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Middle names


just an owl

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Middle names aren't really something I hear people talking about often within trans spaces, honestly, so I'm kind of intrigued how everyone decided what middle name(s) to go with.

 

But, I kind of have a problem with mine, and I want to see if anyone else had a similar problem.

 

My birth name had two middle names. I was planning on asking my mum and dad for a name each as a replacement. My dad is thinking of one, although I don't think my mum will be supportive enough to think of one.

One of my names however was a sort of family name. I, my mum, and I think her mum, have it so I've always associated it as a feminine name. My dad mentioned that my mum may not want me to change it because of the family ties to it, and said it's not really gender specific (as it's not generally a name)... but I've always seen it as a girly name. Maybe it's not, but I still link it back to the old me. The female me. And I'm trying to distance myself from that.

A lot of media portrays people choosing their first name as something similar to their first name (Nicole and Cole, Nathan and Natalie..) and whilst my birth name doesn't quite have male equivalent, there's a couple names close to it, and I couldn't do it. I don't want to be reminded of my birth name constantly, I just want to forget it.

And that's how it feels with this, even if it's a unisex name, what does it matter? I'm always going to think of it as part of my birth name, part of something I'm trying to change.

 

rambling over, has anyone faced anything similar?

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Luftschlosseule

I don't know if my story will help, so I just write it and you can look.

 

I have two names since my first name is Kim. Until 2008 in the area where I live you had to have at least one name that indicates the (binary) gender of your child, so my parents chose Melissa. I never identified as Melissa, I call it my bureaucracy-name because it's only there due to a law and is only used for papers.
My sister has a name that's considered as feminine, so she only has one; both of my parents dislike the praxis of giving the child up to four names to include loads of relatives.

At the moment, I am fine with my names and I don't think that I will ever change them: Kim is as neutral as it can get, and Melissa is... well, it's on my passport, it's definitely there, but it's like a birthmark on my back I don't see and only know it's there somewhere.

 

But I've got to warn you that while some names may be unisex, you'll be misgendered by people that only see your name and assume something. It depends on region you life in if this name is considered unisex there, how many people come in from other regions. A very oldfashioned teacher at college didn't believed me to be me because he thought Kim to be a male name.

 

Also, at the moment I don't have the feeling that I have to make a cut to be the new me, it's more like digging deeper and discovering the true me that was there the whole time, but there was so much other stuff in the picture that obscured it. So I don't feel the need for a new name, my friends already call me by a nickname I identify with.
Changing your name is assoiziated with starting a new life with a new purpose, like when you join an order or so and you'll get initiated you have to change your name to signify that you're leaving your old life behind in the past. If that's what you're looking for, do it. (:
However you decide, while I like that you draw your family into this, you are the person that has to live with the decision. Take as much time as you need and make sure that it's the right decision.

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Sort of similar with the name having family ties. I kept my middle name because my biological mom gave it to me (I'm adopted)... but I'm really regretting that decision because it's such a girly name my middle name has been used for soooo many things since I legally changed my name :wacko: Every time I do pass as male, that person ends up needing to see my ID or know my middle name for something : ( If you don't want to keep it, you shouldn't feel obligated to. I've heard of people who had a neutral birth name but changed it because that's the name the 'old' them lived as and to them it is a masculine or feminine name and a reminder of what they'd rather forget. Personally, Louvaine makes me think of a buff football player with dread locks :lol: Although I think the spelling does lean more on the feminine side. 

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12 minutes ago, Luftschlosseule said:

I don't know if my story will help, so I just write it and you can look.

 

I have two names since my first name is Kim. Until 2008 in the area where I live you had to have at least one name that indicates the (binary) gender of your child, so my parents chose Melissa. I never identified as Melissa, I call it my bureaucracy-name because it's only there due to a law and is only used for papers.
My sister has a name that's considered as feminine, so she only has one; both of my parents dislike the praxis of giving the child up to four names to include loads of relatives.

At the moment, I am fine with my names and I don't think that I will ever change them: Kim is as neutral as it can get, and Melissa is... well, it's on my passport, it's definitely there, but it's like a birthmark on my back I don't see and only know it's there somewhere.

 

But I've got to warn you that while some names may be unisex, you'll be misgendered by people that only see your name and assume something. It depends on region you life in if this name is considered unisex there, how many people come in from other regions. A very oldfashioned teacher at college didn't believed me to be me because he thought Kim to be a male name.

