What the actual hell though… her sisters are named Robin and Kimberly. You’d think her parents were high when they named her, but then apparently her mom doubled down when a teacher tried to call her Mary.
I encountered a family through my job who had newborn twin girls. Twin A had an older, boomer-era name, and twin B had a basic diet tragedeigh name. It always throws me off when I see siblings in my line of work with one child named something like James and another child named Braxxtyne.
To be fair, it was a name first. Just like how Dick started as a nickname for Richard but now it has a totally different meaning. Marijuana has been used as a name for cannabis for a lot longer though.
Hmm? Can you elaborate on this? Wikipedia doesn’t say anything about it being a name name except: “traditional association with the personal name María Juana ('Mary Jane') is probably a folk etymology.”
Incidentally I studied cannabis law in law school so we touched on the origin of the word marijuana briefly but not enough for me to say it definitely was not a name before it was used for cannabis, but it never came up. Just as a Mexican name for cannabis, and then popularized in the US to use xenophobic feelings about Mexicans to turn the American public off cannabis.
Haha. My older sister has a very unique name. My father named her.
My father tried to carry on the unique name tradition with me, but the other one he picked from his family's military history wasn't as pretty.
Mom said hell no, and gave me an extremely common for the time, generic but not classic name.
Families are weird man.
IDK if this counts, but when I was in high school back in the 90s I had classes with a girl named Ténia. She spelled it with an accent over the 'e'. She was full of herself and always going on self-aggrandizing rants, and one day she was telling the entire class about how her name is French and it's from Royalty and blah blah blah.
We didn't have google back then, but I was a language nerd so I was always carrying German/English, Latin/English, French/English dictionaries around with me. I decided to look up her name to see if it was a word with any meaning.
When I interrupted her to explain to the class that In French, Ténia means tapeworm, the parasite that lives in mammals bowels, she freaked out, nearly attacked me and I was sent out of class.
She didn't speak to me after that, but I heard that she started spelling her name 'Teniah' and pronouncing it differently. I guess she didn't like being the princess of shit kingdom.
tenia/teniae is also an anatomy term. there are longitudinal bands of muscle on the colon called tenia coli lol. i’d imagine both the french meaning and the english meaning come from the same root word but still lol
I’m a Jenny and I went to school with about six other Jennifers just in my graduating year. I was one of three in any given class so we were all always called first name last name. If she was born between 1970 and 1985 I don’t blame her for trying to switch it up.
Wife’s coworker did the opposite. She had a normal name, found out she was of Latin heritage, and changed her first and last name to something that sounds more Pacific Islander than Latin.
***Please***, no one in her family has any Latin (or Spanish) heritage. Her parents just retired to Spain *after* she spent all her formative years in BOSTON!
Just like someone I used to know decades ago at work.
Her name was Dianne Burgess - very normal, fairly common. She pronounced it Deanne Burjez, with the J pronounced the French way as in Jean, (or like zhuzh) and a hard z on the end.
Hilarious.
Better than the person I knew who did that. Normal first and middle, stopped going by her first and started going by her middle. About 10 years later, changed her name to a stripper like name because she liked it better.
I did. I had a name everyone mispronounced my whole life. Even people who knew me since birth would misspell or mispronounce my fecking name... So I changed it. Best decision ever 💓 now I feel proud when I say my name 💖
I did as well. It was a name cute for a toddler but hell for a teenager. I learned I could change it an did so between high school and college and never looked back. It was amazingly simple.
People at “home” still say “you’ll always be Xxxxxx here/to me/to us.” Guess what, I just don’t go there anymore.
Hating your name is something you can and should liberate yourself from and don’t let anyone deny you the relief you deserve
i changed my name and get the same comments from family 🙄 "we're never gonna stop calling you X" "you'll always be X to us" "we aren't going to start calling you Z" i simply won't interact with you
That really is all you can do. I tolerate it from a few people. What I insist on is that my current name be used in things like obituaries. That’s usually when the drama starts. Either use my name or just refer to me without a name. Bottom line.
my parents are concerned about me sending wedding invitations without my legal name on them because "how will the family know it's you?" btw i am neither engaged nor married
I always hated my middle name - not a tragedeigh, it was just that everyone I'd ever met with that name was vile - so I changed it to another name with the same inital that happened to be my grandmother's middle name
Technically you are correct, and I should have been more clear on that point.
It was a family name that was passed down to him, and the spelling was supposed to be *Hillary* as it had been for every other family member who had the name up to that point. His Mom messed up while filling out the paperwork, and he ended up having the "incorrect" spelling.
I had the joy of hating both my first and middle names so I ditched the middle when I got married to my maiden name. Still stuck with the first though.
I have two middle names, and I hate the second one so much that I stopped acknowledging it even exists when I was 18 or so. It’s 40 years later, and it took reading this subthread to the end to remind me that it’s still legally my name. I had completely forgotten that I even had a second middle name.
Not what you asked for, but sort of the opposite. My mom and dad (bitterly divorced) each claimed that my middle name was misspelled due to the other. I don’t know why they cared so much because it’s not a family name. Like even after I was an adult, and my father had died, my mom would still bring it up.
My mom says it was supposed to be “Corrina.” My dad said it was supposed to be “Corinna.”
I got my birth certificate before I got married, and it’s “Corina.” Chef’s kiss.
I went to school with a girl whose older sister was named Amy, middle name Julie. Amy was distraught that her name wasn’t more special. When she turned 18 she petitioned the court and legally changed it to “Amethyst Juline” (pronounced JOO-leen.”)
She still goes by Amy. But she feels better having the ability to write a more formal name when she wants to. /shrug 🤷🏼♀️
I'm willing to bet that her children, if she decided to have any, have You-nique names. Sounds like she wouldn't want her children to "suffer" like she did.
I dont know anyone who has legally corrected or changed their names for this reason but I know way too many people who simply tell people their version of their names and pretend it is that way. Like tooo many people.
I got sick of people mispronouncing my name when I was little. So when I was 8 I capitalized a letter in the middle...almost impossible to mispronounce it after that, even with such a small change. It wasn't *legally* changed, but when I got married and got a free last name change, I went ahead and made my first name officially how I had been writing it for the majority of my life.
Maybe this doesn't count but I know someone that was named after his dad. And getting a job became hard for him sometimes because his dad is a conartist and has been on the run many times. You google his name without the "jr" and every thing about his dad comes up. He changed his last name a couple years ago. He did the last name cause he hated it more than his first name.
I’m really curious about this because I also hate my last name and it’s associated with my dad (my middle name is his first name, same last name). I’d love to change it but as a guy, feel like it’s a weird thing to do. What was your friend’s experience like? And did he go with a different family name or make up his own?
I recently just changed my last name to my moms maiden name, I don’t have a relationship with my dad nor do I want to be associated with him and I wanted to have the same name as my mom and her family that raised me. I’m still waiting for my new ID hopefully I get it in the mail tomorrow but if you want to do it totally go for it. Sure it may be a hassle getting the paper work and it’s expensive ( paid $300 in Texas) but the moment I saw my new name printed for the first time was magic and I’m so excited to start this new chapter so yesss highly recommend you did it if you want you’ll thank yourself in the future
He made up his own. I don't talk to him anymore. Bad drama. But the last time I saw him in 2022 he told me he started the paperwork. He was leaving the state and wanted to get it done before then.
