Choosing a Name is Hard

At some point last year my friend said (for some reason, I can’t remember why) that my male name would be Jasper. That’s stuck with me and I’ve been thinking about it a lot the past couple of months. Recently I’ve adopted it as my name. First because I like it as a name, and it feels right. And it doesn’t feel too masculine to me, it feels like a name that allows me some femininity- if that makes sense. That’s my main reason for liking it I think. As well as this, its also a gemstone (the only male gem name!) which matches my birthname. That’s less important, more of a factor of like “hey that’s neat”.

I messaged this friend before I went to sleep one night last week with a simple question: boy names that suit me. They did not disappoint- sending me several long messages (starting with the fact that Jasper is their go-to name for me) and then so many name suggestions, each with a little comment or explanation, or whether they thought it would fit me or not. I’ll be honest, I read it all through several times before replying, and went back to it several times, just because I was so touched by the amount of thought that had gone into it. At the end of the message stream was a question- was I thinking of going by a different name or was this for something else?

Boy, did that question give me anxiety. I sent a reply back with my thoughts on the name suggestions and that yes, I was considering using a different name but am still figuring stuff out so just looking for ideas at the moment. They replied that they get the figuring out taking time, that its been years and they still don’t know. They offered to send some example sentences with my name/pronouns, to skype if I wanted to hear it out loud and I returned the offer. It was nice to come out and be come out to at the same time, its good to feel that I have someone I know that I can talk to if I need to.

Someone I was at uni with who tried to befriend me but I was kind of an asshat to them and ignored them a lot because I had a lot of stuff to deal with has recently been tagged in several pictures/posts on Facebook by someone called Jasper. Who is also trans. I know its silly but when I see these posts I just feel horrible, like I don’t want to take a name of someone that someone I know knows (is that grammatically correct?! I feel like it makes sense. I hope it does). It’s like…I don’t want to somehow be seen as copying, because I’m doubting myself enough as it is and having them there makes me feel like an impostor, or like I’m imitating others.

But I get an awful lot of comfort from my name if I just repeat it over in my head when I feel like people are misgendering me mentally, so I think I’ll keep it.