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Writer's Block: What is your name?
Apr. 8th, 2009 10:34 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]I do have another name. Several of them, if we include online names. My given name is not the name I use - my "real" name isn't a secret, but it's not the name I prefer. The name I use is a man's name. It's a hick man's name, for that matter. It's my first initial and the first two letters of my last name, and it was suggested by an old work email address. It's a better fit than the girlie name I never liked, even though I am a fairly girlie girl. The only people who actually know me who don't call me by this hillbilly/hobo name are the members of my biological family. My relationship with my family is strained, at best, so the fact that they don't call me the right name is just another reason to seethe and fester every time we interact.
It's surprising how many people take offense at my preferred name when I am introduced. Older people tend to become very irritable and often challenge me on whether or not I have the right to be called whatever pleases me rather than a gender-appropriate name. I was getting a license for my scooter at the DMV the other day and had to sign an affadavit stating that my preferred name = same person as given name since the scooter shop wrote the preferred version on all the legal documents. The DMV lady suggested that I put the preferred name in quotes rather than bothering with a legal change, but I pointed out to her that there are too many people who won't call me what I like to be called if they know there's a girl name available. Based on her expression, I think she would probably be one of those people.
I have a pen name picked out for when I finish my book(s). I love the name, but it's not one I could actually use in everyday life due to vague and complicated feelings about its propriety/plausibility. Unlike my preferred name, the pen name has no relationship at all to my given name and, despite my dislike of my given name, it's what I went by for the first 30 or so years of my life. A derivative of that name makes sense to me in a way that a completely new name cannot. It's like my nose: I hate my profile, but I've had the same one for so long now that there doesn't seem to be much point in having it altered. I'm still going to be the person who hates her nose regardless of what that nose looks like.
It's surprising how many people take offense at my preferred name when I am introduced. Older people tend to become very irritable and often challenge me on whether or not I have the right to be called whatever pleases me rather than a gender-appropriate name. I was getting a license for my scooter at the DMV the other day and had to sign an affadavit stating that my preferred name = same person as given name since the scooter shop wrote the preferred version on all the legal documents. The DMV lady suggested that I put the preferred name in quotes rather than bothering with a legal change, but I pointed out to her that there are too many people who won't call me what I like to be called if they know there's a girl name available. Based on her expression, I think she would probably be one of those people.
I have a pen name picked out for when I finish my book(s). I love the name, but it's not one I could actually use in everyday life due to vague and complicated feelings about its propriety/plausibility. Unlike my preferred name, the pen name has no relationship at all to my given name and, despite my dislike of my given name, it's what I went by for the first 30 or so years of my life. A derivative of that name makes sense to me in a way that a completely new name cannot. It's like my nose: I hate my profile, but I've had the same one for so long now that there doesn't seem to be much point in having it altered. I'm still going to be the person who hates her nose regardless of what that nose looks like.