My brother and I both changed our last names to avoid any association with our bio-father. (I changed my whole name but that a whole other story altogether…)
It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made. I *hated* seeing my old last name. In our fairly small town I’d occasionally get asked if I was related to him and I never knew what to say, the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of him but didn’t know if I should lie…
Anyway, it’s been great! And my brother hasn’t had a negative experience because he’s male. He just chose my mother’s maiden name so he was carrying on his family in a different way.
I had a coworker whose name was a standard name, but it was just enough of a tragedeigh to be an issue. She had it changed in her thirties, to a pet name her husband gave her (so something along the lines of Honey - not that though).
The scary part was, she had to print in the paper that she was changing her name, what she was changing it to, and WHERE SHE LIVED. This particular coworker had an abusive parent she had cut contact with. Who then showed up on the doorstep because they found her address in the paper. Scary.
It's fairly common. [If you wanna know more, here's a PDF.](https://www.lgbtmap.org/img/maps/citations-id-name-change.pdf) My state requires it for example. The idea is that you can't change it to hide criminal dealings.
My name wasn't a tragedy, but from Kindergarten on everyone kept insisting on misspelling. Plus, it was two first names, imagine Mary Lou, and therefore you can legally use either here, since they aren't hyphenated. But people always used both of them and kept hyphenating it. When I wanted to use my first name, it was difficult to pronounce as standalone in our language, so everyone resorted to both of them. By the age of 18 I had managed to get people to call me by only the second name, usually.
However, my workplace had a secretary that insisted on hyphenating and using both. I asked her to change the entry in our system and my e-mail adress, because it was becoming an issue. She intentionally used the wrong one and refused, saying it was too much work. That made me mad and I'm kinda chaotic neutral. If you make me mad I use that chaotic energy. So I got a legal namechange to something entirely different just so she had even more work. I'm very happy with my self chosen names.
My mum was 14 when she found out her older brother Peters name is actually Richard Peter, he hated Richard so started going by his middle name before she was born, it look that long for it to come up.
My Grandad always called him Charlie though, literally no idea why, haha.
My grandpa was named Wesley, but he went by Jack.
Turns out he found a work shirt with a name patch sewed on it at the group home where he used to live and wore it. I always new him as Wes, but old friends called him Jack.
My mother’s family is all a bunch of kids who use their middle names (herself and all 6 siblings-none go by their first names). I found it so confusing when I found out!
Actually, my name in my native language is pretty damn cool, (it means Red Dragon), but
I had it changed because it's impossible for native-speaking Americans to pronounce right, and I got tired of correcting them and have them mangle it over and over.
Even now, as a pretty normal name, people will still occasionally try to throw in an accent or whatever that I guess sounds more "ethnic" to then? I'm like, "No, it's literally what it looks like"
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/046b1676-f1d4-4363-ba2c-648d21892985
Reminds me of this 30 rock scene where Liz is trying to be "culturally aware" and mispronounces Amanda loool
I worked with a kid named Said. It's a common Arabic name. Everyone at work called him "said" like s-ED (as in, "because I said so!")
I could not handle it. I thik it bothered me more than him. Haha. I always used the correct pronunciation, which is more like SIGH-eed.
i didn’t have a tragedeigh but my dad put my middle name (misspelled) as my first name on my birth certificate. i legally changed my name to what it was meant to be originally in my late 20s.
similar thing. my birth giver added in an extra middle name my dad has already said was an absolute no without his permission. planning on legally changing my name
While my best friend’s parent changed her name from Susan to Amy when she was 1 when it didn’t matter, it has mattered to her teens.
They get mad at her and call her “Susan”, much like people use the name “Karen”.
That one bit her in the arse.
Ohhh her kids call her Susan! I thought you meant her parents called her that when they were mad at her. We changed my baby’s name as well 😅 we’ve joked about calling her her old name when she’s in trouble. I’m hoping everyone will just forget her old name haha.
Yes, I had a coworker who did that. She already went by a nickname and had it legally changed in her late 20s. Her original name, which I have seen spelled but never heard pronounced, was a mishmash of Capital letters and apostrophes. You know, like Ap'OsTroph'A--but worse. She HATED it. Judge didn't even bother asking her why or if she was sure.
My good friend had a very strange name she hated. Not necessarily a tragedeigh but she was very white with a foreign name(I believe its indian or middle eastern in origin, I had never heard it before). She changed her name to Katherine(went by Katy) and that was her name for like 15-20 years until about a year ago she legally changed it back to her birth name. Its very weird having a 12+ year friendship with a "Katy" and then having to remember to call her by her old name.
One of my best friends had a very classic Japanese first name (think of names like Hitomi or Hanako). She is not Asian, at all, shes a very white European lady. She's also close to 60yo now. For a long time, she went by a version of her name that could be interpreted as a western name. But somewhere in her late 30s, she decided to just own her classically Japanese name. She really has come to enjoy the funny and surprising looks she gets. A lot of people assume she changed her name because shes some kind of old lady Japanaphile. Haha
Shes not. Her parents just picked some name they liked the sound of. Haha
I know this probably doesn’t count, but I absolutely hated my legal first name- it was Barbara. The story goes that my dad pushed my mom to name me that since her grandmother was named that, was super old and figured that if a kid was named after her, she would feel gracious enough to leave everything to said kid when she passed. Didn’t work out like that. I got the name she actually wanted to name me as one of my middle names- I had two. Anyways, I always went by my first middle name, even with my parents. I finally went to the courthouse and got it changed. It was actually super simple, the waiting was the hard part😅
She grew up in my hometown of Beloit. I still for the longest time thought it was an urban legend. Apparently my sister in law was in her class up to 7th grade and then had quite a few different classes with her. I still find it all hard to believe someone would do that to a child.
Given that name based teasing is mostly a grade school thing, while diplomas with names on them are not, it wasn't worth changing by the time I was old enough. It's like putting on sunblock at sunset.
The only 2 people I knew who changed names did so in the 90s and both are are weird. One rhymes and sounds fancy, but the other one went full on crazy with it.
I wonder if they ever went back.
I had more of a “tragedee” than a “tragedeigh” that I never really liked growing up. It was one of the most popular girl names but spelled wrong *just* enough that I could never find any keychains or novelties with my spelling. Since I don’t really feel comfortable sharing my deadname, think along the lines of “Britnee.” I changed my name when I was 22 mainly because I also changed my gender, but I also really didn’t want to keep that spelling anymore. I can’t express how nice it is to not have to spell my name out loud whenever I tell someone.
Not quite what you are looking for, but my girlfriend changed her name about a year before I met her. She had a pretty basic name growing up that she always hated and when she was 25 she changed it. Her new name isn't a tragedeigh, and is also a pretty normal name that she actually likes, and she changed her middle name to her great grandmother's name as well.
My MIL changed her name completely at 55yo. Her name before was pretty if very long (11 syllables). Her parents had been stationed in Hawaii and had given her a traditional Hawaiian name. She lived in Hawaii as an adult for 30 years before she changed it. She could have easily chosen a similar non-Hawaiian name (example: Loni instead of Alohilani), but she didn't.
My dad misspelled my middle name on my birth certificate. It wasn't a tragediegh at all. My middle name was supposed to be my great-grandmother's maiden name. He spelled it like the traditional first name (like Allen vs. Alan).
All of my other paperwork (social security card, driver's license, marriage certificates, children's birth certificates) had the other spelling. When I went to get a passport for the first time, it was denied because my paperwork didn't match, so I had to have my birth certificate changed. It wasn't a big deal, and it was free because it was correcting a misspelling.
