How To Re-Name Yourself At Age 33

My name is Cassie.

Up until a few weeks ago, I had a different name. A male name. A name I’ve always disliked. I was named after my father, and his father, and his father before him. Four generations with the same name, ending now with me.

My name was an antiquated diminutive of a name that was already impossibly antiquated. Common in the late nineteenth century. Out of fashion by the start of the Second World War. Even though it never came back into vogue, my name still somehow managed to be phonetically adjacent to a couple of newer names that are cultural shorthand for “bro” and “douche-bag.”

It was, objectively, not a good name.

The first time I thought about changing it was the summer before the start of high school. New building, new classmates, new beginnings. My friend Colin had an in-ground swimming pool, and I remember walking around and around its hot concrete lip, skimming up leaves with a net, whisking up potential name changes and dumping them into the bushes.

I tried to imagine myself as a Mike, a Scott, a Chuck, a Travis. I could not. All of those boys possessed something that I did not — some ineffable quality, bright and brash or dark and oily, allowing them to move through the world as themselves. They operated on a level of instinct that I could only imagine; running, jumping, tussling, nodding to each other in a language that seemed both ancient and modern all at once.

I had managed to learn some conversational phrases in the language of masculinity, but even then I felt more like a timid visitor to their country than a native speaker. I could ask for directions to the library, and I knew how to order the staple dishes off the menu, but the more subtle communication cues were always lost on me. As a boy, I felt a deep and abiding loneliness, even among friends, that I never knew how to explain.

I was not a Patrick, a William, a Steve, a Dave. I wasn’t Jerry or Neal or John or Robert. We finished skimming the pool, and all that was left was my original name. I still didn’t like it, but at least it felt more or less like me.

I held onto it for eighteen more years.

Whenever I told someone that I hated my name, they always acted surprised. “It’s so unique!” they’d say. “It’s charming. I like it. Why don’t you?”

I’d tell them about how I felt like it evoked the image of a turn-of-the-century haberdasher while also somehow sounding like the name of a rich surfer dude from a late eighties beach comedy. “Okay,” they’d say, “So why don’t you change it?”

“Because it’s my name,” I’d sigh, my stomach tightening at the thought of trying on one of those other identities, those terrifying boy-costumes I’d rejected pool-side so many years ago.

Deep down, I knew that taking on another male name would somehow be taking me further from myself. I did not yet know why.

When I first started to accept that I was trans, one of the possibilities that excited and terrified me the most was finally changing my name. I no longer had to pretend that I might be a Bob or a Jake — but could I really be an Elizabeth or a Sarah or a Ruby?

The possibilities made me feel absolutely giddy. The Friend I Came Out To First put together a spreadsheet of possible new names and their meanings, which I treated like a series of long-lost prophecies from the holiest of books. At first, I couldn’t even look at the sheet for more than thirty seconds before tabbing away and kicking my feet in the air like a schoolgirl. I can only imagine what the other people in the coffee shop must have thought of me, a large male-presenting adult, blushing uncontrollably as I scrolled through a list of names on an Excel table.

If I’d had to start the list myself, I never would have given myself permission to choose anything overly feminine because I still felt like identifying as female at all felt like an impossible fantasy. I was ready for everyone to just start pointing and laughing at me for having the gall to even think of myself as a woman, much less one with a flowery name. It wasn’t the list of names that my friend had given me, not really — it was permission to choose a name that aligned with the girl I had always wanted to become.

But how to choose?

I began doing research. Reading blogs and forum posts. I quickly learned that many trans women name give themselves the name that their parents would have given them had they been born in a female body. Cis or trans, most of us have probably asked our parents, at least in passing, what we would have been named had we been born the opposite gender. Unfortunately, I only remember the other male name that my parents were going to give me — Dylan. Ugh.

Also, my parents already got to name me once. It’s my turn now.

