hey!! it’s been a while since i’ve been on here, but i need some advice. i hope to start producing music within the next year or so, but i’m stuck on what my stage name should be, or if i should even have one.
my birth name is lydia elizabeth degois, but i don’t want to go with just lydia degois as people pronounce my last name incorrectly literally all the time (its duh-goy-iss, but i’ve heard duh-gwah, duh-goo, and duh-goy). i don’t like my middle name at all since it’s such a standard white girl middle name (right up there with marie and lynn, lmao), so i don’t think i would consider using it in my stage name. i have only recently realized that my first name, lydia, is fairly rare and actually kind of pretty. i used to hate the way it sounded while i was growing up, but someone told me that it sounded like it was the title of a romantic film from the 50’s and i’ve been warming up to it ever since. i’ve also only ever met one other person with the same name.
for the longest time, i wanted my stage name to be aries dasilva. my sign is aries and my mother’s maiden name is dasilva (i always liked it more than my actual surname), and i think it has a nice ring to it when you put the two together. but then i went into high school and found out that there was a girl named aries in my grade (go figure), and since i hope to start my music career while in high school, aries is off the table as an option. i considered the alternate spelling, ares, but figured that people would mispronounce it and that it was basically still aries and i wouldn’t be fooling anyone. however, i then came up with the name aredite: ares + aphrodite. for those of you who don’t know, ares and aphrodite are the greek god of war and goddess of love, respectively, and i thought aredite (pronounced air-uh-dyte-eeh) was a nice way to combine them. love and war, a well-known favorite and zeus’ least favorite child, the married aphrodite and her lover ares. i thought it was genius and i was dead-set on it being my stage name… until i realized that it would commonly just be pronounced the way it’s spelled, which defeats the purpose since the pronunciation is what makes it a little obvious that it’s a nod at greek mythology. i still really like aredite, though, but i’m not sure if i want to hear people butcher the pronunciation all the time.
so now i’ve narrowed it down to four options: lydia (just my birth name, which is uncommon but still a little plain), dasilva, aredite, and lydus (a derivative of my first name, also derived from persian ‘lud’ which means strife). i’m not really sure which one is best though.
my music style will be quite chill and relaxed, sort of lofi, most likely with a lot of guitar/ukulele. i’m 5’1 and portuguese, and as of right now i am 15 years old. i’ve been writing lyrics since i was 10, but i’ve been into creative writing since i was about 7 or 8. close friends describe me as really chill, while acquaintances describe me as loud or weird. i’m pansexual and i like to play around with makeup and i love colours. my favorite animals are cats and i live in a tiny town in southern ontario. i’m introverted and i love literature and the arts.
here is my instagram so you can take a peek at what i look like and which name you think would suit me best: https://www.instagram.com/aredite/
also please reply to this with any extra name suggestions if you have them! you can take a look at my signature to see what kind of names i like, but i don’t want something too offbeat for this.
thank you so much!
So, lots to unpack here, and I’ll try to do my best!
First of all, I really like [name_f]Lydia[/name_f] DaSilva (guessing capitalization is like in your signature? If not, sorry!). I think it’s very fluid and sing-songy (no pun intended), and reminds me of celebrities like [name_f]Camila[/name_f] Cabello, Dua Lipa, and [name_u]Billie[/name_u] [name_f]Eilish[/name_f] in terms of how the names flow and the shared sounds.
Next, I also really like Aredite. I’ll be honest, until I read the backstory behind the name, I said it [name_f]AIR[/name_f]-eh-dyte. It’s not too far off from what you want, I just dropped the last syllable. I think Aredite sounds flowy and whimsical, and almost sounds like a the name of a fairytale kingdom? Reminds me slightly of Arendelle from Frozen (but not in a bad way. Apparently something reminding someone of Frozen has become a negative thing now, but I still love the movie, so it’s a good thing!). I think mispronunciation is inevitable, but shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. I remember half of my grade saying [name_m]Lewis[/name_m] [name_m]Tomlinson[/name_m] when One Direction first became a thing, and I had a friend who refused to say his name correctly throughout their entire career (something about her being Australian so she’s saying it the Australian way?). The point is, most people don’t want to say it incorrectly out of fear of looking dumb, so once you clarify the pronunciation, 99% of people will catch on. When [name_f]Camila[/name_f] Cabello became her own thing, everyone said her surname ca-[name_u]BELL[/name_u]-oh, but somewhere along the line, she corrected the public, and now I only hear ca-[name_u]BAY[/name_u]-oh.
I don’t like Lydos that much. It sounds made up and not in a good way, although I can’t put my finger on why. I also think it sounds masculine. [name_m]Just[/name_m] [name_f]Lydia[/name_f] or just DaSilva are okay. I don’t know if [name_f]Lydia[/name_f] would be memorable enough just by itself. While I don’t know many girls named [name_f]Lydia[/name_f], it’s not an unknown name so it doesn’t have the same lasting impact that Beyoncé or [name_f]Cher[/name_f] does. DaSilva strikes me as odd for a full name.
I think you should stick with Aredite. It’s a very unique sound, and not that difficult to figure out in terms of pronunciation.
I agree with sparkleninja18 about [name_f]Lydia[/name_f] DaSilva. I think it sounds nice and something like a music artist. That would be my choice if it was me.
If you really want to stick with Aredite, maybe you could change the spelling slightly to make the pronunciation more obvious? Eg: Areditee, Areditie, Arediti? Looking at those typed out, they look weird, and the connection to mythology is kinda lost, but maybe you could find a spelling that you like.
[name_f]Hope[/name_f] that helps.