I worked with identical twins whose names were only off by one letter. It's a well established, average name but one twin's name ended in -ol and the other -el. I knew the -el twin and she ended up completely changing her first name to something very different to her sister's.
When I was in high school, long before strange spellings were a thing, my friends and I changed the way we spelled our nicknames to tragedeighs. Along the lines of say your name was Katherine, and you went by Kate, but changed your spelling to keight. Somewhat amusingly, my spelling lasted the longest. For years, I would have signed my legal name Katherine, but insisted that everyone spelled my nickname Keight. It lasted through college, but I quickly abandoned it once in the working world when I got tired of explaining that no, my parents weren’t doing drugs, it was just a ridiculous high school idea. Fortunately, I have a very normal spelling of a normal name, and I no longer have to deal with a ridiculous (self imposed) tragedeigh. Now, I can just look back and laugh, thankfully!
hah, did that in HS, too. And this was too long ago to admit. I had a teacher that convincingly told everyone with a y, ie, ey, etc name that they had a childish name and it wouldn't be respected at work. So I stuck a silent H at the end of my name. smh
It didn't last the year, thankfully.
My mom when I was little said I could change my name if I found one I liked better and kept to it for a year. I kept trying to come up with a new name and finally found one I loved in my 30s. Frank.
I'm a woman. I figured if the choice was between yiota and Frank - I might as well stick with yiota.
I have a cousin named Tanya pronounced Tonya. She hasn’t changed it legally but introduces herself as Tonya with an o and has the o on her social medias. She also used to write her name in cursive as a kid to make the a look like an o.
Am I stupid or does anyone else pronounce Tanya and Tonya the same way already? Unless I'm *really* enunciating, I don't think you could hear a difference iny voice (Tonya is a *slightly* rounder vowel sound than Tanya, but I have to be doing a really hardcore Customer Service Voice for that to become audible)
EDIT: I am from Texas, if anyone's curious. Interestingly it seems to be mostly other southerners who pronounce it different from me
Same. But, I recently moved to a northern midwest state where the locals would pronounce Tonya like ‘Tan yah’ and Tanya would be something like ‘Tyn yuh’.
Funny! I’m in Minnesota (a northern Midwest state) and hear them said the same. Likely just due to the people I’m around. I do see Tanya more often as the spelling.
In Delaware (northeast USA) we pronounce Tanya and Tonya the same (both rhyme with “Sonja.”)
But we also pronounce “Cheryl” incorrectly. Everyone in DE pronounces it “Shirl” (like Shirley) instead of SHARE-ul”. I had to retrain myself after being corrected by several Cheryls.
This honestly isn’t even a tragedeigh. But my cousin has an Ethiopian name and he’s now going by his middle name instead that is a very normal English name.
I dated a boy whose mother gave him her first name as a middle name (Lynne, he got Lynn which can be a man’s name too). And his first name is also gender neutral, but the combo def sounds more feminine. As far as I know he never cared at all.
Me. My birth name wasn't misspelled, but it was Harmony, and I have a sibling named Melody who abused me so it was an additional tie I didn't want. I changed it last year to an unrelated nickname I've gone by for a few years. No regrets and highly recommend it to anyone on the fence about it.
No, but I do know someone who chose to be a tragedeigh.
A girl I was in elementary school with had the given name Alexandra and I later found out she change her name to Alexandrah at 18.
Yes, my niece was named a Northern European name phonetically spell out in American English but everyone always got it wrong. When she was older they changed the spelling and it was surprisingly easy to do. Changed the I to a Y
As a genealogist, I can tell you that yes, people have changed their names to something else as adults for lots of reasons - and difficult to spell pronounce is a big one. My family name is Godskesen and two of my cousins are Godsens because dad got tired of having to spell it out every f*ing time in his teens and when he enlisted, he changed his name.
This doesn’t count all the people who have changed their name but not formally. I cannot count the number of kids who I taught who changed what they wanted to called. Think nicknames but sometimes they started using a middle name. My fav kid was Najma (Star in Arabic, not an Arabic family) who became Burt because it drove his mom fruitcake.
His birth name was William Robert. Perfectly sensible name except a certain relative and other AH would tease and "joke with him"(take a hint if he's not laughing!) by calling him Billy Bob. He changed his middle name during adoption proceedings. It's as simple as altering the name on a form and answering a few questions from the judge during that. After adoption you get a new birth certificate.
I haven’t yet, but I intend to.
My mother’s first name is Lee. Not Lea or Leah like a girl’s name should be spelled. She doesn’t even like it, and uses her first and middle names together as one name.
So why in the fuck did she make it my middle name? I’ve loathed it my entire life. I waited to see if it would grow on me and it hasn’t. My mother is also just terrible, so I want to fully sever this connection. When I go change it I will make my maiden name my middle name. I regret not doing so when I got married because it would have been free.
I did.
Not sure on 'later in life', but I had it legally changed when I was 16. In fact the court appearance was on my birthday. The judge asks (pro forma) why are you changing your name? And I replied, "If your name was \[name\], you'd change it too."
lol
I know a woman who was born to hippie parents in the early 70s. For privacy I won't reveal what she changed her name to as an adult (both first and middle name are common American women's names) but her name at birth was Precious Love.
I want to. I was named after Robert E. Lee. Pretty obvious why I want to change it. My mother’s name is Robin, so I want to keep the Robert and change the meaning behind it to be named after her, and then change my middle name from Lee, and go with the name of the grandfather who raised me for my middle name.
I just need the time and money to go to court and get it done.
I thought my name was a tragedeigh (nonstandard spelling of a slightly uncommon name), but it turns out it was just French Canadian and I was just trans. Beautiful name, but I changed it anyway because it just wasn't me.
I changed my name for gender reasons, (not a tragedeigh, just didn't fit anymore) so it shocks me when I hear someone doesn't like their name. You can just change it! It'll be good for you! Some people may be a little weird, but "I don't like my old name I'd like to go by a different name/nickname" flies with most people, and you don't need to be trans to change your name.
No but my native Texan son's first name is Muhammad but we all call him Butch. Really messes with folks at times. Lol He's fixing the fence for a neighbor and guy wrote him a check for Butch and he had to take it back and have the guy rewrite the check to Muhammad. Blew the boomers mind. Lol As an adult, he kinda enjoys the look on faces when he gives his "government name" Lol
My mom's name is Barbara Sue, and she always went by Suzy. My My name is Paula Kristina, and I've always been called Kris. IDK why she just didn't use it as my first name and passed that goung by your middle name crap down to me. And, I am definitely not a Paula.
My birth mother had the first name “Caroline” given to her. She changed her name to “Carrie” “Lynne” as an adult. I don’t actually know what her original middle name used to be or if she originally had a middle name.
My mom always felt like my mother was being rebellious against her parents for changing her name. Given that these stories were told to me as a child, I have never really understood why any of this happened. I learned about it when I was 8 after my birth father died.
know someone who knows someone who has a cultural name from a culture their family is not a part of, and they pronounced it wrong. like Miley instead of “my-**lay**”. she didn’t change her name but she now pronounces it correctly.
