Worthless Amy Trivia – My Name

I swear ….. I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find it anywhere …. so …. maybe I just imagined I wrote it …. which means….. it is now ….. today’s topic.

I find it fascinating ….

How we come up with our names …..

Often there is an interesting story behind it ….

And even with my closer friends, I know so little of the stories …..

Well …. settle back kids ….. you’re going to hear mine …

Let’s just start out with a quickie list of all the girl names I have referred to myself as at one time or another:

Tina, Daphne, Tricia, Courtney, Tricia, Carolyn, Katherine, Amy ….

And in that order too !!

Tina started when I was about 6 years old …. Daphne was just a summer name when I was 9 or 10 …. I stuck with Trica for a heckuva long time …. now that I think about it …. probably for more than half my life … I kept going back to it …. Courtney was a name I liked when I was 25 ….. but I had one of the closest almost caught experiences of my life as Courtney … and promptly purged and dispensed with all things Court …. so I reverted back to Tricia until I was about ….. 35 …. that’s when things got serious ….

‘Cause though all of the names I had used in the past were cute …. they were a bit on the too girlish-girly name side for me (with the exception of Courtney) …. especially Tricia which seemed to be the default name for most purposes …

And at that point in my life …. I was thinking …. yep …. I’ve really got to consider just going for it ….

Now …. I would have personally preferred to let my parents name me …. and use the name they would have given me if I had been born with a female bod to match this wwk female inner noggin’ …… soooo …. I had to go fishing for information …..

When the opportunity presented itself …. I broached the topic without creating suspicion and tiptoed around the name issue …. used a little misdirection …. and reminisced with my parents about how when my brother was born, I didn’t like the name they gave him …. I had decided on his name and that was what it was supposed to be (apparently I threw quite the fit when then didn’t go with my choice …. for the record …. I wanted my brother to be named Jeffrey …. oh, and for the record …. my parents made the right choice dissing my preference and going with theirs …. it definitely fits him better πŸ™‚ ) ….. so then we were going on other name possibilities for him …. other boy names ….. other girl names …. YES !! Success …. safely on the topic ….. damn I’m goooood ….. and then I tossed out the critical question …. “What about me?” …. “Any other names you were considering for me?” ….. eeekk !!! …. I’m so excited !!! …. The moment of truth …. “No, none, your name was the only name we had picked, there weren’t any other names, we didn’t have any girl names because I could just tell you were going to be a boy, nope …. your name was easy …. it was always going to be Joe Hairdy” ….. damn ….. that’s a bummer ….. not only did I get rejected with no possible names ….. but mom reaffirmed that I was always going to be a boy …. oh well …… guess it’s going to be my choice ……

So then I checked out some thoughts on what Andrea had to say at TS Roadmap …. got some more of her wonderfully useful ideas ….. and then I decided on my approach.

First, I wanted a name that was clearly female;
Second, I wanted a name that was fairly common, ’cause … come on …. I wanna blend πŸ™‚ ;
Third, I wanted a name that would work comfortably for me in the business arena, let’s face it …. some cutesy, ditzy sounding names are going to make things a bit more challenging for you in some situations …. at least in getting even a modest level of respect;
Fourth, Not only did it have to be clearly female, not too cutesy, but it had to have a good flavoring of girl …. ’cause that does match a lot of my personality; and,
Fifth, It couldn’t be a name that already “belonged” to a good friend or family member.

Whew …. I’m one picky beaaatttchhh !!

And then ….. it had to be something that fit my “age group” …. I mean, some of the names you puppies have out there now ….. I’d love to have …. but when I was born …. no one had ever heard of them !!! Just wouldn’t work with my whole blend-in philosphy …..

So I went to the Social Security Administration’s list for the top baby names of various years and decades ….. I went to the year I was born …. 1963 ….. and then started scanning the list ….. selecting names that met my five criteria out of the top 250 girl names for that year ….. I did the same for years 1962 and 1964. (Note: Since I went through that exercise, the list I used has been removed from the Social Security Administration’s site and has been replaced with other similar lists summarized by decade, not year, equally useful though.)

