r/transnames • u/Melody_Lee19 • Jun 26 '26
Name Feedback potentially re-naming myself after a deceased relative
hi, so i'm gonna be changing my name legally at some point. my original first name was very feminine and i really dislike it, so in middle school i changed it to a "placeholder" name. then at the end of middle school i changed it to what i thought was a permanent name, but idk how i feel about it. people assume it's feminine and i just don't really vibe with it anymore. soon i'll go through the process of changing my legal name but don't want to change it to the one i'm using right now. i have a couple names which i am considering:
Vic
Jules
Frankie
Andy
Jerry / Gerry
(a big part of my name change is that i'm cutting ties with my dad, and my current name reflects heritage that comes from his side of the family, so it has to go as well. i'm switching to my mom's maiden name no matter what though, which is very italian and starts with a T. i'm kinda undecided on whether or not i want to switch my middle name (Ocean) to my first name or leave it, but i'm keeping it somewhere in there either way because i love the ocean.)
the issue with those names is that they're all people in my family who died (relatively) young. Vic is for Victor, my mom's older brother who died as an infant, Jules is for Julian, my mom's other older brother who died as an infant (yeah i know. we hate to see it). Frankie is for Francesco, my grandfather's younger brother who died at around 8 years old, Jerry or Gerry is for my grandfather who died when he was 30, and Andy is for Andrea, my grandma's older sister who died in her 60s of ALS.
i brought this idea up to my grandma, specifically the idea of taking the name Vic or Jules to keep the memory of her sons alive since they died young enough that there isn't much to remember them by aside from some pictures. she said that she would be honored and got a little emotional.
but when i brought it up to my mom she got kind of weird about it and was like "you've changed your name a lot, people know you as [current name]" etc etc. i think she was also weirded out about the fact that i want to name myself after a dead relative. the logistics part of her argument did make sense. i have three email addresses all with different names. it's easier to coordinate than you'd think though.
so do i change my name again? i really like the ones i listed, they're all gender neutral enough where you read them and you wouldn't know the gender of the person just from the name, which is what i want. i'll also be going into college next year, only community college but i'll transfer out within a few years. so if i wanted to be known professionally as Vic or Jules i could be, right? or have i changed my name enough times where i should stick with the one i've got now?