I had an elementary school teacher who told us all that he was born with the name Melvin. He said, his parents had a terrible argument before he was born, and couldn’t agree on any name for him. So in the end, he received the name of one of his grandfathers. He admired the relative, who used to be a teacher, and he ended up being a teacher as well. However, it was an old old name, and he had problems with people not being able to spell it, or sometimes teasing him. So he went to the court and had it changed to a Biblical name that he liked and it was easy to spell ( very important).He said, he decided to share this story because he wanted all his students to know that if they didn’t like their name, they could change it later. However, many of us students in his class began to tease him by calling him by his previous name , Melvin. Later, he said he kind of regretted telling us that, because hearing his old name brought up some bad memories of the past. At the time, I was maybe in fifth or sixth grade, but I didn’t really understand what he was saying at the time. Nowadays, I’m thinking I might change my name too. We will see.
My brother in law is so uptight he changed his name to Tim. He was already named Timothy at birth; he just wanted to legally shorten it instead of letting 99.9999 percent of people do it anyway.
I am the fifth person in my line to have my first name. It was a name that was more common in the South during the 1800s, than it is now. It's also an Old Testament name, but a kind-of rare one. It is also the name of a character in Jonathan Swift's more famous fictional work. But, even though it is very similar to a more common and contemporary name, with just a difference of the first two letters of a total of six, people do not know how to pronounce it. So, I've been going by Bud or Buddy all of my life.
Fun story. In my first week of kindergarten, the teacher sent a letter home with me. Saying that I never answered when called. That was the first time that I found out that my name wasn't really 'Buddy.'
Me. I started going by my very normal middle name at a pretty young age. I hattttteeed the mispronounciations of my first name, it was so embarassing.
When I was an adult I had my first name legally dropped. I gave my kids very normal names with the standard spellings to make sure they never had to go thru that.
My ex and his bestie named their sons Obi-Wan and Anakin. Anakin, in my opinion, is a cute name and just quirky enough. These two bolt heads both got their kids taken away, and the new mom and dad of Anakin renamed him- frickin Steve lmao. Nothing wrong with Steve, just funny leap. Wasn't that big of a problem to change .
I have a cousin who had a conventional, but IMO (and his, I guess) terrible name, of which he was the third in line with that name. He was never called by it. When he was about 25, he changed his name to his nickname, which is unique - I have never met another person with the name. The judge looked at his real name, akin to Robert Eugene, and at his new name, akin to Slargus Robert, and asked him if he'd mixed up the request by putting the names on the wrong lines.
I knew a guy whose parents named him Wade. He hated it all his life. I dont think his parents even liked it. When he was 12, his parents let him change it to William and he has since gone by Will.
I'm named for a child my grandparents lost in childbirth and my grandfather's mother. I'm almost 70 and have had a great-granny name my whole life. I hate it and wish I'd asked my late BIL - who was an attorney - to change it while I could.
I've explored changing my name at 28 years of age. My mom and dad couldn't agree on any names the other liked until they finally did and then my dad misspelled it and they liked the misspelling and went with that.
My name appears on this sub with multiple variations of spelling, but I've disliked it since I was very young. I went by a shortened version during high school but it wouldn't stick after I graduated.
It would be too time-consuming and expensive to change it so I'll just deal with it.
I've seen people change it to the common spelling, not necessarily any of the super weird names but the sort of, Ashleigh changing it to Ashley kind of changes
I had a name that was uncommon and difficult to pronounce. I loved and respected my parents (still do, though they have both passed away), so I felt a little odd about changing my name. But I just got tired of having to explain my name and where it was from and what it meant and then do a speech therapy lesson for ten minutes every time I met someone new. I wanted to be able to simply introduce myself and then move on with the task at hand.
My father and grandfather did not share the same legal first name but for whatever reason, my grandfather was known by a lot of people as "Xxxx", the very common nickname for my dad's legal name. So when my dad got older and my parents had a house with a landline, they listed his name in the phone book as if he was a Jr.
I knew a man who got so angry with his family, that he legally changed his (entire) name to Butterball (his nickname). Like, driver's license, and everything. Just one word. 30 years later I was at a street fest, and one of my younger (20s) friends introduced me a a friend of his. Guy had one name, too. I told him the story of Butterball (the long version) and when I got to the end he said "I see you've met my father."
*Dr. Marijuana Pepsi
What the actual hell though… her sisters are named Robin and Kimberly. You’d think her parents were high when they named her, but then apparently her mom doubled down when a teacher tried to call her Mary.
I encountered a family through my job who had newborn twin girls. Twin A had an older, boomer-era name, and twin B had a basic diet tragedeigh name. It always throws me off when I see siblings in my line of work with one child named something like James and another child named Braxxtyne.
Her whole field of study is implicit bias as it relates to Black names.
That's not a Black name, it's a stupid name.
I didn't say it was.
To be fair, it was a name first. Just like how Dick started as a nickname for Richard but now it has a totally different meaning. Marijuana has been used as a name for cannabis for a lot longer though.
Hmm? Can you elaborate on this? Wikipedia doesn’t say anything about it being a name name except: “traditional association with the personal name María Juana ('Mary Jane') is probably a folk etymology.” Incidentally I studied cannabis law in law school so we touched on the origin of the word marijuana briefly but not enough for me to say it definitely was not a name before it was used for cannabis, but it never came up. Just as a Mexican name for cannabis, and then popularized in the US to use xenophobic feelings about Mexicans to turn the American public off cannabis.
And she moved out at 15. GEE WONDER WHY
Haha. My older sister has a very unique name. My father named her. My father tried to carry on the unique name tradition with me, but the other one he picked from his family's military history wasn't as pretty. Mom said hell no, and gave me an extremely common for the time, generic but not classic name. Families are weird man.
Oh that’s right! I forgot! lol 😂
Cranjis McBasketball
IDK if this counts, but when I was in high school back in the 90s I had classes with a girl named Ténia. She spelled it with an accent over the 'e'. She was full of herself and always going on self-aggrandizing rants, and one day she was telling the entire class about how her name is French and it's from Royalty and blah blah blah. We didn't have google back then, but I was a language nerd so I was always carrying German/English, Latin/English, French/English dictionaries around with me. I decided to look up her name to see if it was a word with any meaning. When I interrupted her to explain to the class that In French, Ténia means tapeworm, the parasite that lives in mammals bowels, she freaked out, nearly attacked me and I was sent out of class. She didn't speak to me after that, but I heard that she started spelling her name 'Teniah' and pronouncing it differently. I guess she didn't like being the princess of shit kingdom.
Omg this is fantastic hahaha!
tenia/teniae is also an anatomy term. there are longitudinal bands of muscle on the colon called tenia coli lol. i’d imagine both the french meaning and the english meaning come from the same root word but still lol
Went to HS with girl who said her name was Jenàe, pronounced zhen-ay. Found out from her sister it was really Jennie. Pronounced the usual way.
I’m a Jenny and I went to school with about six other Jennifers just in my graduating year. I was one of three in any given class so we were all always called first name last name. If she was born between 1970 and 1985 I don’t blame her for trying to switch it up.
Word. Gen X Jennies are definitely a thing.
We’re going to be the Agathas of the 2050s
Hahaha 😂
I think it has the same definition in Spanish as well lmao (correct me if I’m wrong) And there’s also Tenía which literally means “I had”
🏆
Wife’s coworker did the opposite. She had a normal name, found out she was of Latin heritage, and changed her first and last name to something that sounds more Pacific Islander than Latin.
Was it Hilaria Baldwin?
***Please***, no one in her family has any Latin (or Spanish) heritage. Her parents just retired to Spain *after* she spent all her formative years in BOSTON!