That’s where I got my core list of names from which I’d choose.

Now what I did next was either ….

1. Me avoiding wanting to take responsibility for choosing a “girl” name for myself (still experiencing significant denial at that time of my life);
2. Me experiencing maybe a Bailey type sexual fantasy triggered not by the thought of having a female body, but ….. having a female name …. oooohhhh, ahhhhhh, feels soooo good, must ….. drag …. outttttt …… the proceYESSSSS !!!! ; or,
3. Me being a total dork and wanting to make my name selection a major production.

Anywhoooose ……

I had my own NAME Finals Tournament …..

And I built myself an elaborate Excel spreadsheet to randomly select the winners ….. names went against each other …. worked it down to the Sa-weet Sixteen ….. then the Elite Eight …. then The Final Four …. The Finals ….

These were the names that made the Sa-Weet Sixteen ….

Barbara, Amy, Melissa, Sarah, Carolyn, Angela, Karen, Teresa, Vicky, Katherine, Abby, Emily, April, Cheryl, Holly, Laura

I really, really like both Rebecca and Elizabeth. Rebecca was my mom’s mother’s name (my maternal grandmother) and figuring even back then that my mom would have a problem with this, though I really liked the idea of being named after my grandmother, because she was cool …. I thought my mom would have a problem with it … so I did not include that on the list. Elizabeth would be sucha cool name to me … but it was my paternal great-grandmother’s name and she treated my grandfather like krap and there was no way I’d be a namesake for her …. so that name wasn’t included on the list.

There’s no question that on the list of the Sa-Weet Sixteen …. there were some names that I liked a lot more than others …. but each met my criteria ….. so my new name was going to come from that list.

And after this entire production …. the winner was Carolyn. So that was the name I used when I was finally serious about addressing my transsexualism. Unfortunately, it’s also the name of a casual acquintance that both Singer and I know …. and though I really liked the name …. it just made me feel uncomfortable using it ….. so ….. it had to change ……

The means the runner-up got the crown …. Katherine …. though I went by Kathy …. I liked it …. but the more I started using it ….. it really just didn’t feel right for me …. I never bonded with the name ….. and I tired of being asked “Is that spelled with a C or K? ‘IE’ or ‘Y’?”

So ……

I just picked a name that felt right for me ….. and that was …. AMY !!!! πŸ™‚

Go Amy Go !! πŸ™‚ Raa Raa Raa !! πŸ™‚

And from the moment I started using it, it felt right, and I can’t imagine having a different name …. it just seems to fit me. It’s probably a little more girlish in the business setting that I’d have preferred, but still …. it works …..

And that dear viewers …… is how I ended up Amy. πŸ™‚

Oh …. and just to confirm your suspicion that I’m a total dweeb ….

In order to be able to spin a nice, little, blending, white lie history …. my legal first name is going to be Amelia, but I’ll go by Amy.

You know …. so in some situations I can say …. “My name is actually Amelia, but the boys in 1st grade started calling me Amelia Ear-Fart ….. so I switched to Amy and have been using it ever since. So please, call me Amy.”

Whatadork πŸ™‚

Stuff that ended up on the editing room floor:

My middle name is Jill for whatever that’s worth. I haven’t decided on my last name yet. I’ll probably take my current first name as my last name, my current last name is too unique to fit in with my blend approach. I never really was hung up on keeping my girl initials the same as my boy initials, in fact, I definitely didn’t want to …. felt that might make it harder for people that know boy me let go of the boy me because in some ways … the similarity with my past name would be a constant reminder of the old boy me.

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2 Comments

  1. oh, and trivia
    is one latin word i know!
    a trivia is the place where three roads converge;
    people would stand around there
    and make small talk…

  2. hmmm…
    sounds as if you want to
    Amelia-rate
    problems with your name…
    πŸ™‚

    “Amy” is a very nice name,
    but i never gave it much consideration for myself because, you know, it’s just not ME
    (in fact, it’s a-me)
    πŸ™‚

    that whole process is YOU
    deffin-it-lee you…

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