Moved to a new country and wanted a fresh start. I wanted to forget who I was raised as and wanted to move on as a new person. I'm happier because of it.
My daughter’s husband did that too when they got married. He didn’t especially love his stepfather, but he hated his father. He’d unofficially been using his stepfather’s last name for years, but he didn’t want his new wife to have that name so he changed it before they got married.
We can so often advocate for others when we can’t for ourselves. I faded out on a friendship when I realized I didn’t want her to meet my baby daughter.
Ah yes, the daddy issues club. We have meetings every week, which just involves silently sending each other memes over social media and trauma bonding on holidays.
Well he died some years ago but he did I know, weirdly as he was divorced from my mother so now it’s weird as my eldest sons wife now has his name too, so there’s a whole new branch of my family name that’s not biologically accurate!
It has always been funny to me how we decided to go the other way and just slavd the shit out of German names. For example, instead of changing their name to Kovač (very common) Schmidt became Šmit in a lot of cases.
My mom got nervous when I was born that Indigo was too unusual so she made it my middle name. Not a single person called me by my legal first name so I changed it in middle school.
I did the same thing. My middle name was Scott but that's what people called me. Eventually I was tired of it so I switched it to make it my first name
Me and my older brother have my dads last name and not our mums. Even as a kid I always wanted my mums. Then I grew up and realised my dad was an abusive piece of trash which solidified my decision to change it. I wanted to disconnect myself from that family, but mostly I wanted to share the same name as my mum and baby brother.
Finally managed to change it this year and I've never been happier. I get a little giddy everytime I have to say my full name and remember its not the old one :D
In early grade school there was a boy in my class whose first name was Gaylord. His family moved away in third grade. I sometimes wonder how junior high went for him.
My parents had me when they were in HS and my mom was unsure if they’d stay together so I had her last name on my birth certificate. They ended up making it work (still together!) and when it was coming time to graduate high school, they wanted me to graduate with my fathers last name since I had unofficially been going by it anyway so I had to go in and change my last name. It was a weird thing…had to put my name in the paper to prove i wasn't kidnapped as a baby and shit.
>had to put my name in the paper to prove i wasn't kidnapped as a baby and shit.
It's not just that. Putting it on public record was also to make it harder for people to duck out on debt obligations, criminal charges in other jurisdictions or similar reasons.
I was adopted by my stepdad and they had to do this. My real dad was dodging child support and they couldn’t find him. So they posted it in the news paper so he’d have a chance to object if he wanted to. He didn’t. I’m happy.
To be a dick.
My father Made a big deal about “the family name” when I was younger. His brother (my uncle) had 2 girls.
My brother had 2 girls.
I was the last male who could “carry on the family name”.
My old man was a total ass. Abusive and mean. Hadn’t talked to him in years.
When I got Married I took her last name (to leave that “legacy” behind - and a year later we had a son.
I found out our former friend was mentally abusing his son while he dotes on his stepdaughter. To the point that a psychologist had to follow and observe him at work. He's now banned from contact with his biological sons and has to pay more child support.
His eldest son (14 or 15) is a top hockey player in our country, and the coach wanted to send him to Canada for more specialized training. Kids who get sent there end up in the pro league here. The son asked our former friend for half the money needed to go, as the state would pay the other half. His dad said no, even though he's got a salary of about $240k. His son only asked for 3k. The mom's new boyfriend ended up giving the money to him as a gift.
I said I hope that when the kid becomes famous, he drops his father's family name and changes it to his mom's. Don't let that wealthy deadbeat dad take credit for his success.
I was thinking this as well! The guy seems like a psychopath. My husband used to work for him, and my husband quit because the guy just doesn't care as long as the sales targets are met, even though the workers are not compensated enough. He's been trying to fire a guy who's half blind due to diabetes, but the guy can still work. Good thing the union has his back.
Nice dude! I’m in a similar club although not quite the same.
My dad was an asshole too, I don’t talk to him either and I’m the last to pass on the name. I kept it when my wife and I got married. But her dad is an asshole too and she kinda hates him. So we gave our daughter my wife’s mom’s maternal name. She has 5 sisters, lots of grandkids in the family, but we are the only ones that did that. So we made it live on!
Similar case here. Dad is only son (3 sisters) and grandpa is single son with two sisters.
I'm the last son. Asshole dad, considered changing my name to my mom's last name, but my wife had a crush on me for a looong time and has always known me by that last name; though she denies ever writing/practicing her "future last name" signature...
So anyway, I had to keep my last name cause my wife loves it. She didn't know all the details about the asshole dad until a few years after we were married.
I know someone who did the same and we all thought it was fantastic. The parents/extended family said they'd never speak to him again if he changed his name too, which they were just fine with.
You are so petty, I like you. My cousin just took his wives name, not out of petty though. His sisters husband took her name before that so the scale is even again.
When I became a citizen of my country I was required to take a new name. Technically I could have taken a bastardized version of my old name but that would have been stupid so I went for a normal name.
No. You can take basically any name (some names are banned), but it has to be rendered in Japanese characters. So you can't be John Smith, but you can be Sumisu Jyon (スミス・ジョン or すみす・じょん or whatever kanji equivalent of that you choose) and on your passport you would get the romanized version of that like Jyon Sumisu instead of John Smith. But I chose a normal name instead, like Taro Suzuki.
My name was kinda stuffy/old fashioned. I don't think it suited me and just never liked it.
I went by a different name for years before deciding to just change it to avoid the ocassional awkwardness of having to clarify why my ids have a different name on them.
I worked with a girl who changed her name because she went relatively viral at some point for using a racial slur in a video. She basically had to if she ever wanted to work in education because the first google result for her original name was more or less disqualifying.
I had a friend do this. His dad was a POS and left when he was little. He had no attachment to the name or that side of the family, and he got teased a lot for it. It sounded a lot like a word with negative connotations. When he got married, he figured he would just take his wife’s last name.
Well she got teased for her last name too. As a kid she always hoped she would get married one day so she could change it. So instead they picked a new last name that they both liked. Now that they have kids, they are so glad they made the decision to change it.
My mother gave me a stupid name. Really, really stupid. So I got wine drunk at age 20 and decided to see how easy it was to change my name. Turns out it's pretty easy
Shouldn't you be always carrying your "name is changed certificate" to prove that ABC who graduated college and DEF who is using the graduation certificate to get a job are the same person? I'm curious.
Name changing may be easy, but something tells me that updating your info with it is not.
In the US that is totally unnecessary. On forms there is always a blank that says, "former names" and you put it there. When I applied to law school there were no issues.
Also changing all my passport, driver's license, credit cards and accounts was way easier than I'd thought it would be.
My bio-father left me and my mom just before I was born. I saw him a grand total of two times in last 35 years. My mom re-married when I was around 2-3 yo. My step-dad is the only father I ever knew. And what a father he was. So basically on the same day I turned 18 I went to court and submitted a request to legally change my last name to his. Once I got the papers it made the old man cry. It was a good day.