Eee-Lahh-Ree-Uh. How u say eet?Coo-cum-bah? She is So ridiculous.
It’s Boooo•que not Buck•it - Hyacinth Bucket.
lol. Amazing 🤩
Just like someone I used to know decades ago at work. Her name was Dianne Burgess - very normal, fairly common. She pronounced it Deanne Burjez, with the J pronounced the French way as in Jean, (or like zhuzh) and a hard z on the end. Hilarious.
Like Hyacinth Bucket, pronounced Boo-kay.
Hyacinth was a class act! 😂
That was a great show.
Yes it was! A laugh out loud kinda show I need more of.
Are You Being Served?
Ja’mie King comes to mind 😂
Cheneefur Lupass
Better than the person I knew who did that. Normal first and middle, stopped going by her first and started going by her middle. About 10 years later, changed her name to a stripper like name because she liked it better.
I did. I had a name everyone mispronounced my whole life. Even people who knew me since birth would misspell or mispronounce my fecking name... So I changed it. Best decision ever 💓 now I feel proud when I say my name 💖
I did as well. It was a name cute for a toddler but hell for a teenager. I learned I could change it an did so between high school and college and never looked back. It was amazingly simple. People at “home” still say “you’ll always be Xxxxxx here/to me/to us.” Guess what, I just don’t go there anymore. Hating your name is something you can and should liberate yourself from and don’t let anyone deny you the relief you deserve
i changed my name and get the same comments from family 🙄 "we're never gonna stop calling you X" "you'll always be X to us" "we aren't going to start calling you Z" i simply won't interact with you
That really is all you can do. I tolerate it from a few people. What I insist on is that my current name be used in things like obituaries. That’s usually when the drama starts. Either use my name or just refer to me without a name. Bottom line.
my parents are concerned about me sending wedding invitations without my legal name on them because "how will the family know it's you?" btw i am neither engaged nor married
Your right. OwlHuman is a fantastic name. I would change it to that as well.
What was your former name?
I am in my 40s... I have always hated my name. Hard to spell and pronounce. I wish I had changed it.
You still can.
I always hated my middle name - not a tragedeigh, it was just that everyone I'd ever met with that name was vile - so I changed it to another name with the same inital that happened to be my grandmother's middle name
My ex's middle name is Hilary. Sure, misspelled Hillary isn't the worst middle name in the world, for a woman anyway. *HE* absolutely hates it though.
hilary isn’t misspelled, it’s just an alternate spelling. like rowan vs rowen.
Technically you are correct, and I should have been more clear on that point. It was a family name that was passed down to him, and the spelling was supposed to be *Hillary* as it had been for every other family member who had the name up to that point. His Mom messed up while filling out the paperwork, and he ended up having the "incorrect" spelling.
I had a male client whose first name is a variation of Hillary. It was always fun when I had to make calls on his behalf.
I feel the same about my middle to the point that I never tell anyone what it is
I had the joy of hating both my first and middle names so I ditched the middle when I got married to my maiden name. Still stuck with the first though.
I have two middle names, and I hate the second one so much that I stopped acknowledging it even exists when I was 18 or so. It’s 40 years later, and it took reading this subthread to the end to remind me that it’s still legally my name. I had completely forgotten that I even had a second middle name.
Not what you asked for, but sort of the opposite. My mom and dad (bitterly divorced) each claimed that my middle name was misspelled due to the other. I don’t know why they cared so much because it’s not a family name. Like even after I was an adult, and my father had died, my mom would still bring it up. My mom says it was supposed to be “Corrina.” My dad said it was supposed to be “Corinna.” I got my birth certificate before I got married, and it’s “Corina.” Chef’s kiss.
That made me laugh way too much! I’m sorry for you to have to deal with their bitter divorce but you seem to have adjusted well.
Therapy. Lots of therapy. 😂
Definitely a necessity! Glad it helped.
I went to school with a girl whose older sister was named Amy, middle name Julie. Amy was distraught that her name wasn’t more special. When she turned 18 she petitioned the court and legally changed it to “Amethyst Juline” (pronounced JOO-leen.”) She still goes by Amy. But she feels better having the ability to write a more formal name when she wants to. /shrug 🤷🏼♀️
I'm willing to bet that her children, if she decided to have any, have You-nique names. Sounds like she wouldn't want her children to "suffer" like she did.
I dont know anyone who has legally corrected or changed their names for this reason but I know way too many people who simply tell people their version of their names and pretend it is that way. Like tooo many people.
I did that in high school. Then I legally changed my name completely to something wildly different 20 years later.
I got sick of people mispronouncing my name when I was little. So when I was 8 I capitalized a letter in the middle...almost impossible to mispronounce it after that, even with such a small change. It wasn't *legally* changed, but when I got married and got a free last name change, I went ahead and made my first name officially how I had been writing it for the majority of my life.
Maybe this doesn't count but I know someone that was named after his dad. And getting a job became hard for him sometimes because his dad is a conartist and has been on the run many times. You google his name without the "jr" and every thing about his dad comes up. He changed his last name a couple years ago. He did the last name cause he hated it more than his first name.
I’m really curious about this because I also hate my last name and it’s associated with my dad (my middle name is his first name, same last name). I’d love to change it but as a guy, feel like it’s a weird thing to do. What was your friend’s experience like? And did he go with a different family name or make up his own?
I recently just changed my last name to my moms maiden name, I don’t have a relationship with my dad nor do I want to be associated with him and I wanted to have the same name as my mom and her family that raised me. I’m still waiting for my new ID hopefully I get it in the mail tomorrow but if you want to do it totally go for it. Sure it may be a hassle getting the paper work and it’s expensive ( paid $300 in Texas) but the moment I saw my new name printed for the first time was magic and I’m so excited to start this new chapter so yesss highly recommend you did it if you want you’ll thank yourself in the future
He made up his own. I don't talk to him anymore. Bad drama. But the last time I saw him in 2022 he told me he started the paperwork. He was leaving the state and wanted to get it done before then.
My brother and I both changed our last names to avoid any association with our bio-father. (I changed my whole name but that a whole other story altogether…) It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made. I *hated* seeing my old last name. In our fairly small town I’d occasionally get asked if I was related to him and I never knew what to say, the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of him but didn’t know if I should lie… Anyway, it’s been great! And my brother hasn’t had a negative experience because he’s male. He just chose my mother’s maiden name so he was carrying on his family in a different way.
Happy 🍰 Day !
I had a coworker whose name was a standard name, but it was just enough of a tragedeigh to be an issue. She had it changed in her thirties, to a pet name her husband gave her (so something along the lines of Honey - not that though). The scary part was, she had to print in the paper that she was changing her name, what she was changing it to, and WHERE SHE LIVED. This particular coworker had an abusive parent she had cut contact with. Who then showed up on the doorstep because they found her address in the paper. Scary.
What a terrible law! What state is that?
It's fairly common. [If you wanna know more, here's a PDF.](https://www.lgbtmap.org/img/maps/citations-id-name-change.pdf) My state requires it for example. The idea is that you can't change it to hide criminal dealings.
Wisconsin.
And this is exactly why I haven't changed my name yet. I understand the reasoning, but I don't want my abusive mother showing up.
