Your Name

[Selruin]

I liked Leaf's story - vair inspiring!

I have to agree with some of you - I've often felt unattached to my name, like it's simply a nametag handily slapped on my chest. I was named for one of my great aunts who died before I was born. I later found out that even my mother didn't know her very well. Strangely, all my younger siblings were given names taken from close family members, and even when I was younger I always felt a bit separate. I guess I could be labeled as a black sheep, split from family values as I am.

I've often wondered about other names - I fully intend to change mine someday, if I come across the right one.

[Ken]

I once seriously considered changing my name.

It was back around the time that Star Wars Episode I came out.  A local radio station held a promotional stunt whereby listeners could compete for the chance for the station to legally change their name, all expenses paid.  The name in question:  Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Naturally, I didn't win.

Now, after I got my amateur radio license ('ham radio' as it's widely known), I applied for and was granted the same station call sign that was originally held by my mother's uncle - and only by him - for the majority of his own ham radio career.  In the ham radio world, your call sign is used far, far more frequently than your name, as it is completely unique.  There is no one else anywhere in the world who is currently W8EBJ.  So, in a way, I have two 'names':  The one I was given at birth (which, incidentally, happens to be my mother's father's name), and the one I was granted by the FCC that had once belonged to my mother's uncle.

And for anyone who's wondering, I don't really have any further interest in being Obi-Wan Kenobi.  

~Ken

[Leilani]

My given name was chosen by my father, though I never felt it was really "my" name - more of a label for this lifetime. My mother deeply felt my name should be "Leilani", though she always called me the name my father chose. This forum is the first place I've used Leilani. It doesn't quite fit me either tho.

When I decided to be confirmed in the catholic church, as an adult, we had to choose baptism names. The saint I most identified with: St. Albert who "was a scientist long before the age of science, was considered a wizard and magician in his own lifetime..." I also told them I wanted a second baptism name "Celeste" (another story). So, they were curious that I chose a man's name, and also 2 names, but they honored my request. While the names don't quite "fit", the meanings are very significant to me.  

Ken: When you mentioned "Kenobi", I almost thought were goin to say you won, and that's why you go by "ken"! How amazing that you got your great uncles call sign. That must have been exhilerating!

[Ken]

That's an interesting tradition within the Catholic faith, Leilani.  I wasn't aware that adults could choose their own baptismal names.  I was confirmed within the Episcopal Church about 20 years ago and I don't recall that being an option (though maybe it was and I just don't remember - I'm pretty sure that I would have picked something different from my name if it had been, or at least seriously considered it.)

And, yes, it was a glad day when I was granted my granduncle's call sign, though I had already done the research and knew that no one else was using it, or even had used it since he gave it up.  It was an even bigger thrill for my mother's older sister, who had been very close to him when she was growing up and even into her young adult years.

An interesting thing about the name "Kenobi" that just occurred to me:  My son's name is Ben.  He would have been "Ben Kenobi".  I guess it's just as well I left things the way they are!

[DesktopHippie]

Yep, part of the confirmation ceremony in the Catholic faith is choosing a new name, supposed to be the name of a saint, since the whole idea of Confirmation is that you're making the baptism vows of your own free will.

When I was confirmed I chose the name Brighid, since I was born on her Catholic feast day (February 1st) and also because I quite liked what I knew of the Saint herself. The attachment to Brighid grew as I got older, and helped a lot when I began to explore Neopagan belief systems, since it was easy to make the transition from Saint to Goddess.

As for my birth name - I was given the name Linda which I didn't like very much as a girl. I thought it was far too ordinary and wanted something romantic and exotic. (This was the 80's after all. Every cartoon had a magical princess with a really cool name like Aurora.) My brothers were named after saints and so had their own "days" every year, and my Mum's and my sister's names both featured in popular songs. I felt very left out!

It got worse as I got older since I love reading about the meaning of names and mine seemed very boring and not terribly apt ("pretty") and also had a love of Irish names (which mine was really not). My middle name didn't help much. Mary. Geez, every second Irish girl is called Mary! There were five Marys in my class at school. And that was when the name was starting to lose popularity!

It wasn't until the last few years that my name started to make sense. First of all, further study on the meaning of names lead to me finding out entirely by accident that Linda doesn't mean "pretty" at all. It actually means "snake" - from the Germanic, though most baby name books opt for the Spanish translation of the name instead since that's seen as more parent friendly  :D  Now I've already mentioned that I have an affinity with Brighid, and since snakes are considered sacred to her (and I was born in the Chinese year of the snake) I felt a much deeper connection to the name.

