Even though it’s constantly mispronounced, every time I see or hear my name it makes me happy. It’s my own name, one I’ve chosen and claimed.
It’s not the name I was born with. The first name is similar and I kept my birth surname as a second middle name (in a futile attempt to appease my parents). My birth name felt girly to me and wasn’t something I identified with. And my birth surname was something I was teased with as a kid (that and a dozen other things.)
There’s been disadvantages to changing it. It was expensive – about $700 for the various court and paperwork fees, plus missing two days of work (but that job sucked anyway). And my old last name was at the end of the alphabet (which was one reason I changed it – I was tired of being at the end of the list). But being at the end meant it was easier to find on a list. And the last time I got called to jury duty, my new name meant I got called into a court room faster (lawyers: never ever pick me for jury duty. It’s a terrible idea.)
It took about a year to get all my bills changed. There are a few things I’ve never bothered to change. I have to put down my old name for background checks when I get hired.
I changed my name because I didn’t like my old one. It didn’t fit me. But I didn’t have any real trauma associated with it, so it’s not painful to deal with references to my old name (except people refusing to use it or giving me shit about it…)
I love my name. It’s my own name. And it makes me happy.
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I haven’t met many other people who’ve changed their whole name! :D
In my case, picking a name that felt right meant trading a more unusual name for a very usual name. My chosen name is so common, in fact, that there’s another person with the same name living in the same city. *shrug* Eh, well, it’s still my name. (Though, as I work with the public, I’m not as willing to share my real name on the internet as you.)
I started life with a name very clearly of the wrong gender (oddly enough, like you, I’m genderqueer, or something along those lines), and a hyphenated last name that wouldn’t fit on any forms. At sixteen, I had it legally changed to the name I use now: ridiculously common gender-neutral first name, last name that I like (and that lets me go by Mac, when there’s too many people with my first name somewhere. Though I’ve also gone by my whole last name under those circumstances, too.)
It may be a bit of a bother to change one’s name (probably more so as an adult than it was for me – not much to change when you’re sixteen), but it’s so nice to answer to a name that feels right and not have to answer to a name that feels wrong.
Well, it’s not like people couldn’t find it anyway. (I’m pretty sure the domain is registered under it to start with…)
Glad there’s someone else out there who feels the same. =^.^=
That does make a bit of difference. (And I have used my real name a few places online…)
It is nice to have company. ^_^
We’ve wanted to change our name for years, buuuuut seeing as it took nine months for the government to process our address change, legally changing our name would probably mire us in red tape to a point we’d never come out again. *shudder* Maybe one day, someday…