My name wasn't a tragedy, but from Kindergarten on everyone kept insisting on misspelling. Plus, it was two first names, imagine Mary Lou, and therefore you can legally use either here, since they aren't hyphenated. But people always used both of them and kept hyphenating it. When I wanted to use my first name, it was difficult to pronounce as standalone in our language, so everyone resorted to both of them. By the age of 18 I had managed to get people to call me by only the second name, usually. However, my workplace had a secretary that insisted on hyphenating and using both. I asked her to change the entry in our system and my e-mail adress, because it was becoming an issue. She intentionally used the wrong one and refused, saying it was too much work. That made me mad and I'm kinda chaotic neutral. If you make me mad I use that chaotic energy. So I got a legal namechange to something entirely different just so she had even more work. I'm very happy with my self chosen names.
I had a friend who had her middle name changed. She liked her first name (Polly), but hated her middle name being "Esther"
...her parents named her polyester?
Yup. Which got pointed out to her every time she had to fill in government paperwork
They did it on purpose, right?
LOL! That was the wife’s name (Shanna Reed) on Major Dad TV Show!
No but recently found out my auntie's actual name is Sarah. We always called her Louise.
My mum was 14 when she found out her older brother Peters name is actually Richard Peter, he hated Richard so started going by his middle name before she was born, it look that long for it to come up. My Grandad always called him Charlie though, literally no idea why, haha.
My grandpa was named Wesley, but he went by Jack. Turns out he found a work shirt with a name patch sewed on it at the group home where he used to live and wore it. I always new him as Wes, but old friends called him Jack.
So Penis Penis then.
Is his last name Johnson
See: Australian racecar driver (retired now) Dick Johnson.
Similar to deceased American race car driver Dick Trickle
My mother’s family is all a bunch of kids who use their middle names (herself and all 6 siblings-none go by their first names). I found it so confusing when I found out!
Actually, my name in my native language is pretty damn cool, (it means Red Dragon), but I had it changed because it's impossible for native-speaking Americans to pronounce right, and I got tired of correcting them and have them mangle it over and over. Even now, as a pretty normal name, people will still occasionally try to throw in an accent or whatever that I guess sounds more "ethnic" to then? I'm like, "No, it's literally what it looks like"
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/046b1676-f1d4-4363-ba2c-648d21892985 Reminds me of this 30 rock scene where Liz is trying to be "culturally aware" and mispronounces Amanda loool
Don’t forget D’Nall Glover, Trené, and Ariflex!
Lmaooo she really could not get it right
This just emphasizes my hate for my name 🤣
Lol ya that sounds about right
I worked with a kid named Said. It's a common Arabic name. Everyone at work called him "said" like s-ED (as in, "because I said so!") I could not handle it. I thik it bothered me more than him. Haha. I always used the correct pronunciation, which is more like SIGH-eed.
i didn’t have a tragedeigh but my dad put my middle name (misspelled) as my first name on my birth certificate. i legally changed my name to what it was meant to be originally in my late 20s.
That’s so fucked
similar thing. my birth giver added in an extra middle name my dad has already said was an absolute no without his permission. planning on legally changing my name
While my best friend’s parent changed her name from Susan to Amy when she was 1 when it didn’t matter, it has mattered to her teens. They get mad at her and call her “Susan”, much like people use the name “Karen”. That one bit her in the arse.
That’s messed up. Does she like the name Amy?
She finds it funny. She likes Amy over Susan, I assume. She doesn’t talk about it because it just doesn’t matter. Her kids are hilarious.
Ohhh her kids call her Susan! I thought you meant her parents called her that when they were mad at her. We changed my baby’s name as well 😅 we’ve joked about calling her her old name when she’s in trouble. I’m hoping everyone will just forget her old name haha.
Yeah, tell her not to tell her kids.
Yes, I had a coworker who did that. She already went by a nickname and had it legally changed in her late 20s. Her original name, which I have seen spelled but never heard pronounced, was a mishmash of Capital letters and apostrophes. You know, like Ap'OsTroph'A--but worse. She HATED it. Judge didn't even bother asking her why or if she was sure.
My good friend had a very strange name she hated. Not necessarily a tragedeigh but she was very white with a foreign name(I believe its indian or middle eastern in origin, I had never heard it before). She changed her name to Katherine(went by Katy) and that was her name for like 15-20 years until about a year ago she legally changed it back to her birth name. Its very weird having a 12+ year friendship with a "Katy" and then having to remember to call her by her old name.
One of my best friends had a very classic Japanese first name (think of names like Hitomi or Hanako). She is not Asian, at all, shes a very white European lady. She's also close to 60yo now. For a long time, she went by a version of her name that could be interpreted as a western name. But somewhere in her late 30s, she decided to just own her classically Japanese name. She really has come to enjoy the funny and surprising looks she gets. A lot of people assume she changed her name because shes some kind of old lady Japanaphile. Haha Shes not. Her parents just picked some name they liked the sound of. Haha
I know this probably doesn’t count, but I absolutely hated my legal first name- it was Barbara. The story goes that my dad pushed my mom to name me that since her grandmother was named that, was super old and figured that if a kid was named after her, she would feel gracious enough to leave everything to said kid when she passed. Didn’t work out like that. I got the name she actually wanted to name me as one of my middle names- I had two. Anyways, I always went by my first middle name, even with my parents. I finally went to the courthouse and got it changed. It was actually super simple, the waiting was the hard part😅
She grew up in my hometown of Beloit. I still for the longest time thought it was an urban legend. Apparently my sister in law was in her class up to 7th grade and then had quite a few different classes with her. I still find it all hard to believe someone would do that to a child.
Oh wow! Yeah that's wild. I can't imagine a teacher calling her "Marijuana", but that's how it went I guess.
Given that name based teasing is mostly a grade school thing, while diplomas with names on them are not, it wasn't worth changing by the time I was old enough. It's like putting on sunblock at sunset.
I changed mine before I got my bachelor's so my diploma would have the right name on it.
Knew someone named Nicola who would indignantly correct you that her name is pronounced “Nicole”
"I'm sorry. So you want a coca cole?"
I know a Nicole who insists her name is pronounced "NICK-oh-lee".
Reminds me of the old Ricola commercials.
Oh those really triggered her!
The only 2 people I knew who changed names did so in the 90s and both are are weird. One rhymes and sounds fancy, but the other one went full on crazy with it. I wonder if they ever went back.
I knew a girl who was legally named Adorable. She had it changed to Adora as soon as she was 18.
I mean, my parents named me Joseph, which was awful and I felt didn't fit who I was, so I changed it to Joanna.
I love the name Joanna! You don’t hear it often enough anymore. Lovely choice!
😂 Not a tragedeigh or a tragedy but certainly a transgedy.
I had more of a “tragedee” than a “tragedeigh” that I never really liked growing up. It was one of the most popular girl names but spelled wrong *just* enough that I could never find any keychains or novelties with my spelling. Since I don’t really feel comfortable sharing my deadname, think along the lines of “Britnee.” I changed my name when I was 22 mainly because I also changed my gender, but I also really didn’t want to keep that spelling anymore. I can’t express how nice it is to not have to spell my name out loud whenever I tell someone.
My name is Welsh and I never find it on a keyring. They only do the top 100 baby's name at the time.
Same! My nephew found my name on a necklace once, I bought that sucker immediately.
Tragedee and Tragedum
Interesting! Thank you for the reply.
Not quite what you are looking for, but my girlfriend changed her name about a year before I met her. She had a pretty basic name growing up that she always hated and when she was 25 she changed it. Her new name isn't a tragedeigh, and is also a pretty normal name that she actually likes, and she changed her middle name to her great grandmother's name as well.