Shortly afterwards while browsing a Wicca book, I discovered that there's actually a Goddess called Linda. She's known as 'the Binder with the Linen Thread' and occasionally invoked by Wiccans in binding spells. Much cooler than a saint or a pop song  :grin:

I started using Desktop Hippie when working in an office, since I was known as a "new age hippie" and my job really, really didn't reflect my personality. It's the name I use the most online, although I have a very free and easy attitude to names both online and in ritual, adopting whatever suits my mood or my purpose at the time. Names I'm particularly fond of are Tara (after Ireland's famous fort of the high kings, the sanskrit word for 'star' and a character in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' which is one of my favourite TV shows - yes, I'm serious) Philomena (which means 'lover of the moon') and Amunetia (after an Egyptian priestess whose mummified body was adored with beautiful tattoed patterns - I like Tattoos although I only have one.) Like I said, a free and easy approach to names!

Corkmole - I know what you mean about people sticking with "cool" totem animals. I don't really work with totems myself, although I can't help feeling a lot of the time people can be lazy and decide their totem animal before any exploration to seek it out! One online friend has the frog as her totem, and she couldn't be happier. I feel a connection with foxes, I've adored them since I was a little girl and see them often where I live, and also have a fondess for magpies, even though everyone else I know in Dublin can't stand them - maybe because of the superstition that seeing a lone Magpie is unlucky. Oddly enough I don't feel much of a connection with snakes, but they're not wild here so maybe that's why.

As for having the earthworm as your totem, I'm a comic book nerd and vaguely remember reading about a Marvel comics character called Earthmover who had the earthworm as his totem - and he was pretty butch if memory serves! *rummages around the net* Yep, found him! Here's a short article about him. Shorter than this post that went on forever. Sorry all!

http://www.marvel.com/universe/Earthmover

[Ken]

When I was confirmed I chose the name Brighid, since I was born on her Catholic feast day (February 1st) and also because I quite liked what I knew of the Saint herself.

Wow!  What a great name!  I love that name!  My Irish blackthorn walking stick is named Brighid!

Okay, I'll stop.  But it IS a great name.

~Ken

[DesktopHippie]

When I was confirmed I chose the name Brighid, since I was born on her Catholic feast day (February 1st) and also because I quite liked what I knew of the Saint herself.

Wow!  What a great name!  I love that name!  My Irish blackthorn walking stick is named Brighid!

Okay, I'll stop.  But it IS a great name.

~Ken

Thanks! I like the name too. And the Saint/Goddess. Besides, they wouldn't let me choose 'Aurora' so...

Kidding  :D I'm kidding. Honest. The only other confirmation name I considered was Bernadette, and Brighid won on account of her feast day being my birthday.

[ennys]

Brighid is a really cool name!

At this forum I use my 'real'  name, the name my parents gave to me, although I do not feel a lot of connection with it. It comes from Cornelius, which means 'the Horned one', so it is quite pagan

On many other sites, and even irl, I use the name Ennys. It is a name I came across while browsing the web, and according to some vague site it means 'island in the river'. I don't know if that is true, or wether the name has any meaning at all, but I liked the sound of it (ENnis, strongly pronounced) immediately, and 'island in the river' makes me think of my beloved river Loire, which has many small isles and sandbanks in it, and with which I feel a special connection. Nothing is more beautiful than the sunlight shining on its waves, colouring them silver..the light is very clear over there.

Should I ever have to choose a new name, I would call myself officually Ennys.

edit: typo's. Excuse my bad english btw

[DesktopHippie]

Wait... you think that's bad English?

Okay, remind me to introduce you to a few of my students. The ones who can barely construct a sentance even though English is their first language!

[ShadowclawFC]

So much here, and this an old topic? I figured it'd still be going, knowing how humans are.

I've been in a strange boat: I love my first name, which my dad tells me means 'Earth Lady' and I love my middle name, which means 'Noble.' Don't care for my last name but meh, that'll eventually change somehow.
My problem is...I feel a connection with the name Shadowclaw. Part of it could be simply that it was the name I used when I first started roleplaying, which is what brought me to my greatest friends and given me so many good experiences. But I feel more of a connection to it, I think. It's...it's who I am. So I'm not sure what to do. I could use it as a 'legal' nickname, I suppose, but that doesn't feel right. Any pointers for me?

[Argenta]

A very interesting thread dug up, Shadowclaw!

I've hated my first name most of my life, first because there is no possible way to make it into a sensible nick in my language, second because people have been mixing it up with at least four or five other old-fashioned names, and, last but not least, because it doesn't sound right to me (I suffer a bit from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia), so the colours are all wrong and have made me nauseous whenever they were directed at me.