More research. Some trans women name themselves after a favorite fictional character. I immediately thought of Lyra, the protagonist from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. Even though I didn’t know I was a girl when I first read those books as a child, I felt a sympathy for and affinity with Lyra that was immediate and lasting. But Lyra is kind of an unusual name, and I’ve already spent half a lifetime with kind of an unusual name. Presenting as female sounded terrifying enough without imagining a future where I had to tell every barista in Colorado how to spell my name.

That was also the reason — well one of the reasons — why I decided that I didn’t want a gender neutral name. My body already feels impossibly male, so taking on a gender neutral name sounded like a great way to end up getting misgendered all the dang time. If I chose something that was both clear and feminine, I could at least be putting myself in the best position to avoid a modicum of future pain.

I went back to the list. Crossed out some names. Elevated a few others. As it turns out, you can’t make it all the way into your thirties without having multiple associations with almost every female name. Aurora was a classmate of mine and is also a town near where I live — out. I’ve lived in Los Angeles too long to hear the word Dahlia without thinking of a noir-style murder — out. Felicia is impossible in the post “Bye, Felicia” era — out.

I also realized that most of my favorite female names are favorites of mine precisely because they’re the names of women that I have loved and admired. Unfortunately, I cannot just name myself after one of my good friends — that would be weird.

I was still left with a lot of really pretty names: Iris, Willow, Violet, Gwen, so many more. I treasured the idea of becoming one of these women. Went to bed at night wrapping myself up in the idea of it . I wasn’t ready to choose yet, but I knew I’d be happy with my decision once I did.

Something kept holding me back from becoming Violet or Gwen, though. It wasn’t the same feeling that held me back as I circled Colin’s pool just before High School, but it was similar — an innate sense of discomfort surrounding the idea of shedding my old identity behind completely.

As I thought about it more, I realized that I might have been Violet — or at least the Violet I see in my head when I picture that name — if I’d been born in a female body. Heck, I might have become her if I’d transitioned at a younger age. But the more I began accepting my true gender, the more I began to separate fantasy from reality, and the more I realized that I was never going to become her.

And that’s okay. It’s okay that there’s a difference between the girl I always wanted to be and the girl that I am becoming. I want my name to reflect that. There are many parts of myself that I like, even if they’ve been built on a rotting foundation. I am not going to be reborn; I’m going to transform.

It was about this point in the thought process that I had a strong bolt of memory — about two years ago, the name Cassandra washed over me like a tsunami. I had a pang of longing for a life I figured I’d never lead; a woman that I wanted to be but didn’t have the courage to become.

Cassandra, of course, was a mythological princess of Troy who was given the power to see the future by Apollo. After being gifted these rad powers, she realized that they had come with the typical sort of strings attached.

While Cassandra is often portrayed as a flighty and unfaithful lover for rebuking Apollo, I choose to believe that he was a creepy “Nice Guy” who gave her the power of prophecy thinking it would make her want to bone him and then got mad when she had no interest. Regardless, ghosting on a literal God is a pretty bad-ass thing to do. At any rate, Apollo couldn’t take back his gift because Gods have most of the same rules that genies do, so he made it so that nobody would ever believe her prophetic utterances — even though she was almost always right.

This is something that I relate to pretty hard. I’ve always been an intuitive person, but I’ve found it difficult to persuade people to agree with me since I rarely have a rational explanation for why I feel a certain way. I often end up being right, but I won’t get a real sense of why I was right until it’s too late.

In addition, Cassandra is a name that I feel like I can draw power from, especially as I start my transition. No matter what people tell me, no matter what society thinks of me, I can trust in myself. I know that I’m right, whether people believe me or not.

Cassandra feels serendipitous for other reasons as well. My male name was also a longer “C” name that shortens into a diminutive, similar to how Cassandra shortens into Cassie. Unlike Gwen or Violet, Cassie less like a complete break from myself and more like a slant rhyme. It’s not quite the female version of my male name, but it’s close enough that it might as well be in the same Pokemon evolution chain.

So yeah. That’s me. I’m Cassie. Welcome to my blog. I’m going to use it to explore the fascinating and absurd transition journey that I know is ahead of me. I’m excited and terrified all at once, and I can’t wait for all of you to get to know the woman that I’m becoming. ❤