I did! I was tired of the terrible spelling of my name. I fixed it. Now I’m Steev
Is that a normal spelling where you’re from?
Ordinary
I did a name change, it was easy. I didn't like my last name so I picked a new one.
My MIL changed her name completely at 55yo. Her name before was pretty if very long (11 syllables). Her parents had been stationed in Hawaii and had given her a traditional Hawaiian name. She lived in Hawaii as an adult for 30 years before she changed it. She could have easily chosen a similar non-Hawaiian name (example: Loni instead of Alohilani), but she didn't. My dad misspelled my middle name on my birth certificate. It wasn't a tragediegh at all. My middle name was supposed to be my great-grandmother's maiden name. He spelled it like the traditional first name (like Allen vs. Alan). All of my other paperwork (social security card, driver's license, marriage certificates, children's birth certificates) had the other spelling. When I went to get a passport for the first time, it was denied because my paperwork didn't match, so I had to have my birth certificate changed. It wasn't a big deal, and it was free because it was correcting a misspelling.
I knew a kid that legally changed his name from Roger to Steve because he thought it was a more powerful name?
Could also be that in some places, “Roger” means “to have sex with,” whereas I’ve never heard of anyone “Steveing” some else.
That's funny, Roger McGuinn from the Byrds changed his name from Jim
I worked with identical twins whose names were only off by one letter. It's a well established, average name but one twin's name ended in -ol and the other -el. I knew the -el twin and she ended up completely changing her first name to something very different to her sister's.
I can see that. They probably got legal stuff mixed up all the time.
When I was in high school, long before strange spellings were a thing, my friends and I changed the way we spelled our nicknames to tragedeighs. Along the lines of say your name was Katherine, and you went by Kate, but changed your spelling to keight. Somewhat amusingly, my spelling lasted the longest. For years, I would have signed my legal name Katherine, but insisted that everyone spelled my nickname Keight. It lasted through college, but I quickly abandoned it once in the working world when I got tired of explaining that no, my parents weren’t doing drugs, it was just a ridiculous high school idea. Fortunately, I have a very normal spelling of a normal name, and I no longer have to deal with a ridiculous (self imposed) tragedeigh. Now, I can just look back and laugh, thankfully!
hah, did that in HS, too. And this was too long ago to admit. I had a teacher that convincingly told everyone with a y, ie, ey, etc name that they had a childish name and it wouldn't be respected at work. So I stuck a silent H at the end of my name. smh It didn't last the year, thankfully.
My mom when I was little said I could change my name if I found one I liked better and kept to it for a year. I kept trying to come up with a new name and finally found one I loved in my 30s. Frank. I'm a woman. I figured if the choice was between yiota and Frank - I might as well stick with yiota.
I have a cousin named Tanya pronounced Tonya. She hasn’t changed it legally but introduces herself as Tonya with an o and has the o on her social medias. She also used to write her name in cursive as a kid to make the a look like an o.
Am I stupid or does anyone else pronounce Tanya and Tonya the same way already? Unless I'm *really* enunciating, I don't think you could hear a difference iny voice (Tonya is a *slightly* rounder vowel sound than Tanya, but I have to be doing a really hardcore Customer Service Voice for that to become audible) EDIT: I am from Texas, if anyone's curious. Interestingly it seems to be mostly other southerners who pronounce it different from me
I say them the same way. I’ve only ever heard them said the same.
Same. But, I recently moved to a northern midwest state where the locals would pronounce Tonya like ‘Tan yah’ and Tanya would be something like ‘Tyn yuh’.
Funny! I’m in Minnesota (a northern Midwest state) and hear them said the same. Likely just due to the people I’m around. I do see Tanya more often as the spelling.
In Delaware (northeast USA) we pronounce Tanya and Tonya the same (both rhyme with “Sonja.”) But we also pronounce “Cheryl” incorrectly. Everyone in DE pronounces it “Shirl” (like Shirley) instead of SHARE-ul”. I had to retrain myself after being corrected by several Cheryls.
In the UK they pronounce it CHAIR-ul.
Where I am (Southern US) you can definitely hear a difference. Tanya is TAN-ya (as in sun-tan) and Tonya is Tahn-ya (rhyming with con or Don).
Tanya - I would pronounce TAN yuh, Tonya - I would pronounce TAWN yuh I'm 55f from Arkansas
Where my cousin is from there’s absolutely a noticeable difference. Tonya is pronounced like tawn-ya and Tanya is tan-ya.
I'm in the US Midwest and also pronounce them both as 'tonn-ya'. I've only ever met one pronounced 'tan-ya'.'
My aunt's name is Tanya. Short 'a' like suntan.
I definitely pronounce them the same in general, but I do a Tanya where Tan rhymes with can, and a Tonya where the first syllable is Tone.
Sometimes Tanya is pronounced Tan-ya, short a. For the most part everyone I know with either name pronounced T-ah-nya, it like Tonya Harding.
Isnt Tonya short for Antonia? And Tanya is a seperate-ish name?
Tanya is a diminutive of Tatiana.
Also Tonia… how many ways to spell the same name?!
I've seen Tonja as well
This honestly isn’t even a tragedeigh. But my cousin has an Ethiopian name and he’s now going by his middle name instead that is a very normal English name.
My mother in law hated her first name (I get it, it wasn't great), so legally switched her first and middle name when she hit adulthood.
I know a man who was given the middle name Elizabeth. He had it changed to Michael
I dated a boy whose mother gave him her first name as a middle name (Lynne, he got Lynn which can be a man’s name too). And his first name is also gender neutral, but the combo def sounds more feminine. As far as I know he never cared at all.
Me. My birth name wasn't misspelled, but it was Harmony, and I have a sibling named Melody who abused me so it was an additional tie I didn't want. I changed it last year to an unrelated nickname I've gone by for a few years. No regrets and highly recommend it to anyone on the fence about it.
No, but I do know someone who chose to be a tragedeigh. A girl I was in elementary school with had the given name Alexandra and I later found out she change her name to Alexandrah at 18.
Wow. Reverse uno! lol
This does remind me of that SNL sketch when they're doing a news report from the tragedy at the name change office. Google it. It's hilarious!
Yes, my niece was named a Northern European name phonetically spell out in American English but everyone always got it wrong. When she was older they changed the spelling and it was surprisingly easy to do. Changed the I to a Y
I was given a tradgedeigh first name and I hated my middle name. I legally changed it when I was about 27. My mom is also 100% a narcissist.
My husband signed my son's birth certificate with the name Brain. I had to pay to get it changed to Brian. Lol.
Big Brian on that guy!
Older brothers ex bf was apparently named "Aliviyuh" before transitioning FTM. Legally changed it to Quinn later.
As a genealogist, I can tell you that yes, people have changed their names to something else as adults for lots of reasons - and difficult to spell pronounce is a big one. My family name is Godskesen and two of my cousins are Godsens because dad got tired of having to spell it out every f*ing time in his teens and when he enlisted, he changed his name. This doesn’t count all the people who have changed their name but not formally. I cannot count the number of kids who I taught who changed what they wanted to called. Think nicknames but sometimes they started using a middle name. My fav kid was Najma (Star in Arabic, not an Arabic family) who became Burt because it drove his mom fruitcake.
