybe, I imagined what my name would be if I was a girl. So I chose a first and middle name that matched my deadname initials. I decided my first and middle names would be Elisabeth Teresa. When my egg cracked last year I decided to drop Elisabeth and just go with Teresa.
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@Willow@chaosfem.tw Kasdeya was an angel who was cast out of heaven for teaching the human race about medicine, poison, abortion, psychology, and hypnosis. she's almost like the Abrahamic equivalent of Prometheus. I could probably write a 12-paragraph essay about what all that means to me lol
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@Willow Singing a song from A Goofy Movie. Not even kidding.
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@Willow
I got my name in a dream. I was called Penny, and I couldn't shake it. I tried a few other names but nothing else felt right -
Three stories I will tell, should you listen. Three stories I will tell, but only one name.
My display name here hearkens back to wanting solitude and rest from the world. 'Twas a day when I was unwell and down with a fever, and wanted to escape the pains of the world for a moment or several. So I rolled a fresh alt on WoW, hiding from the eyes of the guild. Casting about for a name, and unhappy with the state of self, my mind found its way to a vengeance demon, and from there to a diminutive version of her name. As I travelled the plains of Durotar and beyond, I grew increasingly fond of the self-sufficiency and daring of my character, and I found myself spending more and more time with her. Her. It was always a her, in rpgs. There were no signs. She and I grew together, her embodying many of the traits I wished for myself. Her story turned epic, many adventures were had, and many a fond memory created. As the online gaming turned into real-life gatherings with the guild, I entered a space where I was simply known as Anyia. It was more efficient to refer to each other by main character names regardless of gender match, or so we said. So Anyia I became, not just in-game, but out of game as well. It was a name I happily accepted, being a representation of an aspirational version of myself. I nearly took at is my middle name when I did my paperwork transition.
Nearly, but not in the end. But before I tell the tale of why, I shall touch upon the actual first name I settled upon. This story, much more mundane than the previous, is one girt by practicality as much as resonance. I knew I wanted to keep my initials, for some measure of continuity and ease of changing all manner of accounts over. Having not had the flash-of-insight that several trans people have written about, I went about finding a good name the brute force way. I sifted through name databases sections for my initial, pulling out potential options, feeling them out, checking their historical meaning, rejecting a lot of them for their religious associations. There were some I quite liked and would've adopted, if not for their deital connotations. In the end, the field was narrowed down to a single entry, and entry with nature associations and of groundedness. This name I took for myself, not because it matched what I felt, but for it matching what I wanted to feel. A feminine name, but one which
implies strength, endurance, grace and composure.Thus the first name was settled. The middle name, of which I wanted a single one, down from my prior three, to make my life easier in this country where assumptions of naming structure are strong and limiting. And for this name, Anyia was the top contender for a long time. However, I felt conflicted. It felt like a doubling up of the meaning and feeling and intent of my first name. With Anyia the WoW character being the embodiment of those same things (save grace 🤭), the name felt... redundant. In this limbo I stayed for some time, until one night when a new part of me arose. I quote from my diary:
"But to return to the other night, the name that I softly spoke to myself in my dream was one with very different emotional attachment. A name which I loved the moment I heard it though could not say why, and which then evolved to include that raw attachment of a childhood friend who stands by you through thick and thin. A name, spoken softly, which is at once softness, fire and wildness. A name, spoken softly. [... <firstname> <middlename>], now that caresses the speaking tongue and listening ear. [...] It wraps the solidity of my first name with a flowering vine, complementing, making whole. I will hold on to this name for now. It feels like it may be me."
That name I took for myself. It was a name I'd only heard spoken in a game a long time ago, and for all I know I may be the only person with it as an official name. But it feels like me, or rather, one of my aspects. It is the name I am the fondest of and treasure the most, only reluctantly giving it out on forms. It's for *me*.
These tales three, are those of me.
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@Willow On my very first gig in the entertainment industry (half a lifetime ago), the Production Manager’s name was Maeve O’Meara. I was delighted by this name, and if I had had a daughter instead of a son, there’s a good chance that would’ve been her name. “Maeve” shares some sounds with my legal first name, and I’m some amount Irish, so it came up almost immediately in my mind when I started to think about a new name. Why fight it?
