(no subject)

[arethinn]

so what's wrong with changing a name to reflect one's current state? is there something in the great book of all things bad against that? sure, i guess, confusing for people on mailing lists.. but if I named myself "Elisann Tulgey" at the moment, after the Tulgey Wood in "Jabberwocky" (which is rather how I feel at the moment - dark, confused, but with wonder and fantastical things hiding in the shadows), would it be somehow wrong not to keep that when it passed? to keep changing my name or part of my name as circumstances dictated?

Comments

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

If you change your name on a regular basis, people will call you Lisa forever.

Having experienced this... if you really want people to call you by your new name, you have to get very insistant, especially with people like relatives and those who think what you're doing is silly or otherwise don't get it. You learn to automaticly correct people, because they just won't do it on their own, many of them.

Not only that, but some people take a long time to get adjusted. Some people will get it in a couple of days, while it may take others a couple of years. If you continue to change your name, many of these people will not know what to call you, so they'll continue to call you Lisa since that's your "real name" in their eyes anyways.

If you're considering going the legal route, I can assure you that it's a giant pain in the ass you don't want to do more than once. I went through the courts and it cost me about $300 and three months for my name change. If you go by the usage method, it takes 7 years to become permanant. Either way, trying to correct all the businesses and creditors who have the wrong name for you sucks, and you don't want to do this more than once. (The older you get, the more people have official records for you, and the more people you'll have to change this with. Even now 6 and a half years after my legal name change, there are still a couple of institutions (banks, etc.) that don't have the correct name for me.)

So, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, no. But, I don't think you'd get taken seriously by many people if you changed your name more often than every 5 years at the bare minimum, and I think it would be a giant pain in the ass for you to deal with no matter how seriously you were taken.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to sound overly discouraging, I just wanted to point out the practical aspects of such a thing. Changing your name is a giant pain in the ass and while I'm glad I did it, I don't want to do it again.

I suggest you decide on a fairly permanant name and stick with it for legal and family purposes, and maybe have an ever-changing nickname you ask your friends to call you. This should minimize the irritation aspect, while still allowing you the freedom of frequent self-definition.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think you (and possibly Kai?) missed some prior discussion. I'm not talking about a real, honest-to-gods name change, with or without legal aspect. This is for online use only. The rest of the world is going to go right on calling me the name on my birth certificate (until I marry and the last name changes - I'll be glad to be free of my long last name!). I just don't generally like to go by my real name online (except for business transactions), so I needed something else to call myself that would be usable in all the various places I want to use it, rather than having one name to use pagan places, one name to use goth places, etc etc.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest using a name with one common thread if you're going to change it. People like to know that they're talking to the same person (or not). I like someone else's idea for keeping the same net.firstname and changing the last name. That way, people will have a sense that they're talking to the same person, but you can still change something on a whim.