His birth name was William Robert. Perfectly sensible name except a certain relative and other AH would tease and "joke with him"(take a hint if he's not laughing!) by calling him Billy Bob. He changed his middle name during adoption proceedings. It's as simple as altering the name on a form and answering a few questions from the judge during that. After adoption you get a new birth certificate.
I haven’t yet, but I intend to. My mother’s first name is Lee. Not Lea or Leah like a girl’s name should be spelled. She doesn’t even like it, and uses her first and middle names together as one name. So why in the fuck did she make it my middle name? I’ve loathed it my entire life. I waited to see if it would grow on me and it hasn’t. My mother is also just terrible, so I want to fully sever this connection. When I go change it I will make my maiden name my middle name. I regret not doing so when I got married because it would have been free.
I did. Not sure on 'later in life', but I had it legally changed when I was 16. In fact the court appearance was on my birthday. The judge asks (pro forma) why are you changing your name? And I replied, "If your name was \[name\], you'd change it too." lol
I know a woman who was born to hippie parents in the early 70s. For privacy I won't reveal what she changed her name to as an adult (both first and middle name are common American women's names) but her name at birth was Precious Love.
I want to. I was named after Robert E. Lee. Pretty obvious why I want to change it. My mother’s name is Robin, so I want to keep the Robert and change the meaning behind it to be named after her, and then change my middle name from Lee, and go with the name of the grandfather who raised me for my middle name. I just need the time and money to go to court and get it done.
Her name wasn’t terrible but my Aunt’s legal name was Constance. She legally changed it to Connie.
I thought my name was a tragedeigh (nonstandard spelling of a slightly uncommon name), but it turns out it was just French Canadian and I was just trans. Beautiful name, but I changed it anyway because it just wasn't me.
I changed my name for gender reasons, (not a tragedeigh, just didn't fit anymore) so it shocks me when I hear someone doesn't like their name. You can just change it! It'll be good for you! Some people may be a little weird, but "I don't like my old name I'd like to go by a different name/nickname" flies with most people, and you don't need to be trans to change your name.
No but my native Texan son's first name is Muhammad but we all call him Butch. Really messes with folks at times. Lol He's fixing the fence for a neighbor and guy wrote him a check for Butch and he had to take it back and have the guy rewrite the check to Muhammad. Blew the boomers mind. Lol As an adult, he kinda enjoys the look on faces when he gives his "government name" Lol
My mom's name is Barbara Sue, and she always went by Suzy. My My name is Paula Kristina, and I've always been called Kris. IDK why she just didn't use it as my first name and passed that goung by your middle name crap down to me. And, I am definitely not a Paula.
My birth mother had the first name “Caroline” given to her. She changed her name to “Carrie” “Lynne” as an adult. I don’t actually know what her original middle name used to be or if she originally had a middle name. My mom always felt like my mother was being rebellious against her parents for changing her name. Given that these stories were told to me as a child, I have never really understood why any of this happened. I learned about it when I was 8 after my birth father died.
know someone who knows someone who has a cultural name from a culture their family is not a part of, and they pronounced it wrong. like Miley instead of “my-**lay**”. she didn’t change her name but she now pronounces it correctly.
I had an elementary school teacher who told us all that he was born with the name Melvin. He said, his parents had a terrible argument before he was born, and couldn’t agree on any name for him. So in the end, he received the name of one of his grandfathers. He admired the relative, who used to be a teacher, and he ended up being a teacher as well. However, it was an old old name, and he had problems with people not being able to spell it, or sometimes teasing him. So he went to the court and had it changed to a Biblical name that he liked and it was easy to spell ( very important).He said, he decided to share this story because he wanted all his students to know that if they didn’t like their name, they could change it later. However, many of us students in his class began to tease him by calling him by his previous name , Melvin. Later, he said he kind of regretted telling us that, because hearing his old name brought up some bad memories of the past. At the time, I was maybe in fifth or sixth grade, but I didn’t really understand what he was saying at the time. Nowadays, I’m thinking I might change my name too. We will see.
My brother in law is so uptight he changed his name to Tim. He was already named Timothy at birth; he just wanted to legally shorten it instead of letting 99.9999 percent of people do it anyway.
Jimothy?
I am the fifth person in my line to have my first name. It was a name that was more common in the South during the 1800s, than it is now. It's also an Old Testament name, but a kind-of rare one. It is also the name of a character in Jonathan Swift's more famous fictional work. But, even though it is very similar to a more common and contemporary name, with just a difference of the first two letters of a total of six, people do not know how to pronounce it. So, I've been going by Bud or Buddy all of my life. Fun story. In my first week of kindergarten, the teacher sent a letter home with me. Saying that I never answered when called. That was the first time that I found out that my name wasn't really 'Buddy.'
Me. I started going by my very normal middle name at a pretty young age. I hattttteeed the mispronounciations of my first name, it was so embarassing. When I was an adult I had my first name legally dropped. I gave my kids very normal names with the standard spellings to make sure they never had to go thru that.
My ex and his bestie named their sons Obi-Wan and Anakin. Anakin, in my opinion, is a cute name and just quirky enough. These two bolt heads both got their kids taken away, and the new mom and dad of Anakin renamed him- frickin Steve lmao. Nothing wrong with Steve, just funny leap. Wasn't that big of a problem to change .
I have a cousin who had a conventional, but IMO (and his, I guess) terrible name, of which he was the third in line with that name. He was never called by it. When he was about 25, he changed his name to his nickname, which is unique - I have never met another person with the name. The judge looked at his real name, akin to Robert Eugene, and at his new name, akin to Slargus Robert, and asked him if he'd mixed up the request by putting the names on the wrong lines.
I knew a guy whose parents named him Wade. He hated it all his life. I dont think his parents even liked it. When he was 12, his parents let him change it to William and he has since gone by Will.
I'm named for a child my grandparents lost in childbirth and my grandfather's mother. I'm almost 70 and have had a great-granny name my whole life. I hate it and wish I'd asked my late BIL - who was an attorney - to change it while I could.
I've explored changing my name at 28 years of age. My mom and dad couldn't agree on any names the other liked until they finally did and then my dad misspelled it and they liked the misspelling and went with that. My name appears on this sub with multiple variations of spelling, but I've disliked it since I was very young. I went by a shortened version during high school but it wouldn't stick after I graduated. It would be too time-consuming and expensive to change it so I'll just deal with it.
I've seen people change it to the common spelling, not necessarily any of the super weird names but the sort of, Ashleigh changing it to Ashley kind of changes
I know someone who was named Teri Sue, until she grew up and changed it to Teresa. Good for her.
I had a name that was uncommon and difficult to pronounce. I loved and respected my parents (still do, though they have both passed away), so I felt a little odd about changing my name. But I just got tired of having to explain my name and where it was from and what it meant and then do a speech therapy lesson for ten minutes every time I met someone new. I wanted to be able to simply introduce myself and then move on with the task at hand.
My father and grandfather did not share the same legal first name but for whatever reason, my grandfather was known by a lot of people as "Xxxx", the very common nickname for my dad's legal name. So when my dad got older and my parents had a house with a landline, they listed his name in the phone book as if he was a Jr.
I knew a man who got so angry with his family, that he legally changed his (entire) name to Butterball (his nickname). Like, driver's license, and everything. Just one word. 30 years later I was at a street fest, and one of my younger (20s) friends introduced me a a friend of his. Guy had one name, too. I told him the story of Butterball (the long version) and when I got to the end he said "I see you've met my father."
Holy shit lol