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How do you feel about your name?

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    How do you feel about your name?

    I didn't like my given name for years, I don't feel connected to it at all.
    My name means 'brotherhood' in hebrew (fraternite in french). I think it's has a nice powerfull meaning, but it doesn't belong to me. Now days I'm just ok with it.
    I liked my surename so much that I kept it after I got married, speacialy because it has no meaning, it's just some letters together, a typo of some british soldier. I like it's randomness.
    I like my new family name too and I like the fact that my full name is so long now that I need to spell it a few times for people.
    What do you think about your names?

    #2
    Re: How do you feel about your name?

    Hate my real life first name. It's a super common name... with a misspelling. It gets old repeating the same "with an i" or "with a K" or "with an S" or whatever... and then people still misspell it. Although I venture to argue that my parents are the ones with the spelling challenge, not other people.

    I have had multiple last names since I was born--and only 1 of those changes was my choice.

    I hadn't liked any of my last names (or either of my first names).

    The problem with names is that they're given to us and then we're stuck with them for a lifetime. We should get to choose a new first name at age 18. Or at least it should be easier to fix your parents' stupidity if they name you something like the twins we knew as kids that almost ended up Boots and Saddles. The doctor, fortunately, put an end to that one by saying he refused to sign the BC until they changed it to something the kids wouldn't be tortured for, for life. Good on him.

    On the other hand, I knew a lady named Ida Mae Tinkle.

    Now there's a name I wouldn't have wanted, but then again, who knew she'd end up with the married name of Tinkle. LOL!

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      #3
      Re: How do you feel about your name?

      My name has become like Tyrion's dwarfism: I wear it like an armor so that it can never be used to hurt me.

      For pretty much my entire life, my name has been a topic of conversation, surprise, disbelief, or suspicion. You see, I have a boy's name that is spelled EXACTLY like the girl counterpart. So I say, "hello! My name is Michael!" And then the shitty ones will say, "prove it!" Well, I can't. Because it's spelled like Michelle. If someone still doesn't believe me I just get really sardonic and consent defeat. "Sure you're right. I do this to make my life easier."

      You can't have a little girl, name her Michael, call her a nickname her whole life, and then, when it comes time for her to learn how to spell her name, have her teachers tell her she's doing it wrong. It doesn't make any fucking sense to me, and honestly, it gives me grief with every person I meet, with every job I have, every blind phone call I get, etc, etc, etc.

      However, in the 5th grade I decided to own it. "Fine, my name is Michael and you guys will call me that if you want to talk to me at all."

      There's somewhat less of a chip on my shoulder about it now, but that came with age. My first name is a pain in the ass and I don't know anyone who goes through as much stupid shit over their name as I do on the REGULAR.

      My last name? Eh. British, which is strange because there's really not that much British in my blood. But the cool German name my mom had was replaced with this boring dribble that makes me sound like a lawyer or something.

      Whatever. I wouldn't change it. Gotta play the hand you're dealt.
      No one tells the wind which way to blow.

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        #4
        Re: How do you feel about your name?

        I adore my name!

        My first name is Dorothy and my last name (undisclosed) is incredibly bad ass.

        I've lucked out within that aspect.

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          #5
          Re: How do you feel about your name?

          My first name is incredibly common and I share it with my dad. I hated it for years and now I still don't like it but I'm not asking people to call me a different name anymore. I'm okay with my last name. It's super common too but I like it more than my first name.
          Circe

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            #6
            Re: How do you feel about your name?

            My first name is Ember and I was named after a comic book character. This has had a lasting, awesome impact on my life. My last name has changed twice now via marriage/divorce/marriage and the only issue with my current last name is no one can pronounce it or spell it. But I had the same issue with my maiden name even though it was incredibly easy to spell and pronounce. People just forget how language works when it comes to names, I think.

            My only issue with my first name is everyone insists on calling me Amber, even after I correct them, even after I say "No, Em, with an E, like a fire." I have an aunt who, despite knowing me my entire 27 years, still gets it wrong all the time. I had a pharmacist correct -me- when I spelled my name for him "It's E.M.B.E.R." "A.M." "No no, E" "A". -_-
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              #7
              Re: How do you feel about your name?

              I like my name, Jimmy or James on paper. The problem is no one actually calls me either of those. Even my own mother refers to me almost exclusively by my last name. I just have one of those last names.
              Trust is knowing someone or something well enough to have a good idea of their motivations and character, for good or for ill. People often say trust when they mean faith.

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                #8
                Re: How do you feel about your name?

                Originally posted by wisp View Post
                I had a pharmacist correct -me- when I spelled my name for him "It's E.M.B.E.R." "A.M." "No no, E" "A". -_-
                Oh my god, that's horrible, but it's also hilariously funny (not at the time, I'm sure). "If I meant A, I would have said A, derpyhead."

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                  #9
                  Re: How do you feel about your name?

