What's in a name , Name Stories and the like
Well what is in a name ? for many people they go through life never considering that the name, especially their given/first/fore name they were given by their parents is anything other than permanent and unchanging.
So who isn't it permanent and unchanging for ?
Performers; whether for marketability reasons (here's looking at you Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle )
or because of the rules about performers names 'enforced' by Equity , Spotlight and similar organisations around the world.
Immigrants; especially if your name is deemed as complex or hard to pronounce by the place you are moving too, this can be further complicated by the conventions of structuring names and a certain colonialism in the way some places record and even allocate names.
and of course those of use who are trans and find the name we were given to be wrong or because gatekeepers require a change to 'demonstrate commitment'.)
What is a 'Name Story'?
A name story is how you got the name you use... so for many people it's a simple one liner "it's the name my parents gave me"...
However of the three groups above the story can be much more interesting. Sadly my name story is fairly boring - If I had been assigned female at birth I would have been named Nicola Jane.
So why is Nicola Jayne called Nicola Jayne?
One of the 'missed signs' of my transness was that at a fairly early age I asked what my name would be if i was a girl. When i first realised I was trans I started to use Nicola as my name, and it fit well and felt comfortable, so when the moment came to make the step of doing my deed poll and changing my name in various legal senses, Nicola Jayne it was ... the Y in Jayne being a nod to the variant spelling of my dead name.
here's an interesting site from the ONS about the popularity of names.
So who isn't it permanent and unchanging for ?
Performers; whether for marketability reasons (here's looking at you Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle )
or because of the rules about performers names 'enforced' by Equity , Spotlight and similar organisations around the world.
Immigrants; especially if your name is deemed as complex or hard to pronounce by the place you are moving too, this can be further complicated by the conventions of structuring names and a certain colonialism in the way some places record and even allocate names.
and of course those of use who are trans and find the name we were given to be wrong or because gatekeepers require a change to 'demonstrate commitment'.)
What is a 'Name Story'?
A name story is how you got the name you use... so for many people it's a simple one liner "it's the name my parents gave me"...
However of the three groups above the story can be much more interesting. Sadly my name story is fairly boring - If I had been assigned female at birth I would have been named Nicola Jane.
So why is Nicola Jayne called Nicola Jayne?
One of the 'missed signs' of my transness was that at a fairly early age I asked what my name would be if i was a girl. When i first realised I was trans I started to use Nicola as my name, and it fit well and felt comfortable, so when the moment came to make the step of doing my deed poll and changing my name in various legal senses, Nicola Jayne it was ... the Y in Jayne being a nod to the variant spelling of my dead name.
here's an interesting site from the ONS about the popularity of names.
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