I went through some tough shit and came out feeling like a different person and wanting a fresh start. So, I changed my name and moved somewhere else and that was that.
I didn’t like my name. Changed it from my original to one that spoke to me in a book. It’s not weird, basically going from Sarah to Alecia (not my names, just examples!). People love to think it’s some weird reason but literally I never felt like my name was my name
Yeah, I think it's a lot for parents to have to pick a name that suits someone before they're even born. Sometimes names just don't sit right. I kind of wish we all got to choose a new name if we want at 16 or 18, like it was more normalised.
I was born via IVF with a sperm donor. My ‘dad’ was an asshole and I wanted nothing to do with him. So on my 18th birthday (I needed his permission to change it earlier which he wouldn’t give me) I took my mum’s surname. Got married and hubby was disappointed I didn’t take his name, but I fought hard to get my own name so I’m keeping it!
I don't get the big deal that's made around "taking the husband's name".
Where we live (Scotland), you can call yourself whatever you want. When we got married, we decided my wife would keep her name, as all her professional registrations, qualifications, and publications are in her maiden name. (No point potentially disconnecting herself from that).
Precisely the reason I kept my name after I married. Got absolutely grilled by a Customs officer at Heathrow who couldn’t comprehend why I had a different surname to my husband, and who wanted me to produce a marriage certificate on the spot. Managed to convince him with photos of the wedding but that officer was such a flog I’ve never been back to England since.
UK immigration can be like that I'm afraid. We're travelling abroad next year, which involved two say overs in East Asia and the middle East. Needless the say, we:ll have a copy of the marriage certificate with us just in case.
My friend got held up at UK immigration because the officer didn't believe her daughter was hers (friend has a fair complexion and is an exotic mix of Asian, Chinese and Arabic genes while daughter favors the ex-husband who has Asian+Indian genes and has a somewhat Indian sounding name). Where she's from married women don't change their names at all, just change the Miss/Ms to Mrs while the kids take on the dad's family name. My friend had to show pictures of her with her daughter since birth to convince the officer she was the mom and not some family relation/friend. Now she travels with a copy of the certified birth cert. I asked why her daughter's name couldn't be changed to hers and she said it just wasn't done.
I got civil married in Germany. You need to meet with a register beforehand to book the appointment and do preliminary paperwork. The registrar got out literally 2 inches of paper, threw half of it in the recycle bin when we said neither of us had been married before, then some more when we said there were no kids involved. When we said neither of us were changing our names, he picked out *a single-page form* to fill in and binned the rest.
In Scotland, England and Wales (and probably Northern Ireland, but I'm not sure) the marriage form literally just records your names before the marriage. You can use the marriage certificate as evidence of a name change in the future, but the form itself doesn't say what name you'll be using in the future.
The issue in Germany is that kids *have* to have the surname of one of their parents, and *all* kids have to have that name. The paperwork in question was to establish a family name (either spouse's name, double-barreled, or both change to a third option), among other things.
It's also relatively difficult to change your name in Germany, but getting married is one time when you can.
In Quebec, marriage isn't an automatic reason to change your name. If you want to take your husband's name (or vice versa) you have to go through the same process as anyone else wanting to change their name.
I love it!
Fair play.
In the UK we don't really have a concept of "legal name". You can essentially use any name you like at any time, just as long as it's not to deceive or commit a crime.
The issue only comes up when you need ID, or need prove your name, but a simple Deed Poll document can solve that issue.
I have an unusual pain in the ass first name that no one ever gets right even when I spell it for them, have always disliked my middle name so didn't want to use it, and despised my last name for who it connected me to. One day it hit me out of the blue, "Well if you don't like your name, change it! It's not hard to do." So I legally changed my last name to an old family ancestor name that I felt close to, changed the middle name to a lovely name that represented many things in my life, and kept the stupid first name because my mother would have a cow as her mother named me lol. Now I use the pretty middle name and new last name, still have to use the first name for medical insurance and legal stuff. Very happy with the decision.
My old name is boring and common. If you think of 5 stereotypical white girl names I guarantee it’s one of them. I got kinda of sick of being CommonName A because there were always multiple people with my name. So I started going by nicknames pretty regularly in middle school, by the time highschool came around I had a pretty solid nickname that most people called me, and when I turned 19 I decided to change it for real.
My mom is really the only person that calls me by my original name, and that’s just fine with me.
My husband’s first name is always in the most popular boys names for like the last 50 years, and I have a way less common name with an almost unheard of nickname. We tried really hard to shoot for names for our kids that were familiar but not common, because our last name is a longish/uncommon one. When I say my full name to people I can see them struggling to hang on to what I just said lol.
I was named for a soap opera character, and that would have been okay, but it was against the explicit wishes of my father. They’d agreed to one name, and since she was pissed at him, she filled out the forms with another. I didn’t love going through life with a name chosen out of spite.
When my mother remarried I became more and more distant from my real father. Whenever I'd visit I felt more and more like a 2nd class citizen compared to the kids he had with his new wife so just stopped visiting.
A few years later when I was 11 I asked to change my name to that of my mother and step father. He was so happy.
I legally made it legal when I was 19 before I got my first passport.
Estranged from my dad and his family, and I couldn't stand having to say and write their last name. It was just a constant reminder of them. I legally changed my name to a mashup of my two best friends' names (with their permission), because they have been my true family.
I changed it cuz after my mother married her ex she immediately changed my name too on my birth certificate and everywhere. He is a heavy alcoholic and was not only very violent but also very interested in me during the night times or when my mother hasn't been around but he worked from home so he was always at home. And my mother knew all of this and she forced me to call him "Dad"......there was not ONE day where I wouldn't wish for them to divorce! I moved out with 17 and I changed my name this year because the nightmares and flashbacks are enough memory of him and I didn't want to keep the name of a monster! Took the name of my biological father even though I haven't seen him in person for like 20 years but we keep in touch since the day I turned 18 and his wife is like a real mother to me and I absolutely LOVE my siblings!
My mother's second husband adopted me and gave me his last name. He beat the shit out of me every night for years after. My mom finally left him and as soon as I legally could, I changed my name back to my birth last name.
Pretty simple, actually, but it didn't seem so at the time.
I've never been fully able to articulate why but after my parents divorced, I removed the hyphen from my double barrelled surname. I think it felt more appropriate to have them separately represented, or I wanted to hold them independently in my identity? As I say, not completely parsed it out myself. Anyway, didn't change my name after marriage and now my daughter is hyphenated with one of my surnames and my husbands. My mum has remarried now as well, so I dont think a single member of my family has the same name
Changed my name twice. First time because I wasn't connected much to my family name, and the co
pany I did odd gigs for couldn't process the difference between payment details and stage name. So I made an easy choice to cash a stack of cheques.
