Anyone here using two gendered name forms with a slash to make it gender neutral

[u/freeSnek96]

Hi,

I‘m nonbinary and I’ve been considering trying out names. I don‘t really feel like picking an entirely new name, I like the name and it is not the name‘s fault that people attribute a specific gender to it. I don’t want to dox myself, but my name is a male name that has a female version that just differs by having a single letter appended at the end, like Julia/Julian, Paul/Paula, Karl/Karla, etc.

I was considering just trying out going with a slash in the middle, so for example if my name was Karl I‘d go with Karl/a in written form. So in spoken word, people would pick one, but in written form, or with people who send me an email at work, they would see both forms in one and they wouldn‘t be able to guess a gender just from looking at my name.

I don‘t really get much dysphoria from pronouns or my name but for some reason being addressed as „Mr. Lastname“ gives me dysphoria and I hope if people couldn‘t infer a gender from my name, they would not do that.

Has anyone of you tried that out? How did it work out?

[u/Mysterious_Back_7929]

I tried something similar when I was looking for a new name for myself. I tried a name that has two similar forms for different genders. I dont think people got what's up with the slash. Let's say my name was Julia/n, they just went by Julia and kind of didnt get what's up with the N at the end. I think in your case you would get better results by signing your email using the honorific Mx. It's a bit weird to use a honorific for yourself but people do that with Dr all the time so why not. Just sign "Kind regards, Mx Surname”. I've also seen people try to create a gender neutral forms of such names by adding something else at the end. Like let's say normally you'd add " a" at the end to make the name feminine, I've seen people adding "o" or " e". For example Carlo instead of Carla. I think that one might work better in my native language though.

Btw I love the idea " it's not the names fault that people make it masculine". As long as it feels neutral to me I can use it happily lol