I think that in a rational society everyone should feel free to choose their name, and doing so should be a normal and expected rite of passage.
It makes way more sense to choose the sound people make when they refer to you, than having your parents choose it for you before you’re even a person yet.
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Its already kinda the norm if you’re a g*mer.
XxX_SePh1r0tH_XxX is arguably a more acceptable name than Elon’s kid tbh
trans women love this
i have a hard enough time naming characters or picking online handles. i’d probably panic and name myself a poop joke.
I always go with either my real name or my dog’s name, which was given to him by the pound lol.
Or if you’re a furry lol
“trans women already do this” “gamers already do this” “furries already do this”
Software engineers already do this???
Every furry I know, I only know their actual legal name lol.
Or a SoundCloud rapper
Many cultures have had people choose their own names - or at least getting another one - after some kind of rite of passage to adulthood.
I would name myself Tyrannosaurus Sex
My youngest nephew was answering to Sonic for a while, I forget what middle name he picked.
Hell yeah
Remember now, middle name was Finnigator.
Is that a thing I’m too old to understand or did he make it up?
Something he made up that sounds cool.
Hell yeah
It would be polarizing, but decisive. And when people asked me if my name really was Tyrannosaurus Sex, I would say "hell yeah it is
"
In Worst Korea at about 10 or 11 years old kids choose their “English name” for foreigners to use. This is terrible in theory because of the colonial nature of refusing to pronounce Korean names properly, but hilarious in practice because it means you meet kids with names like “chocolate” or “cake” because it’s something they like.
Asian people
trans people: having inspired English namesPartner knew two Chinese dudes in college who roomed together and chose the names Action and Lancelot. Hard to beat that probably.
I’m imagining a Chinese cartoon about an American guy named Action Lancelot who rides a motorcycle and eats nothing but cheeseburgers.
Action Lancelot and the Adventures of Burgerlandia
NES game Clash at Demonhead has the main character’s name as “BANG”
I mean they had some terrible ones as well. The Korean woman who first explained it to me had chosen “Elizabeth” after the fucking Queen, so we all just used her Korean name instead.
Reminds me of Starcraft handles being mostly one syllable English words - Flash, Rain, Queen, and so on.
Most Koreans I knew chose from the 10th most popular to 30th most popular white people names, and that’s it. So like Brian, Amy, Emily. Except for one guy who just picked a Chinese-sounding name that sounded like a Mortal Kombat character, because he could. Like I don’t wanna dox myself but it might as well have been Chang Tsung, It was pretty badass tbh
Being in western communities with high numbers of Asians, I remember the name “kevin” a lot in the 90s
mrw I read the roster for my 8th grade class, and I see my students are “Abundance Of Onslaught, Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints, I Blame The Parents, The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory, Of Course I still Love You, Fine Till You Came Along, But Who’s Counting?, Grey Area, Uninvited Guest, and Prime Mover”
Banks’ style is so satisfyingly recognisable here
See I’m more on that 82 White Chain Born in Emptiness Returns to Subdue Evil, that 10 Vigilant Gaze Purges the Horizon, that 6 Juggernaut Star Scours the Universe, yknow that 23 Liminal Blossom Punctures the Heart of the Unrepentant Deliciously shit.
Yeah it would be cool if once you reach 18 you have a party where you chose a new name or something.
If only babies could chose their own names, would make life so much easier
I feel like now that I’m 30 something, I wouldn’t like whatever name I would have picked for myself at 18 lol
Me too lmao
I would have named myself “epic bacon” or something cuz I was a tool at 18
And even now that middle-aged, I still don’t feel up to the task of inflicting a name on even-older me. My parents didn’t do that bad. Well, my dad tried but my mom put her foot down and said she wasn’t leaving the hospital with a George. Sorry to any Georges out there.
My dad almost named me Jethro but my mom talked him out of it. I got a green thumb and I listen to folk music. It would’ve been perfect.
I like my IRL name because it’s probably impossible for westoids to pronounce correctly
Based
The only people who call me my birth-assigned name are my parents, governments, debt collectors, etc lol
It’s not even gender-related or anything. I just don’t identify with that name at all
Doesn’t even have to be a one-time thing even. People change a lot throughout their lives. If someone wants to change their name sometimes to reflect that, that should be okay
nice, I’m trying to get on that, if I ever start meeting people again. I don’t like introducing myself with my given name so I’d like to start using my chosen name with new people even if I’m not comfortable telling my family. also making art under the new name might help the transition and I’m using it online in a couple places (not here tho)
my situation is somewhat gender related - or rather it’s related to the fact that I don’t have a gender
No, my son is also named Bort.
