Would you change your name if you changed your religion/ Spiritual Beliefs

[lotuslily]

Recently i felt a religion that I was semi-practicing/ not practicing for most of my life. I was born into this religion so never chose it for myself, it was just something I followed because it was part of our social circle/family's culture and value system. Recently I decided to leave completely and have started following elements of a different religion/ spirituality. My current name reminds me of my old beliefs as it identifies me as being part of my old religion. I feel like it is keeping me locked into the past and i feel a need to change the name to reflect my new path. However, i'm quite reluctant to go ahead and legally change it, incase i make the wrong name choice and regret it. What do you think? Do you think it is a bad idea to change it or is changing it a natural step forward into the new path I have chosen for myself? How would you go about choosing a new "spiritually aligned" name for yourself?

I wouldn't change. You are still you, with all the history that brings. We are all on a path through life with many twists and turns and I think we should look fondly on all of our past, good and bad. It makes us who we are.

You don't have to take any formal steps to use a different name, so there's no reason you couldn't adopt a new name, see how it feels and then either keep it or revert (or change to another).

If you did decide to keep it there are steps you could take to evidence that's the name you use and get documents updated, but equally you could just be known by the new name without any obligation to change the name on documentation. (You can't change your birth certificate or qualifications either way, it would only be current documents like bank cards or driving licence).

@YellowPostItPad I understand where you are coming from. I feel like I haven't fully made peace with the past and changing it is my way of showing myself that I am freeing myself from it. People have always chosen things for me that they thought were 'appropriate decisions' for people following the religion. Changing it makes me feel like I am giving myself a new start and allowing myself to make my own decisions i guess, but maybe it's the wrong way to cope with the past.

@user42579522 That's great to know! I think trialling it for a few months would be a good idea, just to see how it feels before doing anything drastic like changing it legally.

Also, we all have different views on names so it's about what works for you in your life not what I or anybody else thinks. Your current name won't be changed in any historical documents or records so it would still be part of your story whatever you do in the present.

I was listening to the grown up guide to oceans on Audible and it discussed how dolphins all develop their own unique identifying whistle in their first year of life that serves like a human name but chosen by themselves not others. I think the idea of choosing your own name can be quite meaningful. But equally there are other ways to take meaning from a name that was given to you etc.

@user42579522 That's how I feel as well. I think that choosing something that makes me feel more like myself everytime someone says my name, feels quite empowering and liberating. The name that was chosen for me reminds me of the version of me that my family wanted me to be and for some reason I cannot remove that from my mind everytime someone says my name. It is so linked to the past and past identity/ expectations of others. I wonder if that will change with time and whether or not I will grow to love it and stop associating it to the past.

The True Self has no name!!

@noego Isn't it still an important part of how you view yourself within the world though? I've always read that your name carries vibrations and energy which can influence the course of your life. If I feel like my name has negative memories attached to it, I worry that this will have a negative impact on my life. What are your thoughts?

I changed my full name at the same time as leaving the church I grew up with, though the two weren't entirely related (I'd been determine to rid myself of my birth certificate name since I was a preteen, choosing to leave the church took a few more years but had interrelated issues to both).

I still think of child-me as my birth certificate name and my current name as the person I've become - we don't call a butterfly a caterpillar, but still know one becomes the other. It helped me accept some of my past (still a work in progress on that) and feel more my own person that isn't defined by a term/name connected with all those negative associations.

It's not the right choice for everyone who wants that kind of change and it isn't going to solve everything or make as clean a break as some of might like with this sort of thing, but it can be a great choice to take and really, what the worst that can happen if it's the wrong choice - you change your name again? It is a bit of a faff to get it all done legally (more so with immigration documents involved), but when I got ID in my name and had someone else say it, yeah, that was a great feeling that was worth it.

@BiBabbles Thank you for sharing your story! :) It really helps to see that your experience with your name change was worth it for you and I totally understand where you are coming from. How did you go about choosing a new name with no regrets afterwards? Did you change your surname as well?

I personally feel like it will be a great and liberating thing for me to do for myself and something that give me so much joy and a deeper connection to my inner self. I by no means am trying to delete the past, in fact i value everything that it has taught me, but I also am determined to live the rest of my life being fully myself, giving myself the permission to do that, from my name to other small and big choices.

I think it's fine to change your name of you want but it doesn't sound like you want to do it because you like your new beliefs so much, but rather because you have left your old beliefs behind and become more independent and in control of your choices. So the new name should reflect that not just the new beliefs as those are just part of the changes you are making.