However, I've kept it because I liked the meaning ("the silver one"), and I was thrilled when years later I discovered it can be nicely translated to both Latin and Welsh, having "A" as the first letter (which felt more like myself). Since then I've been using either Argenta or Arian(wen) on line, and I hope it will, with time, stick with people irl as well. Still, I won't officially change it, at least for as long as I live in my country of origin, since it would be way too weird for such a tiny, backward society, and expensive, and take forever with our rotten legal system.

[Zafira]

I don't really liked my name but I think everyone have this problem once in their life.
It’s because you couldn't say that you agree with your name or not. So if you feel that the name that somebody as was giving to you not good than change it. Of course just slowly.
I personally was oke with my name. Edina is an often used name in my country. I was thinking maybe a more special name would better. But when I was 16 an my parents told me the story about my name I started loving my name. The story is that I had a 6 year older brother who wanted a little sister. So he just went to our parents and told them that he want a little sister and her name will be Edina, because he felt in love with a girl in the kindergarten whose name was Edina. Everyone made jokes with my brother that what will he do if he will have a little brother (he told them he will change it to a little dog I'm glad that I'm a girl ). But my name became more special for me because in 2006 I lost my dear brother in illness. So I would never think on it to change my name.

Zafira

[Ffenics Y Feudwy]

When I was 16, I'd reached a point in my life where I was trying to let go of childish things. Also, I was fed up of correcting people on how to pronounce my name. So when I left school, I introduced myself as Tammie. It made things so much easier than trying to say "actually it's pronounced like camera", but usually, people call me Tams. I've been known by a few nicknames online, but the one which is truly mine is Tinklepants or Tink for short, which I started using about seven years ago. (I laughed out pee once...)

It was only recently I found a name more fitting, Ffenics. Ffenics is welsh for phoenix, Phoenix dactylifera is the botanical name for a date palm and my name, Tamara, means date palm in Hebrew. I found this new craft name very apt as I feel like I've been reborn this year, stronger than ever. I'm trying to get my name on here changed to suit, as I have outgrown Lleuanwen (brightmoon). My blog is titled Ffenics Y Feudwy (the hermit) as I feel more comfortable being a long-distance pagan. Ok I'm just more used to it as I'm funny about crowds and attention lol Anyway, so yeah, my new craft name still has the same meaning, but it's a little deeper.

[Aoife]

My birth name is Zoë and the last name, Morrow, that I have is not my mother's or my father's but rather the last name of some guy my mother married in the the 1970's and later divorced...and my mother never married my father because while they were engaged and she was pregnant with me he got into meth and she left him because he wouldn't get help. I have no association with the name Morrow and because I have no association with my father's surname, Gilleo, I go by my grandmother's maiden name, Donnelly.

My family is very proud of their Irish heritage and even though we have various last names because of marriage (the majority of survivors are women) we consider ourselves members of the Donnelly clan and I'm the youngest member of this branch of the Donnelly (until I have children) and I'm very proud of my family.

I don't mind the name Zoë because it has such a strong meaning behind it. Zoë is Greek for "life" and my story of being reflects that. My mother tried for 10 years to have me and suffered through 5 miscarriages to have me. She named me life because I was the child who lived.

However, because I embrace my heritage I have given myself the name Saoirse (Gaelic name meaning freedom/liberty) which is a trait I strong identify with (I'm an American, sue me ) but at the same time, lately I've been feeling very akin to the name Aoife (username) because it also means life so I feel like it is my actual name but just translated.

Do you think that Aoife could be my "spiritual name"? I've tried meditating on this but the spirits haven't offered anything and sometimes I become nervous that I'm just trying to persuade myself into giving myself the affirmative answer.

Some people argue that a name is just a name but I feel that names are very important.

[Serenassa]

Apologies if I'm digging up an old-old thread; but this piqued my interest, and my fingers all but itched to get my story out!

I changed my name by Deed Poll almost a year ago now; my boyfriend paid for it for me as my present for my 25th birthday, and we even had the documentation forward-dated to my birthday.

When I was born, my parents had been desperately hoping for a son after my older sister's arrival almost 6 years previously - mum always wanted one of each, I think! - and so had already picked out the names Philip Gareth. When it was clear I was a girl, they panicked for a few minutes, then decided to simply feminise Philip to Philippa and swap Gareth for Emily, a great-aunt's first name; she was pretty chuffed, and for all the time I knew her, she only ever called me Emily - much to the annoyance of my mother.
This combination probably doesn't seem too bad; but unfortunately, my family name was Arthur, so I had a lot of teasing at school with my initials being PEA, and all my family would often shorten my first name to simply 'Pip' - the fruit jokes got a lot tiring very quickly!

