Every transgender person who goes into transition makes a choice about the name. Sometimes the name is gender neutral and is not changed. In other cases the name is slightly modified, but it is also possible that a completely new name is chosen.
My daughter was named Emma. Definitely not a boy’s name, so it became clear pretty quickly that it really had to be a different name. It was important to me that it be a name that my boyfriend and I felt good about as parents. So we, as a family, started looking for another name.
That turned out to be a quest that we all have fond memories of today. Get name books from the library and scour websites for names. You come across the craziest names. We once saw the name Praxis, which immediately led to the joke that his brother should be called Gamma.
On a Friday afternoon I was sitting on the couch with – then still – Emma looking for names when we saw the name Sietse. We both liked the name. He was waiting for his brother and father. We told them the name and they also liked the name a lot. And then suddenly we had chosen a name together that had to remain a secret for a while.
Well this is our story and every family has a different story. Children also sometimes choose a name that the parent does not like. Then in my opinion as a parent you have a choice in what you do. Either you let it go under the guise of ‘If my child is happy, so am I’ or you look for another name together. As far as I’m concerned, you are certainly not at the mercy of what your child wants. If you are pregnant, you also choose a name with care, so that is also allowed in this situation. And you see, the joint search for another name can also be a lot of fun.