 

Also, at the moment I don't have the feeling that I have to make a cut to be the new me, it's more like digging deeper and discovering the true me that was there the whole time, but there was so much other stuff in the picture that obscured it. So I don't feel the need for a new name, my friends already call me by a nickname I identify with.
Changing your name is assoiziated with starting a new life with a new purpose, like when you join an order or so and you'll get initiated you have to change your name to signify that you're leaving your old life behind in the past. If that's what you're looking for, do it. (:
However you decide, while I like that you draw your family into this, you are the person that has to live with the decision. Take as much time as you need and make sure that it's the right decision.

Thanks for sharing :)

Yeah, I know some trans people who have a unisex name (like Alex) but as they don't completely pass (or bordering on passing) then people assume it's the female version. My first name definitely isn't unisex, though.

 

6 minutes ago, Starry Sky said:

Sort of similar with the name having family ties. I kept my middle name because my biological mom gave it to me (I'm adopted)... but I'm really regretting that decision because it's such a girly name my middle name has been used for soooo many things since I legally changed my name :wacko: Every time I do pass as male, that person ends up needing to see my ID or know my middle name for something : ( If you don't want to keep it, you shouldn't feel obligated to. I've heard of people who had a neutral birth name but changed it because that's the name the 'old' them lived as and to them it is a masculine or feminine name and a reminder of what they'd rather forget. Personally, Louvaine makes me think of a buff football player with dread locks :lol: Although I think the spelling does lean more on the feminine side. 

I think if my birth name was neutral I'd want to change it still. But as a middle name, it doesn't feel as big of a deal... Barely any of my friends know my middle names anyway. And writing it up I realised the spelling made it seem more feminine... Louvain seems more neutral imo.

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Luftschlosseule

My grandmother used a different spelling from that her parents choose, because we had two Gieselas in the family, but one of them was liked by nobody, so my grandma wrote her name Gisela to make a difference. Apparently, that was no problem, even for official documents.

 

Another thing, which probably won't help, but I find it very funny:
A friend of my mother's married into aristocracy, and her husband has loads of middle names. As they were driving off into their honeymoon they got problems at a border because there was some mix-up in his regular passport and in his traveling ID, two names had switched positions and the officials weren't allowed to let them pass because ... well, your name should be the same on every official document. Until then, nobody had noticed it.

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My birth middle name is Ann, and that's way too feminine for me. I'm changing it to Ash, because it's close.

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I don't have anything similar to that but I think if you don't really want to keep that name then you don't have to, you're the one who has to live with it after all. 

As for middle names.. I never had a middle name so when I was choosing a new one I didn't give much thought to possibly getting one. I really like the name Parker and feel some nice connection to it and am used to being known by that name but I'm not sure if it fits with the rest of my name so I don't know if I could/should add it as a middle name or if I should just leave it as a sort of nickname. 

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The middle name I was given at birth was my father's name, who died just a couple of years before I changed it for something completely unrelated...

I don't feel bad for that though >_<

 

I picked my middle name as something kind of similar to one of the names that I was considering as my first name,

I also picked a name that flows well and it also sounds like it could be a last name, so if I omit my actual last name it will still sound like a complete name.

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J. van Deijck

I think I haven't had that situation. My parents chose two names for me, too, and both are utterly feminine (and I hate both with passion). When I grew older, I have chosen two names for myself on my own: Jonas Austin. Neither of them is an equivalent of any of my birth names. I didn't want a name that would link to that boy from the past who has been mistaken as a girl.

The problem is that my chosen names are not legal yet and using my ID still causes pain and distress. 

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I don't see my first name as overly feminine (heck, it doesn't even end with an -A).. but my middle name is the same as a certain French Monarch.. (Marie). Which, is feminine. But I don't see much of a need to change it when I don't have to use it in very many places. Also, for plenty of forms, they only ask for middle initial if applicable. 

My full name rolls of the tongue in a way that I wouldn't want to change. 

 

But my middle name is also why I switched my name on google and my personal youtube account to my initials and my last name. :/ 

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My first and middle name both came from my paternal grandmother, and I wanted to keep her namesake to some extent. While my first name was undeniably female, my middle name was gendered by spelling only, so that was all I felt the need to change. Plus, there's something comical that's specific to my first and middle initial that I wanted to preserve. :P 

 

If I didn't feel so strongly about maintaining my initials and my grandmother's namesake, I would have gone with a different middle name that I used to joke about that 1) would make my name into a pun, and 2) would connect back to my mother's birthname.

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1 hour ago, UVB-76 said:

I think I haven't had that situation. My parents chose two names for me, too, and both are utterly feminine (and I hate both with passion). When I grew older, I have chosen two names for myself on my own: Jonas Austin. Neither of them is an equivalent of any of my birth names. I didn't want a name that would link to that boy from the past who has been mistaken as a girl.

The problem is that my chosen names are not legal yet and using my ID still causes pain and distress. 