Struggling through primary and secondary school with all the teasing about my name, and how boyish I was - while my younger sister is quite girly, my older sister and I have always been more tomboyish and robust - I firmly decided I would find some way to change my name to something that suited me better.
It wasn't until I was working at a Citizens Advice Bureau a couple of years ago that I finally found the information I needed, about changing my name by Deed Poll; the thought of being able to use a name that I chose, with a meaning that really seemed to describe me - because isn't that what a name is supposed to do? - on my legal documentation, was really delightful, and so I began searching all sorts of "names and their meanings" books and websites, looking for the perfect name.

I decided to go for something in Welsh, for my paternal grandfather; and found that 'arian' meant silver, which was apt since I can't wear gold jewellery without plating on the back to stop me getting a rash, so I modified it to Ariana (silvery), stuck in Scarlett as a middle name (not Welsh, but I do love the colour as it suits me well), and picked Cadfan (battle-raven, apparently) for my surname - I love the whole corvid family, and got into more than a few fights and scraps as a child!
My boyfriend also loves calling me his "little Anna", and that I'm a bit more girly now, with a "proper" girly name!

Of course, my family had varied reactions; my dad and his side of the family just said as long as I was happy, that's all they cared about, and have gotten used to it very quickly. My mother's side, on the other hand, took it disastrously! I think I spent at least an hour every night for the first week having to defend my choice to my mother on the phone, and my nan still hadn't come to terms with it the last time we spoke (only a few weeks ago).

But now I'm me, and I've never been so happy.

[Aphritha]

I'm not so comfortable with my name, but I haven't changed it. My first name is Krista, which I've always felt is flowery and feminine. I don't feel flowery OR feminine, and I don't want to. Krista is a fine name...for someone else.
My maiden name was Gaede, which I was happy to be rid of. I never felt much connection with it, and was sick of correcting people on the pronunciation or spelling it out(its pronounced Gay-dee, by the way). My new last name is Saylor now, which I'm quite fond of.
I would often joke with people that I wanted to change my name to George P. Dinkleburg(the P doesn't have a name behind it) because it would suite my personality better...most agreed, even if they didn't want to... I contemplate it from time to time.

[Skyewolfe]

This is an interesting thread to me. Back in 2000, I began playing an online game called EverQuest. I knew nothing about it or anything about paganism/druidry at the time. I started my first character as a druid whose name was Skyewolfe. I have always been drawn to the name Skye as well as wolves so it came together. Over a decade later, I find it interesting that I am now finally learning about becoming a druid in my "real Life" and that wolves continue to fascinate me. I have given thought to changing my name to Skye but have yet to do so. However, I do use the name Skye for my various online forums and game IDs. I also had a ring made that says "Skye". I think it's a beautiful name on many levels but I think it's high time I do some research as to its connotation.

In the triad in Gwers 3, we hear about Parents, Teachers and Gods. I think one of the wonderful things about this journey is the learnings that go on no matter who, when or where.

[Drydwen]

This is an interesting topic for me, as it has been many others.

My real name is Sara, it means Princess in Hebrew, and I loathe my entire name. My middle name especially. People always mispell my first and last name, or completely hear my last name wrong, so I often have to spell it out for them.

For a long time, I actually wanted to change my name to Aurora Rose, after one of my story characters I write with. However, I no longer want to change my name to that. Aura was suiting for a nickname, but only for a time. The name I use on here, Aurabora, is actually a nickname an ex boyfriend of mine gave me, in short for Aurora Borealis. I love both the northern and southern lights, despite never seeing them in real life. This account was also made before I realized what I wanted to change my name to.

One day, I just decided to look around for Nature/Celtic sounding names. And that's when I found the name I wanted. Drydwen, which I assume is pronounced drey-dwen, (though it may be dru-dwen, since it is a sister name to Drudwen). I began to change everything online that I could to use this name, Drydwen. And then I found a last name, I wanted to use, Eleri. So for now, I use Drydwen Eleri whenever I can (except for things that would require a real name for ordering or such). Drydwen is Welsh for Starling, and Eleri is a River Name, I believe. The middle name I would choose is Avalon, because I have always been immensely drawn to the Arthurian legends, and the island of Avalon, plus the name is beautiful to me.

So when I can, I am probably going to change my name to Drydwen Avalon Eleri. Though here in the States, I am sure it will get me some insanely funny looks. But so far, just using it as a nickname and online, it feels far more fitting than any other name that I have used before.