We are all Bort on this blessed day
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This was how magic the gathering introduced their first trans character, and it was pretty cool. She was like from a tribe where they choose their names after their first victory in battle, so when it’s her turn and she’s like “I’m naming myself after my grandmother” everyone is like “ok yeah that’s cool, you just killed a dragon who are we to question this”
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is a pretty ballin name. Here’s the full story if anyone wants to read it.
The section of the story where she names herself:
"It had been a day like this, a battle very much like this, when Alesha won the right to name herself. With blood running down her back where the dragon’s claws had raked her flesh, she pulled a spear from a dead man’s back and plunged it into the beast’s mouth, up into its brain. The spear shaft splintered, but the dragon died in an instant. She didn’t remember if she had been afraid as the monstrous head lunged at her.
What she remembered was the panic that came after. Earning her war name had been her only goal. When the fight was over, she stood silently among the other young ones who were boasting of their accomplishments and the bold, grisly names they would choose. Headsmasher. Skullcleaver. Wingbreaker—Gedruk had been among them. Some of them, mostly orcs, boasted of their ancestors’ deeds and spoke of their pride in adopting those ancestors’ names. She had been so different—only sixteen, a boy in everyone’s eyes but her own, about to choose and declare her name before the khan and all the Mardu.
The khan had walked among the warriors, hearing the tales of their glorious deeds. One by one, they declared their new war names, and each time, the khan shouted the names for all to hear. Each time, the horde shouted the name as one, shaking the earth.
Then the khan came to Alesha. She stood before him, snakes coiling in the pit of her stomach, and told how she had slain her first dragon. The khan nodded and asked her name.
“Alesha,” she said, as loudly as she could. Just Alesha, her grandmother’s name.
“Alesha!” the khan shouted, without a moment’s pause.
And the whole gathered horde shouted “Alesha!” in reply. The warriors of the Mardu shouted her name.
In that moment, if anyone had told her that in three years’ time she would be khan, she just might have dared to believe it."
“ok yeah that’s cool, you just killed a dragon who are we to question this”
I love that. It beats the hell out of something like Skyrim where some guard will give you shit for talking to them after they ostensibly watch you shout a dragon out of the air, beat it to death, suck its soul, and harvest its bones all while wearing armor made of other creatures hearts that is essentially bleeding.
tbf, that’s because they’re given dialogue options based on quests and skill-levels, not overall level. They can’t react to how you are right now. The MTG characters were written, not coded, so they can respond appropriately to what just happened.
Lol yeah. I hated my given name my whole life, even before I decided I was trans.
I wonder how many cis people hate their names but never change it because it’s not socially acceptable to do so.
The main thing stopping me is that I don’t want to upset my parents. I don’t dislike it that much either so it’s not really a problem, but in the absence of that concern , I probably would change it.
I’m in a similar situation, it’s a hard thing to tell your parents that you don’t want the name they gave you, most parents will push back on it or outright refuse to respect it. It’s an example of how unhealthy the nuclear family dynamic is in our culture.
Though I want to change my last name as well, but to my paternal grandmother’s maiden name (which is also my current middle name) so I’m still keeping that one in the family.
Having to change the paperwork is a bureaucratic nightmare and should absolutely not be the normal.
Trans comrades get a pass as well as anyone who actively cares enough to change it but it is a mess of paperwork for everyone.
does it have to be a bureaucratic nightmare though? I mean in a society where this was the norm there might be a better system in place to address this
besides people do it all the time when they get married. straight women are still largely expected to change their last names due to bullshit patriarchal reasons but that’s another issue
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My mom changed her name after her divorce and she still gets random shit from the government and companies with her old name. Until we can come up with some universal digital archive for all data, it’s probably gonna remain a nightmare.
All official bureaucratic forms and stuff could just use an unchanging unique identifier (like the ones we already use: SSN, driver’s license, etc.); and people vould change what they want other people to call them any time they wanted.
If you want to remove the ability to identify family structure which is one of the big reasons we have names then sure.
Also, trying to get documentation to someone based only on a pin is going to be absolute hell.
“Hey, I have a tax form for #3209823 do you know where I might find them? Their last address seems to be outdated but I know they live here”
“What’s their name?”
“I don’t know.”
Well, housing should be state owned and provided, and all jobs through the state. So yeah, the state shouldn’t be losing track of people like that. Also abolish the family.
Super easy in the UK, you just fill out a form with two witnesses, and hey presto.
Some organisations like banks want a special version of the form you need to pay £50 for, but otherwise it’s free and requires minimal interaction with the government.
One given name for identification from birth onward
One self-selected name around adolescence
One surname for patriline
One surname for matriline
One surname for clan grouping
Catholics stay winning.
