I thought of the name Emily randomly one day in high school. It felt important, although I didn’t know why, so I filed it away in my brain somewhere. Three years later I suddenly figured out why 😅. As a fun fact, it turns out that Emily was the name my parents would have given me had I been a girl, so I’m gonna call it fate.

I was tripping on lsd a bit after realizing I was trans and looked through baby names, Luna is what I vibed with

It’s a very nerdy one.

In Final Fantasy XIV, there’s a race of little dudes named Lalafell. Their naming scheme makes for repeated and rhyming couples between the first and last name.

I made a Lalafell boy years ago named Cocozan Cozan.

After playing for a bit, my wife’s character and mine got married. I decided to change my character’s last name to hers, so the Cozan was gone. We always joked about the height difference, though, since I was a little guy and she was a taller race. So I joked about making the tallest character I could, which I believed at the time to be a female Roegadyn.

We quit playing for a while and then returned to the game a few years later.

When we came back, I decided it was time for a change and used an item that lets you change your appearance permanently. I ended up finding an old saved appearance from when I was joking about Fem Roegadyn, and just went with it.

The name Cocozan was no longer appropriate, given the lore, but I found out I could drop the Zan and it would fit fine.

So I became Coco.

It was absolutely amazing being called Coco and she/her by folks online. It wasn’t the only thing that did it, but the whole thing absolutely helped crack my very thick egg.

I ended up stealing my character’s name IRL, and now I have a very nerdy origin story.

It’s weird because I have no idea. Someone asked me years ago what I would name myself if I were a girl (this was way pre-crack) and I just instantly knew. The name stuck around in my head until my egg cracked.

I haven’t chosen a name yet.

I did receive a name from a dream which I excitedly wrote down in the middle of the night, because obviously getting my true name from my subconscious is a big deal.

When I woke back up and checked it in a more lucid state, I was disappointed to see it was very clearly made up by dream logic as it was essentially only a parody of a real name.

My birthname was a combination of my mum and my dads name. It was unique, but still read masculine. So I tried to combine my parents names in a way that read feminine, but couldn’t find a way of doing it.

So, I had a backup name, Danica. But it didn’t fit me when I tried it on

So, I tried a second backup name, Cadance. It didn’t fit either.

So I gave up, and turned to a list of names online that I found. I didn’t get very far though. I stumbled across Ada in that list, and I knew that was me.

I like the way it sounds, and i like the pun. Can’t bully me if I’ve already made a joke about it. As a bonus, I can sign my initials and have it be both deadname and realname depending on the angle

I’m amanda :)

I always liked the name Max for a long time. I never knew why really it just kinda stuck out to me. I guess it was the fact it was so gender neutral made it stick out. It didn’t really help out that one of my favorite albums, Aris Infinity by KLRX, has a feminine character called Max (played by Alissa Feudo) with one of the most amazing vocal sections. Some of my programming projects were also just called Max until i found a suitable name. After discovering I’m trans many of my close friends asked if I had a preferred name. I never really though about it so I just defaulted to Max although it never really felt right. The name itself really felt like more of a base for something else. After some google searching it turns out that yeah there are many different variants and one that just stuck out immediately was Maxine.

TLDR; I really loved the name Max. Added the -ine to make it special :P

I’m not completely sure why but I wanted to experience my name as something to internalize rather than giving myself full freedom to choose. Probably a combination of knowing I’d be paralyzed with choice and also just feeling that it’s more in line with the cis-normative experience to have a name imposed on you and learn to live in it.

“Pick the name they were planning to give you if…” didn’t work for me since they gave that one to my younger sister. Female versions of my birth name were just way too close to an identity I don’t want, so that was out too. I wasn’t out to my parents at the time I picked a name, so I also didn’t want to just ask them. In the end, I looked through baby name lists for my birth year and picked something at about the same rank in popularity that seemed like one they might have picked.

Oddly enough, that landed me on a stereotypically trans name but I feel I can justifiably claim it’s just coincidence :)

For the middle name, I chose the middle name of my grandmother who I loved and respect deeply - I might have taken her first name as my middle name but it doesn’t flow well with my first, and I had already given it to my daughter anyway.

My first name is a rarer name. I first heard it in middle school, where one girl had it. She was kinda a deviant and was at the school for less than a year, but I thought her name was really pretty. It was also spray painted under a bridge, and I would pass by it a lot, and that probably worked it further into my subconscious.

A few years later after cracking my egg, I was looking at lists of names and I came across that name and it really called to me, although I didn’t realize why until I passed the name under the bridge again.

I had also looked at the name Raina, which I still really like, but I felt it wasn’t for me, but I did make Raine my middle name, which is partially because I think Lena Raine’s name is really pretty too.

Much like the entire rest of my transition, I took the most cautious (read: cowardly) approach. I picked something androgynous that could feasibly be a nickname for my deadname, and got everyone used to that before ever even coming out. On the plus side, it’s extremely rare for me to get deadnamed now. On the negative side, it’s not the name I would have chosen if fear hadn’t been a factor.

I started with the most intensely femme name I could think of, but after a couple of weeks it started to feel a bit off and too youthful to reflect how I feel. I realized that I couldn’t picture me using it in most contexts, it was just giving me euphoria because it was a feminine name, so I went back to the drawing board to find something that is more “me”.

I then proceeded to draw a blank. So I started repeatedly refreshing a random name generator with my wife. Eventually I heard something that sounded almost right to my ears. I changed a letter, amd it felt good! Then I realized I’d only ever seen the name on a pokemon game.

That sealed the deal for me, a name that sounds close enough to a common name to not stand out, but isn’t common, and is a callback to geek heritage. That’s a fit for me, and it passed my vibe check, so I kept it.

Now I just need to get my inner monologue to start using it. Its been months and my brain keeps deadnaming me =(

And I still want to figure out a middle name. I am sure as shit not keeping mine, but I want to choose something with more personal meaning, instead of just nice vibes. Unfortunately, I am still drawing a blank there, but it’ll come to me eventually. I feel it =)

It’s interesting.

When I took the name I use as my handle here, I was doing emotional work before COVID and said, I’m tree frog because frogs love water and I bring the rain. (I did a lot of mourning that weekend).

Over COVID, the shell started to crack for me and I became aware of a distinct and persistent female personality hiding behind my dead name. She had already chosen a name. The more I explore being trans the more I realize, she was me all along. And the boy a mask.

My name is Rayne. It means queen. My dead name means sovereign. My handle is also a metaphor for my dharma name, skillful transformation of the heart. Frogs being shapeshifters.

I guess I use intuition to choose my names. And by coincidence, they ended up with the same meaning as both my given names.

Some people believe in numerology. I believe in name magic :)

And I’m still exploring what all of this means. Bought my first dress today. Scary and liberating.

My partner suggested it

Not sure what my name would have been if I were born differently, but my chosen name is a feminization of my given name. My preffered name is a shortening of my chosen name.