                  My name is Amelia-Mary, with an accent on the e... It's annoying because it's french, everyone always pronounces it wrong, or spells it wrong, it's long, and formal, and multi-syllabic... Everyone calls me Millie cos it's playful, like me

                  Plus, e-acute's, are never printed on exam certificates, or official paperwork
                  "Otwarty świat; rany zamknięte."
                  - Open world; Wounds closed.

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                    #10
                    Re: How do you feel about your name?

                    I used to find my name boring. It means "beautiful flower". But now I've started to appreciate it from a deeper symbolic perspective. To me, a flower is a symbol of rebirth; it rises out of the muck of dead organisms (soil) and blooms. I've really started to love me name

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                      #11
                      Re: How do you feel about your name?

                      I've always loathed my name. Loathe it. Even the nurse spelled it wrong on my birth certificate. My parents saw some woman on Bowling for Dollars who had the name w/a different spelling & decided they liked it. Even though it's relatively simple no one can spell it or pronounce it.

                      When I was little, I used to tell people my name was Daisy. My maiden name was Smith, so I had this elaborate fancy 'unique' first name and a last name no one believed. Now my husband's last name is Americanized Hungarian, so no one can spell or pronounce either of my names. I've always had jobs that wouldn't allow nicknames, so my full name is on my badge or name-tag, and people always do that head-bob to look at it & then proceed to tell me about some random distant relative of theirs who has my name, but it's spelled differently. I hate that. It makes me want to punch every single one of them that does it in the head. It's worse when we go through scripts where I have to introduce myself to customers, "Hi, I'm _______ and I'll be checking you in today!" "Oh, I have a second cousin twice removed on my step-father's mother's side who named their goat _________". Yeah, I'll be seeing you in the parking lot later...

                      Once my husband gets some things settled w/his inheritance, we're being frivolous changing our names. I'm going to be Natasha once that happens.
                      The forum member formerly known as perzephone. Or Perze. I've shed a skin.

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                        #12
                        Re: How do you feel about your name?

                        I hate my first name with a passion, and yet I keep it grudgingly. When I was about 6 or 7 my parents developed the belief (as per their religious leaders' pounding it into their skulls) that the meaning of one's name was like a brand burnt into their skin; it was something that defined you, and might even determine the fate of your entire life. Thus, it was drilled into my own head to believe that way. My first name means "bound" or "to bind" and I used to think, "Oh great - so I'm a slave, somehow? Bound, stuck, like The Hanged Man? To what, anyway? How very applicable to my crappy life. What a joke." I hated it with a passion for its meaning and for the way certain people really destroyed it, made me cringe to hear it. Used nicknames that were butchered-up abominations of it, you know? On paper it's a long name, but it can be shortened; I grew up being called the short version, until at 13 I thought adamantly making people call me the long version might make me less annoyed with them...then they butchered that too. In my later teen years I heaved a sigh and went back to the short version, cringing when I heard it...but just a few years ago, I abruptly started introducing myself as Kelly to everyone. My family now hears my fiance refer to me as Kelly and they get really weird about it...where's their (insert horrible butchered name used for teasing)? Where did that little underdog go? Well we can't have this "Kelly" now can we, so different and self-assured and defiant! It grinds their nerves but I like it. I own it so much better. It means so much more to me.

                        Kelly's a name I started using a long time ago online. Started out as a character on this derpy online RPG thing I was a part of, and it just seemed to stick somehow. I've known people for about a decade under that name and when I finally started introducing myself to people in-person that way, it was refreshing. I'd like to legally change it, but not yet...

                        The reason I've held onto my old name is that...I found something that I'd never really found before. My FULL name, first-middle-last? Makes a phrase. A statement. And it really impacted me when I first found out. My whole name means so much more than just, "bound", enslaved: it means, "To Bind Grace [unto] the Son of Virility". And even if I hate the way certain people have misused my first name...somehow, that phrase burns in my mind. So I've kept it. It does seem like a statement of something important in my life, but I've never quite figured it out. I just had this sort of, earth-shattering heaviness in me when I found it, that made me feel it was important.

                        TL;DR - Hate my name, but I think it's important for some reason I have yet to figure out.

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                          #13
                          Re: How do you feel about your name?

                          I really love my name. I'm named after an ancestor of mine who fought for the Union in the American Civil War, and he shows up in a famous memoir of the war in an absolutely ridiculous scene in the middle of a battle. Good fun.
                          hey look, I have a book! And look I have a second one too!

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                            #14
                            Re: How do you feel about your name?

                            I like mine and take pride in it. It's Greek-originating, and means "protector of men".

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                              #15
                              Re: How do you feel about your name?

                              Wow, that's interesting actually- all of us who hates our name for being difficult and weird and easy to miss spell, still keep it for some reason. I, personally will never change my name, in the last few years I just like that it's long and agonizing to pronounce.

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