To change my name...again

[halloumi2019]

Long story short, I hated my birth name, ended up changing my full name by deed poll when I was 22. Changed it everywhere, updated all ID, reintroduced myself etc.

I have been going by this name for the past year. I’m 23 now, and to be honest I don’t really like my ‘new’ first name. I just don’t feel like it suits me/haven’t got used to it. Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer it over my old name, but an adult name change is really difficult. I didn’t want to use the name of anyone I was close to, so ended up using an uncommon first and middle name. I still get people struggling to spell/pronounce them which is reminiscent of my old name. I’m starting to feel embarrassed about introducing myself and saying my name again. Some of my friends/family didn’t adjust well to the change which doesn’t help.

I don’t want to revert to my old name, I would change it to something else. But I don’t even know what lol. Obviously I didn’t want to change my name constantly and be fickle, but I do sort of regret the first name I chose. Would appreciate any thoughts!

Are you a GoT fan??

It’s a nice name but as time goes on, I don’t think it suits me. But I’m not going to do anything major soon.

Honestly the paperwork was fine, for me in 2017 anyway. Took a week for my passport to arrive and by that point, my name had already been changed everywhere else. I’m young enough to not have many commitments eg mortgages, and most companies don’t need to see you in person to make the change. Minimal faff and I never carry the deed poll around.

Only thing would be the name on my degree being slightly different, as the name I‘m considering is a letter out from my middle name. I would never go back to my old name so no worries there!

I have the same with my children's names. Baby name regret. I only really accepted my first borns name when she was 5. The second childs name has grown on me now she's six! It's a big thing choosing a name. I really would stick with it.

Honestly I’d stick with it.

Aria is a lovely name.

Really you think of other people’s names as suiting them because they’ve always had that name, it’s just a question of time I think.

halloumi I'm not very close to my family, but they just accepted it. Didn't say anything about it to my face anyway.
My name change has come about after a childhood/young adulthood of being part of an abusive family, and after lots of therapy and going low contact deciding I wanted a new name to signify a new start, and acknowledge the fact that I have changed so much.

@Treaclebee I am NC with my family too for similar reasons so can definitely relate. Congrats on the name change, it’s such a massive step forward

It's so expensive to change your passport though. Do you have one? If not, change it now. If you do, wait until the passport is about to expire and change it 😂

@AMAM8916 Haha yep that’s another thing, if I get a new passport it would be my 3rd passport in 5 years so I really don’t need to pay for a new one whilst the current one is nowhere near expiry.

@flouncyfanny this might sound weird but I didn’t want to take the names of anyone that I actually knew/was close with! So I chose something else even though I liked other names. The name that I have in mind is more common.

A lady I worked with for 8 years introduced herself as x. We all called her this name. One day she interviewed for an internal post under her real name, completely different! She said please still call me x as normal. Why don't you do this? Just tell people (apart from drs, bank etc) to please call me x and keep your actual registered name on all legal documents. By the way I love aria.