My Name

It is a hard thing to name yourself.

My mom picked a name for me when she was young, before she was even married, she says. But for 21 years, the name she picked for me was in the Top Five for the gender she picked for me. It was the Number One name for fifteen of those years. I don’t mean to be an asshole, but that is some kind of unoriginal. You couldn’t swing a dead cat for a quarter century without hitting someone with my dead name.

I disliked the name my mom gave me, even when I was more or less fine with the gender she assigned. I like the nickname I gave myself, but she didn’t use it. My older brother poisoned the nickname I liked by repeating it again and again from a book we read as kids. The line from the book called that name a donkey, and I finally changed the spelling of the nickname of my dead name to make him stop. There’s a copy of Richard Adams’ book Watership Down that I’ve had for so long and read so many times that the front cover is taped onto the book. The original spelling of the nickname I liked of the dead name I hated is written on it in my old writing.

The best version of my dead name was when I eventually shortened the nickname I liked that my mom wouldn’t use of the name she gave me. After I came out (again) I would have kept the best version of that name if folks would have let me. But folks wouldn’t let that name alone. Folks want to formalize and lengthen names. Or folks will ask if the part of the name I liked of the name I hated was short for the name I hated. I remember one of the last times I had a conversation like this. I was in seminary.

Is your name Dead Name?

No, my name is Name.

But your real name is Dead Name?

No. It’s Name.

Yes, but were you called Dead Name?

No… … … Yes, my mother gave me the name Dead Name.

I don’t know why I didn’t yet know then that I could name myself and call it real. That I could deny the name I hated without it being a lie. I don’t know why he kept asking when I said no. It seems like a harmless question, I think, to a lot of people who ask it. But it killed my soul a little each time they asked. So I began to think about what I would call myself. It’s a hard thing to name yourself. I tried a different longer version of the name my mom gave me. I liked it in theory. I worked at a place with people who started to use the new name immediately. Thank God. I hated it. How cool is it that these people right away used the name I asked them to use so that I could discover that I hated it? (Thanks, Lambda.)

I started looking at baby names and I started making a list of all the names I liked. I think I may still have this list. Maybe it’s downstairs in an unorganized box of papers I want to keep, with Broadway playbills and concert tickets and friends’ family Christmas photos. I made a list on post-it notes, which means I probably was doing this at work. (Thanks, Lambda.) I had a bunch of names stuck together in a long list, like Santa’s, and I gave it to my girlfriend. She crossed off all the names she hated. I let her cross off names she hated because I appreciate her opinion. Also I hoped (I hope) that she would use the name, too, for a long time. I really liked one or two of the names she crossed off. We have a running gag to this day about Enoch. A lot of the names that survived were old English trade names. They were names that were usually last names. Cooper, Potter, Porter, Thatcher, Sawyer, Miller.

I loved these names. It was easier to let go of the names my girlfriend crossed off the list, I don’t even remember which they are, because these old trade names are so strong, so evocative. I still love them all. I wish I could be named them all. I wish I could switch back and forth between them. I ruled out one or two for various reasons of association. I picked one.

The people I worked with started using it right away, and I liked it right away. (Thanks, Lambda.) I’ve been using it ever since. I changed my name legally five years later, eleven years ago, and I told the judge truthfully that the reason for the change was, “I have been using this name personally and professionally for some time.” But that wasn’t the whole truth. The lawyers suggested that I think carefully about whether to out myself (again) to the judge. Two other people who changed their names the same year with the same judge told the whole truth. They outed themselves. They were denied their name change petitions. One of them gave up, and I don’t know what became of him. The other fought the decision and eventually won. She told me last year that she is going to change her name back. She told me she is going to change her gender back. I believe that people get to name and rename ourselves and (re)decide who we are, whoever we are; it still made me sad.

It’s a hard thing to name yourself.

I grew up on a river, and my girlfriend grew up on a river that feeds into my river, and the name I chose is an old trade name that needs rivers. The name I chose sounds like my grandfather’s first name, and my grandfather was a faith leader, too, and a teacher, too. The name I chose sounds like my baby brother’s middle name. I might have chosen my brother’s name for myself if it wasn’t already his. (I don’t know, though, if I love his name because of the name or if I love his name because of him.) My mom loves the name I chose, and though it wouldn’t have mattered, it matters. In the end, I kept the best version of the nickname I liked but Mom didn’t use of the dead name I hated. It is my middle name. I would have kept that name if people would have just let me keep it.