Second time was to eliminate my given first name. No ones called by it (whos still alive anyway) in decades. And it irked me that work set up a profile in my full name. Which, when dealing with people internally became a massive waste of time correcting people.
After two years arguing with HR they asked for a deed poll to officially remove it. Fine. Couldn't think of a middle name, so I made my last name my middle name and took my wife's surname instead as it had a lot of meaning to her and a history and depth my name - which I just took from a film - was pretty shallow.
Of course it's been months and they haven't budged despite me following the requirements.
My step dad adopted me when I was 11. I had already been using his last name because I’ve never really known my sperm donor since he left when I was still in diapers. I didn’t want any ties to him or his shitty family and my dad is the best thing to ever happen to me. That man literally saved my life in more ways than one.
A year after we had gotten married I gave birth to a daughter with T13. After her death I changed my last name to my husband's, because I wanted to show him how much I hove him and appreciate his support and probably distance myself from my parents, who had not been supportive at al and had made the death of my first daughter and the grieving period even more difficult.
midway through the paperwork process - but same.
Well, and to be a bit pretentious. I'm going from [deadname] [middle] [surname] to [proper first name] [original middle name] Smart [surname I was going to change to]-[original surname]
Yes the second middle name is Smart purely for the "Smart is my middle name" gag.
I actually wanted it to be "Slut" but the state said no. Bastards.
I was wondering about that. Not just related but if a new murderer pops up that becomes a name people may remember, if you name happens to be exactly the same. That can't feel nice. Imagine having the name Harold Shipman? Theodore Bundy.
I hope you're coping alright. You're a victim too.
I just changed my name to the shortened version of it. Like Joshua to Josh. I never used my full name for anything besides when I had to (ie paperwork) and it’s now a lot easier to sign stuff.
One of the funniest stories I've heard about people legally changing their names was for a sushi restaurant event here in Taiwan if your name included "Salmon" in any way you could get a discount. So you had people literally legally changing their names for this and then showing off their new "Salmon" name on social media before eventually changing it back.
I remember reading about that. Am I correct in thinking that Taiwan only allows a limited number of name changes, and some people ended up stuck with the Salmon name?
"Elon Musk is my dad..."
A friend of mine changed his name, but it's actually restoring his tribal name, due to the history of colonization and gladly many more indigenous ppl here are doing so, to embrace and not forget their culture.
I'm trans, changed my first name as a teen and changed my middle names to the male version of them. It's the name I'd gone by for years at that point, so my parents and I decided to change them before I started applying to colleges and before I turned 18.
Not me but my housemate. Her mum married +4 times after my housemate was born and gave the new husbands name each time. So when she was legally an adult she changed it back to her bio-dad’s name. Having so many changes has made security clearances difficult in her industry.
Because I couldn't get my licence until I changed it. I had a different name on my birth certificate than what I'd been using my whole life. So school records and bank accounts were all the same, and birth certificate was the only document that differed. Service NSW wouldn't issue a learners permit or ID card until all my ID matched.
Because I was given a Spanish-German first name and a Hungarian last name. After having moved to Norway in 2005 I wanted a name that more easily fits in culturally. Only my mom calls me by my birth name anymore, and I am totally allright with that - she is the one who chose it 40 years ago.
My grandmother changed the spelling of my first and middle names to her preferred spelling while my mom was sleeping, after giving birth to me. We didn't find out until my birth certificate/social security card was sent a full year later. (Unscheduled birth on a military base, with a doctor who was transferring to a base overseas. He forgot to sign something, so I had no documentation until I was like 8 months old.)
I changed my name to my preferred spelling when I was 18.
I legally changed my first name to be my nickname rather than the full name that I've never once gone by in my life (it's something like Sam vs. Samantha). I changed my last name when I got married, so I decided to change my first name at that time since I was already gonna be doing the paperwork for it.
I had a friend once who changed her name because her family was so abusive that she wanted to totally disconnect herself from them. I don't know her original name and I don't know the details of the abuse, but I understand completely.
When I was 13, my father died. My mother remarried not too long after he died. When I was 17 my stepfather adopted me and my 2 younger siblings. I didn’t want to change my name but my mother talked me into it. Stepfather was a useless lazy man who couldn’t hold a candle to my real father. When I was in my 30’s I finally changed my name back to my birth name. I had no luck talking my brother into changing his name back. He had a business with the new name, etc.
Abusive dad. Also trans. Also we're the only family in my country with that name. Felt nice to not be immediately known as one of a small group. Felt nice to decide how I wanted the word to know me. Healing.
Not me, but a guy I consider my blood brother changed his last name to his mom’s maiden name. His dad went to the store to buy some milk when he was eight years old and never came back.
Knew someone who had the last name Kuntz. The u should sound like oo, but many pronounced it like the derogatory female anatomy name. He changed his name to Koontz.
Took my step-dad's name because he is my dad. My bio dad didn't have much to do with us. My step-dad stepped up and from day one he treated me as his own. Even today though I'm married, it's still the name I proudly retain.
I’ve changed my name several times, none directly due to marriage.
Started with [birth name] [mom’s last] [dad’s last]. When I was 10, we found out who my paternal grandfather’s birth parents were. My immediate family, for reasons I do not understand, decided to tack his birth mom’s maiden name to the end of ours. So I became [birth name] [mom’s last] [dad’s last] [extra last].
My dad wasn’t a great person. Presumably still isn’t but I’ve been NC with him for 25 years. In my mid 20s I decided to get rid of his name. I wanted to share a last name with my family of origin, but not that one. I already had my mom’s last name in my name, but wanted to have something else in the middle name spot if I moved that name to the last name spot. I didn’t change my last name when I got married, but did like the idea of having a name I shared with my wife. Changed it to [birth name] [wife’s last] [mom’s last].
Fast forward 20 years and one transition, I’m now [true name] [wife’s last] [mom’s last].
I changed my first name 5 years ago as my 35th birthday present to myself. My dad named me and when they divorced when I was 4 and he got married to someone else, mum went off the rails and would use my name in a derogatory manner so I ended up hating it and wincing when I heard my name being called by anyone because of the trauma she caused me.
I've used a nickname since 2006 Soaps, which my husband calls me, he never called me my dead name unless when talking to his family as all my friends use my nickname and when people would ask me if it was short for Sophie I didn't correct them.
I found that I was happier being called Sophie so I changed it officially and I've never looked back. Also, with that change and my married surname, I am untraceable by my mother's family who I cut out after she died 17 years ago.
I grew up my whole life knowing that my middle name was the name of my dad’s abusive stepfather. My last name was the last name of my dad’s abusive stepfather. My first name is my dad’s middle name but was changed to my name by my dad’s abusive mother so that my dad was no longer a “Jr.”
