My lovelies, I want to hear the wonderful stories of how your name came to you.
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@Willow actually i've written up a rather long document on how i came upon my name. the very short version is that it was originally the name of a side character for a fix-it fic that i decided i might like for myself, alongside about a dozen other candidates. i explored using it here for a while, and liked it more with each passing week.
then, when i explored introducing myself by that name to my university's postdoc association, i had sort of an internal crisis about whether or not i had just lied to my new colleagues. the thought that i had lied made me feel terrible: and i realized it was not on moral grounds, but because i badly wanted what i said to be the truth. so i decided it was the truth, and that's the day it was settled.
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My name story goes like this.
In the dark of a spring night, I met myself for the very first time. I slept, exhausted.
With the dawn, I sought a guide. She nursed me, stunned, through my first day as myself. As night came, she asked me, gently, if I knew my name. I did not. I slept, wrapped in my acceptance of my femininity.
As I woke, my name was with me. She hid inside me through the morning, until I spoke her aloud while sitting beside my partner amidst a swirl of petals falling from the cherry blossoms.
That is how I met my name, “Willow.”
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@Willow I'm a Cassandra
like so many of our sisters, my day job is in cybersecurity, so I spend an awful lot of time worrying about all the things that could go wrong and trying to warn people - often, I feel doomed to watch incidents play out pretty much precisely as expected because the warnings go unheeded.I picked it in a panicked moment at a crowded bar; someone asked and I hadn't settled on anything yet, but suddenly I knew.
@valsombra That’s a lovely name! Moments of clarity feel really good to me when it comes to names.
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@Willow actually i've written up a rather long document on how i came upon my name. the very short version is that it was originally the name of a side character for a fix-it fic that i decided i might like for myself, alongside about a dozen other candidates. i explored using it here for a while, and liked it more with each passing week.
then, when i explored introducing myself by that name to my university's postdoc association, i had sort of an internal crisis about whether or not i had just lied to my new colleagues. the thought that i had lied made me feel terrible: and i realized it was not on moral grounds, but because i badly wanted what i said to be the truth. so i decided it was the truth, and that's the day it was settled.
@gardencourt Names that grow on us, a little at a time, especially from something we create, feel like an important message from somewhere inside. I’m so happy you embraced your name.
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@Willow So this story came together over time, but the short story is that I knew I was Sophie the evening I had accepted that yep, I really was a girl.
But in hindsight, I think the reason I knew so quickly was because I had been Sophie for as long as I have been around. Sophie was always a name I was drawn to. I always especially liked my kids’ friends who were named Sophie. When I would hear a song that was sung by a Sophie; or titled, or contained the name Sophie in the lyrics, something inside me always stirred. Even in my Christian days it was Sophia, the divine feminine, that I connected with.
And I think it’s because I always knew. This is who I am. This is my name. And I was trying to make that known, even though it wasn’t really breaking through.
It took me decades to admit it to myself and speak my name out loud. But I am SO glad I was finally heard!
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@cinnamon Resonating with a character and feeling a connection with them seems like a wonderful way to meet your name.
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@Willow
Ayla is my favorite character from Chrono Trigger. I was struggling to find a name for a long time, remembered her, and it just clicked. She’s strong, confident, and outgoing, everything I am trying to become. It felt natural to refer to myself as Ayla. My friends all agreed that it fits me perfectly, so that’s who I am now.
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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.
