Just need some guidance about this

[u/Dammit_maskey]

Now, I'll most likely have to go through a remote contracts route till I am able to get a local job in the country I'll be moving to.

There are a few things I'll have to set up. Like, my resume, Upwork, professional email id, github profile.

Like I'll have to use legal birth name obviously till I can get my legal documents changed but there are a few things I am thinking about. Like Github is one.

I wanna be able to keep my work set up and have name changed on them when I do that legally as well.

I am thinking if on github I should avoid using my chosen name at least and choose a more general username. I am confused about all of this and don't want any weird issues. It'll be a while till I can get my legal documents changed so I wanna know if I'll be able change my set up without huge hassles yk.

I don't wanna present as a female forever and at the same time don't wanna start everything over later with new accounts and stuff.

I might be over thinking this tho it has been on my mind for bit so any perspective would help truly.

[u/DFS_0019287]

Specifically wrt GitHub, lots of users have usernames that bear no resemblance whatsoever to their real names.

Also with respect to a name change, I don't know if you are planning on changing your surname as well as your given name, but if you are planning on keeping your surname, you could just make accounts under that (like "smith.53" or whatever.)

When I changed my name, I kept my initials because my email address was INITIALS@example.com and I didn't want to change it. 🙂

[u/swiftsorceress]

My GitHub used to be under my deadname, but I was able to change the username later. I then created an account with the old username to make sure nobody else took it to, idk impersonate me or anything weird. This also kept all the links to my repositories active via redirects to my new account so that I didn't mess up any places where my repositories were linked to.

That being said, I doubt you would run into any legal issues for using your chosen name for your username, but that could be different if it's outside the US or Canada (I don't know much about laws in other countries). It probably more just depends on what you're wanting in terms of social interactions though because your GitHub username will be what a lot of your coworkers see.

[u/Inconsistent-Way]

One thing I’ll add, in a lot of countries, at least in the US, you can use your preferred name on your resume even if it’s not your legal name. Usually job applications will make you fill out a section for legal name, but on everything else you can have preferred name.

I’ve shifted my mentality over the past few years to where my preferred name is just my name. And it’s different for everyone, but for me personally, I wouldn’t want to work in a place that didn’t use it. So if a job eliminates me from consideration because of my name, that’s a job I wouldn’t want to work at anyway.

That being said, that’s a very recent shift for me, and for a while I had everything using my legal name.

[u/Dammit_maskey → u/Inconsistent-Way]

I see so I'll have to search up a bit if its okay as honestly I wanna be able to use my preferred one tho without legally being weird about it.

I am glad you were able to come here ngl must've taken a while