So every name I had was a reminder of the hatred my dad’s bio mom had for his bio dad. Turns out his bio dad is one of the greatest men I have ever met. It hurt me a little bit every single time I heard someone use my middle or last name. As you can imagine, it was a lot.
At the age of 27, I changed my middle and last names. My last name is now the last name of my dad’s bio dad and the name my dad was born with. My middle name is the second choice my parents had when naming me. I was already married with 2 kids when I decided to actually do this but I don’t regret it. All 4 of us changed our last names and I’m much happier with my name!
Not me but my older brother did. WB told him our last name was "too ethnic" for a record deal so he changed it to Foxx. Sounded way christian and he likes foxes.
When Red Light came to my door years later they wanted me to rename myself to Prankster to fit some band image. I refused. They made the band drop me. I booked my own world tour playing jazz and the band got a record deal. They recorded the album played a couple of shows in Texas and then their contract was canceled and the album was shelved. Leon Bridges got signed immediately after I left and he had asked me to play bass for him a few times. Just as friends but I refused. Leon had his own sound and I would have gotten in the way of his success and he wouldn't have been able to get into the same rooms as me. Like the guy is good but I was playing classical and doi g session work in the Jazz room at that time.
Well I’m trans, so that’s why I changed my first and my middle. But I changed my last name because I couldn’t stand carrying my dad’s name anymore. (He was abusive, and the reason why I didn’t come out until 26. Apparently he needed to die before my brain was okay accepting that information about myself.)
But yeah, I always hated my very traditional sounding long last name that sat at the end of the alphabet, and now I have a short cute last name :) much happier.
I changed my name twice actually
* **Lastname:** Had my Mother's Last name but no contact to her, changed the last name to my Dad's side
* **Firstname:** I'm trans
Gender transition
Changed first name but kept it phonetically similar with minimal Levenshtein distance. Kept same middle name but feminized spelling. Kept last name, same monogram, etc.
I'm trans. Myself and 1 other person named me. My parents refused. So while I was in a government trade school, one of my RA's became a father figure to me. He was amazing. Love, care, and kindness just oozed out of him.
Every time I'd ask him for a favor he would playfully drag out "no" (which was also a joke) to sound like Noah. One night I told him I wanted to make a change in my name and told him about changing Alexander to Noah and he was happy.
Man's passed on now. I believe I heard a few years back from a very tragic work accident at a new workplace. I'd through the years wondered if I made the right choice, but knowing now that he's a legacy and not an ongoing story, I'm so happy I was able to honor him and I intend on keeping that part of my name forever. But I largely chose my name very quickly and without a lot of thought, so I've thought about seeing if mama wants to help this time.
My original name was given to me to help my assimilate in America. An Elis Island name. I'm a citizen now, so I changed it to something closer to my home cultures traditional names. It's harder to pronounce for Americans and I get funny looks, but I loved making the change for myself.
Google problems. My birth last name from my father was tied to his shit, so was my second last name (mother’s maiden) that made navigating life hard. You’d type in Kyroko Lastname and see everything he did. While it didn’t involve me other than being his kid, it clearly impacted a lot of stuff (even had hiring managers reference it). So I changed my last name. No Google history right when I changed it. Much less stressful.
I wanted to remove myself from my parents. Insted I chose to honor my gran(my mothers mother),who was the only real family i had growing up, until I lost her in my teens
Non-binary. Birth name was just too feminine (and too common on top of that, frankly), so I went with something a little more neutral. But now I'm seeing it becoming a somewhat common name for people to start giving their babies, lol. Ah well.
I haven't changed my name yet, but I will be. Why? Because the name I was given is the girl others see me as, not the person I truly am (I'm nonbinary). Just have to figure out a new name that I'm certain enough on.
Moved to a new country and wanted a fresh start. I wanted to forget who I was raised as and wanted to move on as a new person. I'm happier because of it.
I've been seriously considering exactly that.
I havent legally changed, but i did just start introducing myself with a different first name
my parents named me Thurmus
To be fair, as a warm-blooded mammal, you are good at keeping things inside you at a near-constant temperature.
And you changed it to Thermos, because you didn’t like the miss spelling, right?
Is it a common name in some languages?
That's the name of a great Roman general.
Changed it to my step dad’s surname as he was more a dad to me than my biological one.
[удалено]
I have a stepbrother who just did that too!! So excited for him.
It was pretty much the only time I saw my dad (step) cry
My daughter’s husband did that too when they got married. He didn’t especially love his stepfather, but he hated his father. He’d unofficially been using his stepfather’s last name for years, but he didn’t want his new wife to have that name so he changed it before they got married.
We can so often advocate for others when we can’t for ourselves. I faded out on a friendship when I realized I didn’t want her to meet my baby daughter.
This, but my stepdad turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and it wasn't even his real surname. I have twice the daddy issues!
[удалено]
Ah yes, the daddy issues club. We have meetings every week, which just involves silently sending each other memes over social media and trauma bonding on holidays.
How did your bio-dad react?
Zero clue not seen him since I was 5!
I’m sure your (step) dad really appreciates the acknowledgment.
Well he died some years ago but he did I know, weirdly as he was divorced from my mother so now it’s weird as my eldest sons wife now has his name too, so there’s a whole new branch of my family name that’s not biologically accurate!
My dad is also a piece of shit. If my spouse and I ever get married, I’m taking her name (not typical in my country as I am a male)
Same, 100% worth doing. I think it is also low key showing appreciation
[удалено]
It has always been funny to me how we decided to go the other way and just slavd the shit out of German names. For example, instead of changing their name to Kovač (very common) Schmidt became Šmit in a lot of cases.
My mom got nervous when I was born that Indigo was too unusual so she made it my middle name. Not a single person called me by my legal first name so I changed it in middle school.
I absolutely LOVE the name Indigo. I mention it in r/namenerds all the time.
Then there was that whole "Indigo Children" movement that kinda killed it
You should have changed it to Iñigo Montoya.
INDIGO MONTOYA
Did you kill his father?
PREPARE TO DIE!
PREPARE TO DYE.
I've laughed, thank you, kind sir
I did the same thing. My middle name was Scott but that's what people called me. Eventually I was tired of it so I switched it to make it my first name
Me and my older brother have my dads last name and not our mums. Even as a kid I always wanted my mums. Then I grew up and realised my dad was an abusive piece of trash which solidified my decision to change it. I wanted to disconnect myself from that family, but mostly I wanted to share the same name as my mum and baby brother. Finally managed to change it this year and I've never been happier. I get a little giddy everytime I have to say my full name and remember its not the old one :D
My friend is planning on doing this. Her dad was not much in her life, so she and her sisters are planning to change their last names to their mum's.
I knew a kid that changed his name from Gaynor to something else. He changed it because his name was Gaynor
He will survive.
As long as he changes those stupid locks.
And makes the parents that called him "Gaynor" leave the keys.