Nero isn't your real name 0_0

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J. van Deijck
Just now, Mystic Maya said:

Nero isn't your real name 0_0

It's not! But it's the best nickname of all I've ever had :wub:

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Someone remind me what middle names are.

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Just now, Assemble said:

Someone remind me what middle names are.

it's a name between first and last name, some people don't have them and others have more than one.

A lot don't get used much but I personally use mine a lot.

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2 minutes ago, Mystic Maya said:

it's a name between first and last name, some people don't have them and others have more than one.

A lot don't get used much but I personally use mine a lot.

Sure, could you say that again, but this time in Russian? :3

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5 minutes ago, Mystic Maya said:

Sorry, I... didn't realize ... 

I'm sorry so much D:

💗

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1 minute ago, Agenderbitchass said:

My nickname is blade

I wish that was me (no). ^_^

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Dodecahedron314

I actually use my given middle name as my first name, because it's a heck of a lot more neutral than my given first name, which I've hated since long before I had any idea about anything relating to gender. Of course, that sometimes leads to amusing situations like last year when I was in a physics class and an automatically generated list of who was in what lab section was posted outside, and since it included everyone's full name but also used preferred first names, I was listed as "Morgan Morgan [last name]". :lol: If I ever change my name legally to do away with my given first name, I haven't really put much thought into what I would pick as my new middle name. I kind of like Ellis, for some reason. 

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nerdperson777
6 hours ago, Luftschlosseule said:

Another thing, which probably won't help, but I find it very funny:
A friend of my mother's married into aristocracy, and her husband has loads of middle names. As they were driving off into their honeymoon they got problems at a border because there was some mix-up in his regular passport and in his traveling ID, two names had switched positions and the officials weren't allowed to let them pass because ... well, your name should be the same on every official document. Until then, nobody had noticed it.

That actually happened to my mom. We were at the airport security. When someone was an immigrant, they will tend to have a name from another language. So my mom has her Chinese name and English name. To this day I don't even know which one is her first and which is her middle. I think her driver's license says Chinese name as her first. She normally fills things out with English name first. So one time dad and I had to wait for her because her plane ticket name "didn't match". So now she brings around her passport which has English name first to avoid confusion. 

 

I'm semi-okay with my given name. As a more practical person, my mom rather me be smart than pretty. So the names she gave me were not going to be trendy. She named me Catherine and I choose to be Cat to be neutral. Many Chinese names are about being pretty and handsome but my name is quick thinker. (I certainly am not anymore in most situations.) My chosen name is Calvin, which would be the closest name I can get. There's Keith but I can't identify with it. As for middle name, my mom named me Marie, after her, Maria, so my name would have part of her and dad in it. My unofficial chosen middle name is Mathison, the middle name of Alan Turing, because I like math. 

 

My friend's name is Terry and she doesn't mind being called that since it's neutral. My cousin thought it was spelled Terri which would be more feminine. Then she has a chosen name too, in Japanese which barely anyone calls her so I don't get what she wants to do. My school department advisor was also called Terry and in the whole email exchange I thought I was talking to a woman. When I went to have an appointment in person, I found out it was a guy. I take that name to be female more than male. 

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Luftschlosseule

Oh no, at an airport? Not nice.
So everybody, make sure your official documents match up!

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My birth middle name was created by my parents to be a male version of Rhoda. I like that it's unique (while the rest is super common). But, other than that, it's not really that good.

 

My new middle name was from playing a forum game where they'd name the person above. I got "Brookley". I didn't really like it, but loved "Brooke".

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  • 2 months later...
On 1/9/2017 at 3:30 AM, Assemble said:

Someone remind me what middle names are.

MIddle names

If not married. (If mom and dad are both under eighteen. Parents over eighteen, living in but not married)
The child will use the surname of mom. No middle name required.

First name: Cara

Middle name:
Last name: Las Pinas

Mom: Caroline Las Pinas

Dad: Arnold Dela Torre


If married. (Even if parents have been annulled)
The child will have the middle name (which is mom's surname before married.)

First name: Cara
Middle name: Las Pinas
Last name: Dela torre

Cara L.P. Dela Torre

 

if Cara L.P. Dela Torre. is married
She can have her surname, and the husband's surname
Name of Wife: Cara Dela Torre
Name of Husband: Jayson Tan
Cara Dela Torre-Tan (informal)
But usually it is
Cara D.T. Tan (formal)

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TheGrumpyBear

If I could, I would get rid of both my middle and family names. Never liked having to have them.

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ChillaKilla
1 hour ago, Emery. said:

Is it not necrothreading?

Nah, necro would be like, 6 months to a year

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