I’m a lifelong writer and am now in the process of changing my own name. Both of these mean I’ve developed systems/preferences when it comes to choosing a name, but re-naming myself especially has led to some weird questions. I’m just curious what silly/obscure questions you ask yourself when choosing a name?
My common questions that I’ve heard prospective parents ask themselves include:
- How would it feel to be introduced in a professional meeting with this name?
- Will this grow with me as my personality changes? (I’m currently around college age so I’m in for a lot more growing)
But the uniqueness of my situation means I’m asking a lot of niche questions like:
- Is it too similar to my current name or names my parents almost gave me when I was born?
- What would it be like to receive an award with this name? I never thought to ask this until I was graduating high school and seeing my current legal name on the diploma really messed me up.
- How would it feel to have friends who never knew me before my name change know me and call me by this name?
- Would I want this name on my wedding invitations? To me, weddings are two people celebrating knowing and loving each other on a deep level and cementing that love. I want to feel like my name on my wedding invitations reflects who I truly am.
- Finally, is this me or a character? As a writer, I find myself loving a lot of different characters that appear in my work and radiate potential. This means I often have to step back and ask myself if this is a name I like for me, or if it’s just a character I think would be fun to play.
I’d love to know what questions come to mind when you’re looking at names!
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Cool, thanks! This is my first post so I wasn’t sure where to put it. I definitely understand the “when you know, you know” thing.
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This is so interesting, thanks for sharing!
I think if I ever changed my own name, I’d want my new name to fulfil a lot of the same qualities — simple, familiar, easy to spell and pronounce, international… but maybe just a bit more exciting! I think a name that ticked a lot of the same boxes would feel more authentically “me” than a completely different name. But I can totally understand people who don’t like their name or don’t feel it suits them wanting to make a complete change!
I’ve stuck to similar qualities when naming my own children, but gone a little more unusual like I would prefer for myself. I do love a lot of more “out there” names but I always imagine introducing my child to people — family, friends, people in the street. Is the name easy to understand? Could it be misheard as something else? Would I feel awkward or natural saying it?
And then for the future: would it work on a CV without drawing extra attention? Would it lead to any preconceived ideas about the person? Could it be embarrassing on a particular personality type or appearance? For example, I love the name [name_u]Hero[/name_u] for a girl soooo much but I fear it fails several of these tests so I don’t think I’d ever actually use it 
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I have two kinds of names I like: ones I would actually use and ones that I wouldn’t!
For me - it’s important that a first name isn’t religious, unless it’s an honour name. Other considerations are whether it was cause embarrassment, if it is relatively simple to spell and, actually fairly important, how would my mum react!
I also want a name to be familiar and have a history of use as a first name, it’s just something I prefer. Therefore there are names I objectively like but wouldn’t use because they’re too recent or not first namey enough for me.
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If I were to change my name… which I wouldn’t because Im too used to it! … I would have to think hard about whether I could respond to it. How long would it take for it to feel like my name? I think I would have to choose a name similar in sound. Maybe same syllables, same ending sound. I know this doesn’t apply if you don’t feel a strong connection to your name.
Random thought… [name_m]Ive[/name_m] found that most people’s personalities don’t change much after high school. They just gain more perspective and confidence.
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These are my own personal considerations for names
- reasonably gender neutral
- fairly easy to pronounce and pronunciation makes sense from spelling
- good meaning or honorific
- able to grow with a person
- similar feel with sibling names
I also like to consider all of the ways that a name can be used
Generic Example full name: John Henry William Smith
Names can be used as
Full Name: John Henry William Smith
First, Middle initial, last: John H. Smith
All Initials: JHWS
Only 3 Initials: JHS
First, Last Initials: JS
First and Middle: John Henry
First and Both Middles: John Henry William
Last, First: John Smith
Nicknames: Johnny, Jackie
Misspellings: Jon
Email and usernames: eg johnhsmith72 @ gmail
First name initial, middle name initials, last name: J.H.W. Smith
title, last name: Professor Smith
J. Smith
Monogram JSH
And then not just how names are used on paper but in different situations how does the name feel? Social vs proffesional vs familial
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I chose my own name, so I’ll answer these questions in that context.
Firstly, I definitely didn’t have an “aha” moment, nor did I look at the name and think “that’s my name” like mentioned above. Very few people experience that.
I cycled through a few names - Roman, Lorenzo, and Roe - before settling on my name, Revere.
I kept the same first initial, although my middle initial changed.
I looked through a lot of names and I wrote down a lot of ideas before settling on Revere. It was a gradual, “maybe this could be it?” to “this feels pretty good” and finally, “this is the name.” It took over a month of use to be 100% sure on my name.
I usually thought about it in the context of work and school. The idea of a therapy client calling me Revere and a teacher saying “Revere?” when I raise my hand makes me happy.
It’s hard to pick a name and it’s hard to ask the right questions (especially if you know that you won’t like the answer)
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