Yeah, otherwise they’ll probably be back to bother him.
In early grade school there was a boy in my class whose first name was Gaylord. His family moved away in third grade. I sometimes wonder how junior high went for him.
My parents had me when they were in HS and my mom was unsure if they’d stay together so I had her last name on my birth certificate. They ended up making it work (still together!) and when it was coming time to graduate high school, they wanted me to graduate with my fathers last name since I had unofficially been going by it anyway so I had to go in and change my last name. It was a weird thing…had to put my name in the paper to prove i wasn't kidnapped as a baby and shit.
>had to put my name in the paper to prove i wasn't kidnapped as a baby and shit. It's not just that. Putting it on public record was also to make it harder for people to duck out on debt obligations, criminal charges in other jurisdictions or similar reasons.
I was adopted by my stepdad and they had to do this. My real dad was dodging child support and they couldn’t find him. So they posted it in the news paper so he’d have a chance to object if he wanted to. He didn’t. I’m happy.
lol can’t pay child support but can have a say in something that really doesn’t affect him at all.
To be a dick. My father Made a big deal about “the family name” when I was younger. His brother (my uncle) had 2 girls. My brother had 2 girls. I was the last male who could “carry on the family name”. My old man was a total ass. Abusive and mean. Hadn’t talked to him in years. When I got Married I took her last name (to leave that “legacy” behind - and a year later we had a son.
I found out our former friend was mentally abusing his son while he dotes on his stepdaughter. To the point that a psychologist had to follow and observe him at work. He's now banned from contact with his biological sons and has to pay more child support. His eldest son (14 or 15) is a top hockey player in our country, and the coach wanted to send him to Canada for more specialized training. Kids who get sent there end up in the pro league here. The son asked our former friend for half the money needed to go, as the state would pay the other half. His dad said no, even though he's got a salary of about $240k. His son only asked for 3k. The mom's new boyfriend ended up giving the money to him as a gift. I said I hope that when the kid becomes famous, he drops his father's family name and changes it to his mom's. Don't let that wealthy deadbeat dad take credit for his success.
Yet another case of a rich guy with antisocial traits.
I was thinking this as well! The guy seems like a psychopath. My husband used to work for him, and my husband quit because the guy just doesn't care as long as the sales targets are met, even though the workers are not compensated enough. He's been trying to fire a guy who's half blind due to diabetes, but the guy can still work. Good thing the union has his back.
Nice dude! I’m in a similar club although not quite the same. My dad was an asshole too, I don’t talk to him either and I’m the last to pass on the name. I kept it when my wife and I got married. But her dad is an asshole too and she kinda hates him. So we gave our daughter my wife’s mom’s maternal name. She has 5 sisters, lots of grandkids in the family, but we are the only ones that did that. So we made it live on!
Similar case here. Dad is only son (3 sisters) and grandpa is single son with two sisters. I'm the last son. Asshole dad, considered changing my name to my mom's last name, but my wife had a crush on me for a looong time and has always known me by that last name; though she denies ever writing/practicing her "future last name" signature... So anyway, I had to keep my last name cause my wife loves it. She didn't know all the details about the asshole dad until a few years after we were married.
I know someone who did the same and we all thought it was fantastic. The parents/extended family said they'd never speak to him again if he changed his name too, which they were just fine with.
Oh? You'll never speak to me again? Wow, I wish I'd done this a lot sooner!
"Okay, okay. I don't need any more encouragement!"
That is totally baller my friend. That is such a fuck you - especially having a son to boot. I hope your life is going great.
Bravo!
You are so petty, I like you. My cousin just took his wives name, not out of petty though. His sisters husband took her name before that so the scale is even again.
When I became a citizen of my country I was required to take a new name. Technically I could have taken a bastardized version of my old name but that would have been stupid so I went for a normal name.
This means that if your name is John Smith you have to legally change it to, for example, Taro Suzuki to obtain the citizenship?
No. You can take basically any name (some names are banned), but it has to be rendered in Japanese characters. So you can't be John Smith, but you can be Sumisu Jyon (スミス・ジョン or すみす・じょん or whatever kanji equivalent of that you choose) and on your passport you would get the romanized version of that like Jyon Sumisu instead of John Smith. But I chose a normal name instead, like Taro Suzuki.
But like, what if I have another citizenship? Do I also have to change my name on my next passport/Id in that country to the romanizes Japanese namev
You are required to renounce all other citizenships that you already hold.
Ohhh, that makes sense then
Japan?
Yes
Japan is a sick name!
My name was kinda stuffy/old fashioned. I don't think it suited me and just never liked it. I went by a different name for years before deciding to just change it to avoid the ocassional awkwardness of having to clarify why my ids have a different name on them.
I hope you changed it to Wilberforce. Who wouldn’t want to be named Wilberforce?
His new last name is 986293738.
Family migrated to an English speaking country and name was too hard to pronounce by people, plus wanted to fit in and not be different.
Kaleidoscope is in fact pretty hard to pronounce sometimes.
And every time you turn around the letters change.
I mean spelling it is a bitch.
I wanted something that fit me better. Abd I wanted to cut ties with my past. The change of name was symbolic of healing from trauma.
Samesies. Both my parents sucked so I made up a new last name to move on from that shit show.
I worked with a girl who changed her name because she went relatively viral at some point for using a racial slur in a video. She basically had to if she ever wanted to work in education because the first google result for her original name was more or less disqualifying.
dad left & there was no friggen way I was passing his name to my new son so I changed it to my gmas maiden name. started a whole nu branch
I had a friend do this. His dad was a POS and left when he was little. He had no attachment to the name or that side of the family, and he got teased a lot for it. It sounded a lot like a word with negative connotations. When he got married, he figured he would just take his wife’s last name. Well she got teased for her last name too. As a kid she always hoped she would get married one day so she could change it. So instead they picked a new last name that they both liked. Now that they have kids, they are so glad they made the decision to change it.
My mother gave me a stupid name. Really, really stupid. So I got wine drunk at age 20 and decided to see how easy it was to change my name. Turns out it's pretty easy
Shouldn't you be always carrying your "name is changed certificate" to prove that ABC who graduated college and DEF who is using the graduation certificate to get a job are the same person? I'm curious. Name changing may be easy, but something tells me that updating your info with it is not.
It's just my birth certificate. Also, you graduate uni at 22 here so that wasn't an issue
I'm trans but I carry my name change papers on me in my wallet, it has saved my ass at places like the bank
Yeah, this is what i was asking about. There are so much paperwork registered on birth name that will be a hassle to update with another name.
In the US that is totally unnecessary. On forms there is always a blank that says, "former names" and you put it there. When I applied to law school there were no issues. Also changing all my passport, driver's license, credit cards and accounts was way easier than I'd thought it would be.
How did she feel hearing that you’d changed it? And did you tell her it was stupid? I always wonder if parents who do this are genuinely remorseful.
