Name Changes

[Deleted member 1860]

P-no,
(Tangent I need to get off my chest.)
It irks me how people love to be supportive when it comes to donating money or taking a 3 day charity walk, but when it comes to actually being THERE for someone, nada (crickets chirping). Yes, people love to be supportive from afar. I think it's safer that way.

Lol, I went on a rant about this one day in the middle of McDonald's (pretty funny in retrospect!) I won't say what event sparked the rant because I'd look like a horrid person. My dad just looked at me and said "I had no idea you lost all your friends when you were diagnosed".

Now I think I've taken a tangent on my tangent. I'll stop while I'm ahead. ;-)

 

[Hashi]

Walking away from someone for something like a name change?... People can be so weird.

I found one person in a group of friends highly disapproving. She wasn't a Christian, but she did seem to see it as an affront to the values/morals she believed in, in some way I'm not clear about. She grudgingly "accepted" it because if she stopped contact with me she would have been cutting out the whole social group. (I later lost that group of friends myself, they fell by the wayside when I got PTSD and the friendships didn't stand up to the test. I'd never been very fond of her individually and we wouldn't have been friends in our own right, so her views didn't bother me much.)

This person clearly never let it go and would make pointed comments whenever the subject of names came up. What really irked me was that she later adopted a dog from a refuge and was very bothered by his name, which she thought was too common, to the point of deciding to give him a completely different one. So it's important and valid for a dog...?

My view is that if people can't get over me changing my name, then they're much weirder than I am.

 

[Hashi]

Maybe they think that if you give up your name you have no identity, sociopath-type of stuff... Maybe it scares people?

I can only talk about the context where people don't tend to think you might be doing it because you're in danger. In my country, it's very much a personal choice and people who don't like it are not comfortable with you making that choice for yourself.

It seems to threaten some people, makes them feel unsafe that other people would do something that they wouldn't. Maybe on some level it triggers their own lack of security? I definitely feel there's a defensiveness about the negative reactions. It seems to come from them feeling that they can't "allow" it because their outlook on life is under attack. I think it has the same feeling as people disapproving of someone giving up a well-paid career and financial security to follow a passion.

Very few people were negative towards me. And they were people I didn't care much about anyway. The people whose opinions matter to me were fine about it.

 

[Pencil]

I'm so uncomfortable with this topic that I can only now admit that I have changed my middle name - which was easy as a middle name is virtually invisible. And yet this name is so important to me that it is also my daughter's middle name.

I think I feared my family's reaction to more 'dramatic' changes. They are unaware of the middle name change, as the initial is still the same.

This is a very interesting thread, and the responses have me sighing with relief.

 

[Hashi]

NIKI, there's one thing I'd like to stress: I think if one is not 100% (not one percent less) convinced to do this, one shouldn't do it.

For me that conviction is to do with how positive and right it feels. I think it needs to be not only to get away from the old name, but also to get to the new one.

It was an adjustment for me as well as other people when I changed mine, but that was to do with habit rather than identity. I knew my first name and middle name because I'd already come across them and they resonated with me, but even with the name I had to find, my surname, when I saw it I knew it was my name.

I felt like I was stepping into my identity, rather than just trying to throw off one that I didn't like.

 

[p-no]

SoL,

It irks me how people love to be supportive when it comes to donating money or taking a 3 day charity walk, but when it comes to actually being THERE for someone, nada (crickets chirping). Yes, people love to be supportive from afar. I think it's safer that way.

Honestly, my therapist has convinced me (I truly believe it now) that those are people I have in my life but that she (for instance) does have people in her life who are different, who care and are there for her (not from afar). I have had very few of those people as opposed to these you are referring to, and rather was one myself to others, who were strangers to the concept of "take AND GIVE" (intentionally putting it around this way).

I have also learned that you can be conditioned to choose people like this yourself over others (those you'd actually want in your life) because of a choice those around you made while growing up. All I can say is, from the bottom of my heart now I believe there are people out there who are different and we can make a choice now! Even if we can't go back in time, there is now and later and I personally consider doing all I can to find those other people now and later better than retreating to letting those others in for the rest of my life.

If I may: :hug:

 

[p-no]

NIKI, there's one thing I'd like to stress: I think if one is not 100% (not one percent less) convinced to do this, one shouldn't do it. Because you can never know how people will react.

For me that conviction is to do with how positive and right it feels. I think it needs to be not only to get away from the old name, but also to get to the new one.

I think I expressed myself not clearly enough. I agree with Hashi. Actually, the name change should have nothing whatsoever to do with anyone else but you. So, just in case that my above quote seems to have said that people were a motivation to decide whether or not to do it: that's not what I meant to say at all. It's a personal thing and I think it must be the right reasons, too. What I mean by that is that one person told me they would like to get their name changed because they wanted to change their identity in the way that they wanted to start anew after their own trauma history. She thought that you would actually be able to become a whole new person by changing your name.

