“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet […]”, Juliet asked Romeo, who was standing under her window answering “Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo. […]” I rolled my eyes, sighed, folded my script and made myself slowly ready for entering the stage to tease my beloved friend. Those sweethearts were far too naïve, too young… and would cause me to die at the beginning of Act III. Neither Shakespeare, Mercutio nor I would have ever guessed, that the question “What’s in a name?” would soon be a lot of food for thought for a very long time.
I’m sure Shakespeare didn’t intend this dialogue to represent the experience of trans people, but art is meant to be interpreted, so what. In the end, Juliet says nothing other than that she loves Romeo and no one else. She adores him even though he is a Montague, whereas she loves neither the name Montague nor the family itself. Ergo, Juliet wishes names had no meaning, but they do, especially in a society that loves to charge things with MEANING.
Ironically, „What’s in a name?“ is nevertheless often used as an article title these days when it comes to the legal name change of trans people. Why ironic? Because names are defacto very easily interchangeable, at least if they are not documented. But once they are written down and confirmed with an official stamp, they are meant to last forever. Which is a nice thought, but difficult to put into practice.
Even if there were no trans people in this world (would be a shame really) people get married, divorced, remarried. There are name changes due to bullying or people give themselves a stage name. Apart from that, names are often changed involuntarily. Immigrant women are particularly affected by this, as soon as the alphabet of their language is no longer compatible with the Latin alphabet, a consonant is quickly dropped or the names change fundamentally.
Why it is a problem when trans people change their names in the course of their lives is fortunately beyond the grasp of more and more people. Actors change their identities all the time, they even get paid for it.
Back to the topic: What’s in a name? Because what is for me in a name… or how do I choose a name?
My obsession with names and their meanings has existed since… always. I was born into a family that celebrates „Nomen est Omen“, so names are a serious thing with us. Two or three names are not uncommon in our house. As a small child, I used to leaf through the family encyclopaedia of names and marvel at the alphabetically sorted possibilities. Naughty me, that I only ever admired the boys‘ names.
Until I actively searched for another name. After hundreds of name entries on and offline, I wrote a memo to myself. Names associated with masculinity often have heroic, martial, diplomatic meanings. Sometimes they are merely a variance of the vocabulary of wealth, strength, victory in that language. The opposite is true for names associated with cis women. Through a variety of cultures, meanings such as peace, wisdom, light, advice, flower, calm, and stability are the standard. I suspect the patriarchy behind this…. and yet I wonder why? Names were needed even in ancient times and especially as a monarch, I would think carefully about what I would name my potential heirs to the throne. I would not want to let someone whose real name is „War“ or „Victorious“ rule a country, war is the last thing I would want for my subjects. But maybe that is just me…
But in all honesty, finding a real name is hard. Suddenly you have all these possibilities, and it is quite overwhelming especially if the name that was given to you by your parents is actually great, it just doesn’t quite fit anymore. Sometimes it feels even sad… On those days I feel a lot of my gender, but absolutely no identity behind it. I still feel and embrace my personality, same goes for my body, just the “label” is missing. I just feel elusive, like a thick purple fog that lost its magic. Feeling like not having an actual name, is indeed a really weird experience and I don’t mean the good kind of weird.
So is there a way out? I guess, not really despite that I will have to paddle further through the water and the fog or continue walking along the yellow brick road until I found the fitting name(s). Until then, I would like to share with you some advice that a very good friend of mine gave me when I was whining to him (again) about how difficult it was to find a suitable name. It goes like this: Names are like tattoos, they just need to feel right