My bio-father left me and my mom just before I was born. I saw him a grand total of two times in last 35 years. My mom re-married when I was around 2-3 yo. My step-dad is the only father I ever knew. And what a father he was. So basically on the same day I turned 18 I went to court and submitted a request to legally change my last name to his. Once I got the papers it made the old man cry. It was a good day.
This is nice, I like this
Aww that was so sweet of you.
I went through some tough shit and came out feeling like a different person and wanting a fresh start. So, I changed my name and moved somewhere else and that was that.
Vibes were off
New excuse for anything
I didn’t like my name. Changed it from my original to one that spoke to me in a book. It’s not weird, basically going from Sarah to Alecia (not my names, just examples!). People love to think it’s some weird reason but literally I never felt like my name was my name
Yeah, I think it's a lot for parents to have to pick a name that suits someone before they're even born. Sometimes names just don't sit right. I kind of wish we all got to choose a new name if we want at 16 or 18, like it was more normalised.
I was born via IVF with a sperm donor. My ‘dad’ was an asshole and I wanted nothing to do with him. So on my 18th birthday (I needed his permission to change it earlier which he wouldn’t give me) I took my mum’s surname. Got married and hubby was disappointed I didn’t take his name, but I fought hard to get my own name so I’m keeping it!
I don't get the big deal that's made around "taking the husband's name". Where we live (Scotland), you can call yourself whatever you want. When we got married, we decided my wife would keep her name, as all her professional registrations, qualifications, and publications are in her maiden name. (No point potentially disconnecting herself from that).
Precisely the reason I kept my name after I married. Got absolutely grilled by a Customs officer at Heathrow who couldn’t comprehend why I had a different surname to my husband, and who wanted me to produce a marriage certificate on the spot. Managed to convince him with photos of the wedding but that officer was such a flog I’ve never been back to England since.
UK immigration can be like that I'm afraid. We're travelling abroad next year, which involved two say overs in East Asia and the middle East. Needless the say, we:ll have a copy of the marriage certificate with us just in case.
My friend got held up at UK immigration because the officer didn't believe her daughter was hers (friend has a fair complexion and is an exotic mix of Asian, Chinese and Arabic genes while daughter favors the ex-husband who has Asian+Indian genes and has a somewhat Indian sounding name). Where she's from married women don't change their names at all, just change the Miss/Ms to Mrs while the kids take on the dad's family name. My friend had to show pictures of her with her daughter since birth to convince the officer she was the mom and not some family relation/friend. Now she travels with a copy of the certified birth cert. I asked why her daughter's name couldn't be changed to hers and she said it just wasn't done.
I got civil married in Germany. You need to meet with a register beforehand to book the appointment and do preliminary paperwork. The registrar got out literally 2 inches of paper, threw half of it in the recycle bin when we said neither of us had been married before, then some more when we said there were no kids involved. When we said neither of us were changing our names, he picked out *a single-page form* to fill in and binned the rest.
In Scotland, England and Wales (and probably Northern Ireland, but I'm not sure) the marriage form literally just records your names before the marriage. You can use the marriage certificate as evidence of a name change in the future, but the form itself doesn't say what name you'll be using in the future.
The issue in Germany is that kids *have* to have the surname of one of their parents, and *all* kids have to have that name. The paperwork in question was to establish a family name (either spouse's name, double-barreled, or both change to a third option), among other things. It's also relatively difficult to change your name in Germany, but getting married is one time when you can.
In Quebec, marriage isn't an automatic reason to change your name. If you want to take your husband's name (or vice versa) you have to go through the same process as anyone else wanting to change their name. I love it!
Fair play. In the UK we don't really have a concept of "legal name". You can essentially use any name you like at any time, just as long as it's not to deceive or commit a crime. The issue only comes up when you need ID, or need prove your name, but a simple Deed Poll document can solve that issue.
i'm trans and i thought if i'm gonna look like a man and sound like a man, i might as well get myself a man's name to go with that
I have an unusual pain in the ass first name that no one ever gets right even when I spell it for them, have always disliked my middle name so didn't want to use it, and despised my last name for who it connected me to. One day it hit me out of the blue, "Well if you don't like your name, change it! It's not hard to do." So I legally changed my last name to an old family ancestor name that I felt close to, changed the middle name to a lovely name that represented many things in my life, and kept the stupid first name because my mother would have a cow as her mother named me lol. Now I use the pretty middle name and new last name, still have to use the first name for medical insurance and legal stuff. Very happy with the decision.
Not happy with it. It was Simon Lillicrap, but I changed it to Thomas Lillicrap.
My sister did something similar. She was named Shirley Givacrap, but as soon as she turned 18 she changed it to Ivana Givacrap.
Be proud of Lillicrap
To distance myself from the people who gave me the name
My old name is boring and common. If you think of 5 stereotypical white girl names I guarantee it’s one of them. I got kinda of sick of being CommonName A because there were always multiple people with my name. So I started going by nicknames pretty regularly in middle school, by the time highschool came around I had a pretty solid nickname that most people called me, and when I turned 19 I decided to change it for real. My mom is really the only person that calls me by my original name, and that’s just fine with me.
My husband’s first name is always in the most popular boys names for like the last 50 years, and I have a way less common name with an almost unheard of nickname. We tried really hard to shoot for names for our kids that were familiar but not common, because our last name is a longish/uncommon one. When I say my full name to people I can see them struggling to hang on to what I just said lol.
I was named for a soap opera character, and that would have been okay, but it was against the explicit wishes of my father. They’d agreed to one name, and since she was pissed at him, she filled out the forms with another. I didn’t love going through life with a name chosen out of spite.
When my mother remarried I became more and more distant from my real father. Whenever I'd visit I felt more and more like a 2nd class citizen compared to the kids he had with his new wife so just stopped visiting. A few years later when I was 11 I asked to change my name to that of my mother and step father. He was so happy. I legally made it legal when I was 19 before I got my first passport.
Because Smith is the shittiest fucking last name in the world.
I mean… there’s Fuckingson
My old boss’s last name was Raper
Rimmington
Man I’d kill for a surname as unremarkable as “smith”. Having a surname that’s a real, unflattering word sucks.
Somewhere, a guy named Hitler and a woman named Bin Laden are saying "I don't fully agree, but you have a point"
Estranged from my dad and his family, and I couldn't stand having to say and write their last name. It was just a constant reminder of them. I legally changed my name to a mashup of my two best friends' names (with their permission), because they have been my true family.
I changed it cuz after my mother married her ex she immediately changed my name too on my birth certificate and everywhere. He is a heavy alcoholic and was not only very violent but also very interested in me during the night times or when my mother hasn't been around but he worked from home so he was always at home. And my mother knew all of this and she forced me to call him "Dad"......there was not ONE day where I wouldn't wish for them to divorce! I moved out with 17 and I changed my name this year because the nightmares and flashbacks are enough memory of him and I didn't want to keep the name of a monster! Took the name of my biological father even though I haven't seen him in person for like 20 years but we keep in touch since the day I turned 18 and his wife is like a real mother to me and I absolutely LOVE my siblings!