Well, in Germany, if she had ever gone (or will go) to have her name changed and say that, she will be refused officially (my therapist said). I was worried about having given that person a wrong impression and talked to my therapist. You don't change with a name change. Yes, you can feel more liberated and yes by doing away with your old name(s) you do get rid of constantly being reminded of your abuse by your own family (which was major for me, most was family), and all this is great to achieve. But you can not start anew as a person. It's like moving to a different country: you do avoid triggers and you don't run into your abusers every now or then but you take all that you are with you and once all that's been new to you has become normal, your realities come back.

Not liking your name per se (because it's a name you don't like, not because of trauma attached) is obviously enough of a reason in some countries to change it, but I'd tread carefully there because you may "grow out" of your new name eventually, too, and want to change it again. In Germany, you wouldn't even be able to change your name for such a reason. I don't know your trauma history, NIKI, which is why I am not sure if your not liking your name is due to your mother abusing you and its effects or if it's really just the name you don't like. But even so, it's all your choice so I hope my saying this will not make you feel offended, it's just a thought that crossed my mind and wanted to clarify.

 

[p-no]

It seems to threaten some people, makes them feel unsafe that other people would do something that they wouldn't. Maybe on some level it triggers their own lack of security? I definitely feel there's a defensiveness about the negative reactions. It seems to come from them feeling that they can't "allow" it because their outlook on life is under attack. I think it has the same feeling as people disapproving of someone giving up a well-paid career and financial security to follow a passion.

I think that's exactly it. I do see it that way, too, and still can't relate. Why is "different" so threatening to some? Why don't they take some effort to look into things and learn? (Rhetorical frustration.)

Very few people were negative towards me. And they were people I didn't care much about anyway. The people whose opinions matter to me were fine about it.

That is good to hear! You seem to be able to make wiser choices than me about who you let into your life. I hope it doesn't come across as odd when I use the same word you used, but it's the one that fits: Respect.

 

[Red Feather]

It is so funny that you have started this thread. Actually , this week I have just decided to go through with it. I changed my name, just before the time of my first trauma, 6 years ago. And now I want to go back to my old name, with one letter being changed. I don't regret having changed it. It was good for me. But now I feel it is good to go back. I felt this very clearly a few days ago. I had been thinking about it for a long time now, but now it is finally clear.

So I sent an email to my closest friends. Not many replied, which makes me rather nervous. But the friends who have already known me to change my name, would probably understand. I never changed it on my passport though. Actually my mother changed my name 2 weeks after my birth, so the name that is on my passport was never correct. It was because it had a word that meant "bad" in the language of my grandmother, and so my grandmother didn't want me to have the name, and then my mother changed it. :rolleyes: But after 2 weeks, she decided it change it back and not listen to her mother. Quite confusing...! :confused:

I do not know if I want to go through with the passport change. It is alright I think, because the only times my official name is used, it is when my last name is used to identify me. Here in Germany, many people use the last name, who have a more professional relationship with you. I also just changed it on my facebook, without making a big announcement. I think if somebody is curious they can ask. And otherwise my closest friends now know. Hashi, I love the idea of making cards.

I dont associate my name change to the trauma, but I do feel that my new name will help me to be more me. And after the last year which was very difficult, I feel it I need to have that. I am worried of other peoples reactions, but the last year has brought so much change in my life, my friendships are also changing. Some people probably wont understand, but I am trying not to think about them. :(

 

[NIKI]

I felt like I was stepping into my identity, rather than just trying to throw off one that I didn't like.

I like this! :)

 

[daretodream]

My daughter is going to change her name and I have no problem with it for it is hers to change and she can do as she please for she is an adult. Gave her her name and I get it frustrates that many pronounce it wrong or spell it wrong. I like the name of coureor I would not have given it to her but I also understand why she needs to do this. She does art and has already started to sign her work with the name she wants.

Names really have no true meaning I find other than to state the lineage you come from. That being said I am surprised more do not change their names given the dysfunctional parents out there. Think her only we create names different than our own. What difference is it then in every day life. A name has meaning for example I use daretodream. This name has meaning for me for more than my own name for to me it means after 44 yrs of living in abuse I dare to dream again. The name should represent you in the end not who mothers want you to be.

I like my daughters new name I can't even yell that name in anger. "SERENITY" Trust me one day she peed me off and I wen tto respond using the name (we were workignon using it only) and I could not stop laughing. She loved it. GOes to prove maybe if we named our chidlren right we never would have been able to yell LOL. joking aside I think be the name you want and remeber you will hit oppostion. My daughter mentioned this tomy friend snad she took a strip off my daughter and I calmly told her , "it is my daughter why does it bother you?" I was informed it was disrepectful and I replied "HOw? My daughter is my daughter and wht every she calls herself she will be my daughter.

respect to me has nothing to do with names but to do with the persons soul.

 

[daretodream]

Sorry I tried to edit my spelling and it did not accept Lol