It was a long process which was probably a good thing as I started trying on 'new names' when I was in middle school by just using them in certain spaces (online can be great for that). Some of them were - let's just say they showed my age. I agree with MrsLebowski that pinning a new name to a new religious belief is risky. I did for a time use religious names and that would have been a mistake - I now strive to not put myself without ideology, religious or otherwise, and making it part of my identity would have made growing in new directions harder for me.

Over time, I shifted more towards considering what I view as virtues and my own roots beyond my parents rather than religion. I ended up with a similar format that I used with my kids and I worked on it kinda backwards. Second middle name is an honouring name, first middle is a virtue name (where I'm from, this was often a religious name) and I kept the same initial as my spouse and I have the same the middle initial which is something I like, and my first name I kept the initial as well and found a name that is only a letter different to the one I was given a week after birth, but has a different root and meaning, is said entirely differently (this was important to me, I didn't want to hear the sound of that name applied to me again), has great options for nicknames, and it just clicked. Like the butterfly analogy, so much was different, but I'm really the same person just having grown out of and left behind some of it behind.

Yes I changed my surname as well, but I was also marrying around the time I was working on changing the rest of my name and, due to a mix of concerns about how it would look to immigration officials at the Home Office when applying for a spousal visa and dealing with my now spouse's brother getting a terminal diagnosis, I took the easy option of making what is my spouse's birth surname my own as well. We had discussed creating a new surname and without those factors it would possibly be what I took as my second middle name, which is a variant of a name that showed up in both of our families that took on a lot of meaning for me (it's a type of stone, the whole strength and creation under pressure and so on fit so well), and then I would have likely chosen a different second middle honouring name.

When you have detached from the dogma, the programming, the conditioning that created the identity you will realise that a name is nothing. It is just a label!!
What you're seeking to do is create a new label to forget the old label. Therefore create a new identity. Is this sustainable?

When you have discarded all the layers of indoctrination by parents, relatives, teachers, politicians, religion, and society in general, what is left?

Buddha called it emptiness but in Truth it cannot be labelled. This is the authentic, the pure, the innocent, the divine within.
It does not have to be created it is already there, let it reveal itself to you.

Does it have an energy? Yes!! It can be described as contented, peaceful, calm and it is unconditional love.

You are embarking on a search for the Truth!! Find that and you're desire for a new label will diminish.

Read/study the non dualistic sages. The teachers of Advaita Vedanta.

"To find the beloved, you must become the beloved" Rumi

I think it depends on the name, using male names if I was leaving Islam and I was called Mohammed I probably would because that name isn't used in other faiths.

On the other hand my mother was baptised and confirmed as an adult, she took new baptismal and confirmation names but never actually used them, actually she might have used them when she got married, but only in the church, not the legal part.

@MrsLebowski I totally agree with you. I want to choose something that signifies a new beginning away from the past and want to avoid boxing myself into another religious identity. I would want my new name be relevant to me no matter what direction I take it life, so I'm likely to choose something very neutral and non-religious as the new name.

@BiBabbles Thank you for sharing that :) Glad to hear that the process was so worth it for you in the end. I also think that the idea of choosing a name based on virtues or values is a great way forward, rather than a religious name.

@noego That was beautifully said and I understand what you are saying. I will look into Advaita Vedanta. What you said: "What you're seeking to do is create a new label to forget the old label. Therefore create a new identity. Is this sustainable?"

So much time spent, seeking what one is.
So much better to understand what one is not.
Then what remains is pure and What one is!!

What other people think of you is their (indoctrinated) perception, not yours whether you have a label or not.

@noego It makes a lot of sense... How does one still feel connected to the things that matter to that person without placing any labels on oneself? e.g. how do you feel a connection to Buddhism without a Buddhist name, how do you ignore the distraction/ label of a name from your previous religion?

I have been so used to labels all my life, not having a label at all or even having the 'wrong label' makes me feel naked or inauthentic... Like if your religion is x, your name should reflect that (these are the things I tell myself, and deep down I know they are not necessary steps to take and i just need to be whoever i need to be without the need to pay attention to labels)

In order to make myself feel connected to an idea or a belief, I always feel the need to change my environment, name, how I dress etc in order to feel stronger within that belief. If the name, the environment, the people I surround myself with, do not reflect that belief, I feel like I am looking in the mirror at the wrong picture, which is distressing.

(these are the things I tell myself, and deep down I know they are not necessary steps to take and i just need to be whoever i need to be without the need to pay attention to labels)

Then drop the labels! Drop the concept of religion and other concepts!! After all that is all they are!! Even drop the concepts of names around religion and philosophies!! They are not required for One to be Authentic.

Buddha wasn't a Buddhist
Christ wasn't a Christian
Lao Tzu wasn't a Taoist