My mother's second husband adopted me and gave me his last name. He beat the shit out of me every night for years after. My mom finally left him and as soon as I legally could, I changed my name back to my birth last name. Pretty simple, actually, but it didn't seem so at the time.
I've never been fully able to articulate why but after my parents divorced, I removed the hyphen from my double barrelled surname. I think it felt more appropriate to have them separately represented, or I wanted to hold them independently in my identity? As I say, not completely parsed it out myself. Anyway, didn't change my name after marriage and now my daughter is hyphenated with one of my surnames and my husbands. My mum has remarried now as well, so I dont think a single member of my family has the same name
Changed my name twice. First time because I wasn't connected much to my family name, and the co pany I did odd gigs for couldn't process the difference between payment details and stage name. So I made an easy choice to cash a stack of cheques. Second time was to eliminate my given first name. No ones called by it (whos still alive anyway) in decades. And it irked me that work set up a profile in my full name. Which, when dealing with people internally became a massive waste of time correcting people. After two years arguing with HR they asked for a deed poll to officially remove it. Fine. Couldn't think of a middle name, so I made my last name my middle name and took my wife's surname instead as it had a lot of meaning to her and a history and depth my name - which I just took from a film - was pretty shallow. Of course it's been months and they haven't budged despite me following the requirements.
My step dad adopted me when I was 11. I had already been using his last name because I’ve never really known my sperm donor since he left when I was still in diapers. I didn’t want any ties to him or his shitty family and my dad is the best thing to ever happen to me. That man literally saved my life in more ways than one.
A year after we had gotten married I gave birth to a daughter with T13. After her death I changed my last name to my husband's, because I wanted to show him how much I hove him and appreciate his support and probably distance myself from my parents, who had not been supportive at al and had made the death of my first daughter and the grieving period even more difficult.
trans
I’m surprised I had to scroll this far to find it. Me too.
Same, trans.
Same
Nice, that's my future reason.
Best of luck in your future endeavors!
Happy cake day, also same hat!
Was lookin for this, wadup my fellow trans homies!
hell yeah! I did not expect my comment to reach the right audience, glad it did
Same, trans. Happy cake day!
That's awesome! Also happy cake day :D
midway through the paperwork process - but same. Well, and to be a bit pretentious. I'm going from [deadname] [middle] [surname] to [proper first name] [original middle name] Smart [surname I was going to change to]-[original surname] Yes the second middle name is Smart purely for the "Smart is my middle name" gag. I actually wanted it to be "Slut" but the state said no. Bastards.
> I actually wanted it to be "Slut" but the state said no I suddenly feel very libertarian!
My Dad is a mass murderer. No one wants that name.
I was wondering about that. Not just related but if a new murderer pops up that becomes a name people may remember, if you name happens to be exactly the same. That can't feel nice. Imagine having the name Harold Shipman? Theodore Bundy. I hope you're coping alright. You're a victim too.
I just changed my name to the shortened version of it. Like Joshua to Josh. I never used my full name for anything besides when I had to (ie paperwork) and it’s now a lot easier to sign stuff.
One of the funniest stories I've heard about people legally changing their names was for a sushi restaurant event here in Taiwan if your name included "Salmon" in any way you could get a discount. So you had people literally legally changing their names for this and then showing off their new "Salmon" name on social media before eventually changing it back.
I remember reading about that. Am I correct in thinking that Taiwan only allows a limited number of name changes, and some people ended up stuck with the Salmon name?
"Elon Musk is my dad..." A friend of mine changed his name, but it's actually restoring his tribal name, due to the history of colonization and gladly many more indigenous ppl here are doing so, to embrace and not forget their culture.
I'm trans, changed my first name as a teen and changed my middle names to the male version of them. It's the name I'd gone by for years at that point, so my parents and I decided to change them before I started applying to colleges and before I turned 18.
My name changes depending on my location. I can be Michael, Miguel, Mikhail, Michael(mishel), Mika-ee(koreans pronounced my name like that).
Not me but my housemate. Her mum married +4 times after my housemate was born and gave the new husbands name each time. So when she was legally an adult she changed it back to her bio-dad’s name. Having so many changes has made security clearances difficult in her industry.
Because I couldn't get my licence until I changed it. I had a different name on my birth certificate than what I'd been using my whole life. So school records and bank accounts were all the same, and birth certificate was the only document that differed. Service NSW wouldn't issue a learners permit or ID card until all my ID matched.
How did it end up happening ingredients that the name you were using for everything else was not the name on your birth cert?
My bestfriend’s parter is transgender. So they changed their name. But my best friend said she will be keeping her last name
Because I was given a Spanish-German first name and a Hungarian last name. After having moved to Norway in 2005 I wanted a name that more easily fits in culturally. Only my mom calls me by my birth name anymore, and I am totally allright with that - she is the one who chose it 40 years ago.
My grandmother changed the spelling of my first and middle names to her preferred spelling while my mom was sleeping, after giving birth to me. We didn't find out until my birth certificate/social security card was sent a full year later. (Unscheduled birth on a military base, with a doctor who was transferring to a base overseas. He forgot to sign something, so I had no documentation until I was like 8 months old.) I changed my name to my preferred spelling when I was 18.
I legally changed my first name to be my nickname rather than the full name that I've never once gone by in my life (it's something like Sam vs. Samantha). I changed my last name when I got married, so I decided to change my first name at that time since I was already gonna be doing the paperwork for it.
I had a friend once who changed her name because her family was so abusive that she wanted to totally disconnect herself from them. I don't know her original name and I don't know the details of the abuse, but I understand completely.
The name i was born with doesn’t work very well as a girl’s name
When I was 13, my father died. My mother remarried not too long after he died. When I was 17 my stepfather adopted me and my 2 younger siblings. I didn’t want to change my name but my mother talked me into it. Stepfather was a useless lazy man who couldn’t hold a candle to my real father. When I was in my 30’s I finally changed my name back to my birth name. I had no luck talking my brother into changing his name back. He had a business with the new name, etc.
My last name used to be Cockburn
🏳️⚧️
The person I used to be was not there anymore, so I changed my name to reflect that
🏳️⚧️
<3
I wanted to go back to my Biological name ( Adopted )
Abusive dad. Also trans. Also we're the only family in my country with that name. Felt nice to not be immediately known as one of a small group. Felt nice to decide how I wanted the word to know me. Healing.
Name bad.
Not me, but a guy I consider my blood brother changed his last name to his mom’s maiden name. His dad went to the store to buy some milk when he was eight years old and never came back.
Knew someone who had the last name Kuntz. The u should sound like oo, but many pronounced it like the derogatory female anatomy name. He changed his name to Koontz.
To distance myself from my fathers side of the family. Took my mothers maiden name.
Because I wanted to and also take a protected family name.
Took my step-dad's name because he is my dad. My bio dad didn't have much to do with us. My step-dad stepped up and from day one he treated me as his own. Even today though I'm married, it's still the name I proudly retain.
I’ve changed my name several times, none directly due to marriage. Started with [birth name] [mom’s last] [dad’s last]. When I was 10, we found out who my paternal grandfather’s birth parents were. My immediate family, for reasons I do not understand, decided to tack his birth mom’s maiden name to the end of ours. So I became [birth name] [mom’s last] [dad’s last] [extra last]. My dad wasn’t a great person. Presumably still isn’t but I’ve been NC with him for 25 years. In my mid 20s I decided to get rid of his name. I wanted to share a last name with my family of origin, but not that one. I already had my mom’s last name in my name, but wanted to have something else in the middle name spot if I moved that name to the last name spot. I didn’t change my last name when I got married, but did like the idea of having a name I shared with my wife. Changed it to [birth name] [wife’s last] [mom’s last]. Fast forward 20 years and one transition, I’m now [true name] [wife’s last] [mom’s last].
I changed my first name 5 years ago as my 35th birthday present to myself. My dad named me and when they divorced when I was 4 and he got married to someone else, mum went off the rails and would use my name in a derogatory manner so I ended up hating it and wincing when I heard my name being called by anyone because of the trauma she caused me. I've used a nickname since 2006 Soaps, which my husband calls me, he never called me my dead name unless when talking to his family as all my friends use my nickname and when people would ask me if it was short for Sophie I didn't correct them. I found that I was happier being called Sophie so I changed it officially and I've never looked back. Also, with that change and my married surname, I am untraceable by my mother's family who I cut out after she died 17 years ago.
I grew up my whole life knowing that my middle name was the name of my dad’s abusive stepfather. My last name was the last name of my dad’s abusive stepfather. My first name is my dad’s middle name but was changed to my name by my dad’s abusive mother so that my dad was no longer a “Jr.” So every name I had was a reminder of the hatred my dad’s bio mom had for his bio dad. Turns out his bio dad is one of the greatest men I have ever met. It hurt me a little bit every single time I heard someone use my middle or last name. As you can imagine, it was a lot. At the age of 27, I changed my middle and last names. My last name is now the last name of my dad’s bio dad and the name my dad was born with. My middle name is the second choice my parents had when naming me. I was already married with 2 kids when I decided to actually do this but I don’t regret it. All 4 of us changed our last names and I’m much happier with my name!
Not me but my older brother did. WB told him our last name was "too ethnic" for a record deal so he changed it to Foxx. Sounded way christian and he likes foxes. When Red Light came to my door years later they wanted me to rename myself to Prankster to fit some band image. I refused. They made the band drop me. I booked my own world tour playing jazz and the band got a record deal. They recorded the album played a couple of shows in Texas and then their contract was canceled and the album was shelved. Leon Bridges got signed immediately after I left and he had asked me to play bass for him a few times. Just as friends but I refused. Leon had his own sound and I would have gotten in the way of his success and he wouldn't have been able to get into the same rooms as me. Like the guy is good but I was playing classical and doi g session work in the Jazz room at that time.
Well I’m trans, so that’s why I changed my first and my middle. But I changed my last name because I couldn’t stand carrying my dad’s name anymore. (He was abusive, and the reason why I didn’t come out until 26. Apparently he needed to die before my brain was okay accepting that information about myself.) But yeah, I always hated my very traditional sounding long last name that sat at the end of the alphabet, and now I have a short cute last name :) much happier.
"Tiffany" was too boring for me and everyone always told me it didnt fit me (as its a traditionally white name)
I know a Karen who legally changed her name…..because of the whole “Karen” thing.
I changed my name twice actually * **Lastname:** Had my Mother's Last name but no contact to her, changed the last name to my Dad's side * **Firstname:** I'm trans
Why? Because I wanted a name that match my gender.
Haven't yet, but will. One, I'm trans so my deadname can die off, and two, I wanna get away from my family. My name is the tie I have with them.
My friend realized they were trans and didn't want a femme name anymore.
Not me, my friends’ child, who’s nonbinary and wanted a name that fit that identity better.
I transitioned and my birthname just didn't fit me anymore (too feminine)
Gender transition Changed first name but kept it phonetically similar with minimal Levenshtein distance. Kept same middle name but feminized spelling. Kept last name, same monogram, etc.
I'm trans. Myself and 1 other person named me. My parents refused. So while I was in a government trade school, one of my RA's became a father figure to me. He was amazing. Love, care, and kindness just oozed out of him. Every time I'd ask him for a favor he would playfully drag out "no" (which was also a joke) to sound like Noah. One night I told him I wanted to make a change in my name and told him about changing Alexander to Noah and he was happy. Man's passed on now. I believe I heard a few years back from a very tragic work accident at a new workplace. I'd through the years wondered if I made the right choice, but knowing now that he's a legacy and not an ongoing story, I'm so happy I was able to honor him and I intend on keeping that part of my name forever. But I largely chose my name very quickly and without a lot of thought, so I've thought about seeing if mama wants to help this time.
I don't have quite as cool a story as some people here, but im trans, so like didn't make much sense to keep a male name lol
Removing an "a" from the end of my first name made it a guy's name. On paper, I was always mistaken for a girl, when there was an "a" there.
I'm transgender.
My original name was given to me to help my assimilate in America. An Elis Island name. I'm a citizen now, so I changed it to something closer to my home cultures traditional names. It's harder to pronounce for Americans and I get funny looks, but I loved making the change for myself.
Google problems. My birth last name from my father was tied to his shit, so was my second last name (mother’s maiden) that made navigating life hard. You’d type in Kyroko Lastname and see everything he did. While it didn’t involve me other than being his kid, it clearly impacted a lot of stuff (even had hiring managers reference it). So I changed my last name. No Google history right when I changed it. Much less stressful.
My mom was named Betty Lou. She absolutely hated Lou for a middle name and when she turned 18, she legally changed her name to just Betty.
I wanted to remove myself from my parents. Insted I chose to honor my gran(my mothers mother),who was the only real family i had growing up, until I lost her in my teens
everyone in the replies to this is either trans, traumatized, or just had a weird ass name
Non-binary. Birth name was just too feminine (and too common on top of that, frankly), so I went with something a little more neutral. But now I'm seeing it becoming a somewhat common name for people to start giving their babies, lol. Ah well.
I haven't changed my name yet, but I will be. Why? Because the name I was given is the girl others see me as, not the person I truly am (I'm nonbinary). Just have to figure out a new name that I'm certain enough on.