[Ambient, calming music] Hello little buns! It is Stef, welcome back to my home.
I've gotten questions about how to pick your name for a very very long time.
For those of you that maybe did not read the title, or don't know what I'm talking about,
as a transgender person, I did pick a name for myself when I started transitioning.
A lot of transgender people are unsure of how to choose their name,
they often flip-flop between a bunch of different names.
Which is honestly fine, everybody's name-picking process is different,
but I wanted to share with you what I did.
And maybe that will help you pick a name a lot easier or help narrow down your list a lot quicker.
You know what I mean?
The first thing I thought about when I wanted to pick my new name
was what was comfortable to me.
Picking a name is not a challenge, it's not a dare.
You shouldn't do something just because it's out of the box.
Your name should feel comfortable to you, it should feel totally natural when you're referred to something this way
and a lot of us will have to take time to get used to a new name, which is totally normal.
In my case, hm...
So my name, legally, is being changed to
Stephanie Luciana, my last name, which is omitted.
You know.
And my name beforehand...really is nobody's business. So I'm not going to share it. It's not that hard to find,
if you really want to find it, but I just don't feel comfortable saying it because I hate it so much,
you know what I mean?
I'm totally comfortable going by Stef, that's actually the name I use for this, obviously is Stef.
To me, it's just a casual form of Stephanie. Both of them are totally fine. I like both of them. Totally fine.
When I first started transitioning, I had a list of names that I wanted to try out.
I didn't want to actually try them, like on my Facebook or anything,
or have people talk to me with that different name.
I just thought about them for a long time, and that let me reflect without having other people's opinions interfere
with what my name should be.
Because really, nobody's opinions should interfere with what your name should be.
If you want people to, like, vote or something on what they think suits you, sure.
But when it comes down to it, you have to live with that name, you have to choose it.
You should not be taking anybody's opinion as more important than your own,
not even your parents'. Even if they're supportive.
They can be involved in suggesting names, but they should not be the ones choosing it, okay?
Unless you wanna do that, but I don't think they should.
When I was making a list of names, I asked my parents what they would have named me
if I was assigned female at birth.
They said Angela, Angelina, Alyssa, a lot of A names.
Cause my brother was Anthony so I figured they might wanna have something that matched, kind of,
but they ended up not having any A names for when I was assigned male at birth,
so I don't know what that's about. Doesn't matter. Anyway,
I wasn't a big fan of any of the names that they would've chosen for me.
So I did my own list.
Sabrina was on there, Iris was on there, Veronica was on there.
I liked names that were kind of, like, intimidating,
that had hard sounds. Sabrina doesn't really have a hard sound but it sounds, like,
strong to me.
Veronica has, like, a
[makes hard C sound], like, [clicks tongue]
I don't know. That's...it's not really...fact, it's just my thoughts.
Iris has this, like, mysteriousness to it.
I liked names that were mysterious and powerful-sounding.
I don't know.
Stef is not really mysterious or powerful-sounding, nor is Stephanie, but we're getting there, okay?
So I stewed on these names for a long time. I even tried putting some video game character names in there
because if you do not know me, I grew up playing video games.
Video games are a huge part of my life. I love video games.
So many amazing female characters in games with names that I loved,
but when it comes down to it, Samus is not a name that I could go by in daily life,
and, like, look at myself in the mirror and take myself seriously.
You know what I mean?
So I didn't use it.
I wrote them down many times on many different pieces of paper,
even when I was at work. I used to work at a retail cosmetics counter.
I would write the names down on the back of a receipt paper,
and just look at them, and be like
"hm, no" and I'd cross one off and be done. You know what I mean?
It took months for me to land on Stephanie and be comfortable with it.
I'd gone through a lot of names that I wanted but none of them stuck.
What I ended up doing was I changed my name to Stef temporarily, I thought.
Because I wasn't comfortable having my old name out there and transitioning at the same time.
So I was like "I'll pick a name that's a little bit more unisex, just something that's more comfortable so that
people aren't shocked if they don't know me or something" you know what I mean?
And I started wanting to be called Stef when I was about thirteen years old.
It just felt more comfortable to me. It was very similar to my assigned name when I was born,
so it wasn't that much of a leap.
And so when I started transitioning, I was like "you know what I'll just call myself Stef for now,
because people won't interpret that as Stephanie, and I won't have to explain that to them, and it's a lot easier."
And I just got comfortable with it. I got comfortable with Stef. It wasn't even Stephanie at first,
I was like "No I'm not Stephanie, I'm Stef."
But the more I sat with this name, it just felt right to me.
It was the name I'd gone by since I was a kid, and it didn't make me feel dysphoric.
I felt fine using it. And it just stuck.
And then later I decided I wanted something longer.
Because I feel like it's kind of cool when you have a short form name that people call you,
but then, your ID says, like, this long intimidating name or whatever.
So I landed on Stephanie and it just - it was comfortable. That's why I've picked my name: it was comfortable.
And that's why you should pick your name, in my opinion.
I think you should pick a name that you feel comfortable with.
Not a name that people think is cool, a name that you feel comfortable with.
If i wanted to sound cool I would've picked Iris or Sabrina.
But I was comfortable with Stephanie, and it would've been a really big adjustment for me,
and very difficult for me to get used to Iris or Sabrina.
And that wasn't more important than my comfort. You know what I mean?
Now when it comes to my middle name, Luciana, or [imitating] Lutsana,
one of the names my parents were going to name me as a male name, like something that they had thought of
was Luciano.
After Luciano Pavarotti. I think he's an opera singer, I don't know, I don't know really,
but my mom loved his voice.
My mom loooved - I grew up listening to her listen to opera all the time, all kinds of different opera singers.
And I loved the name Luciano, I loved it. I liked that you could shorten it to Luke.
I don't know.
Before I transitioned I honestly thought about changing my name to Luciano for a long time.
And I knew that there was a feminine version, which is Luciana, which can shorten to Lucy.
I like it, I don't know, I think it's interesting, it has impact, is has power to it.
And it's something that ties everything back to what my parents were going to name me.
My middle name before transitioning was tied to a great grandfather of mine.
I believe it was a great grandfather.
And I didn't wanna...I don't know. I have a good relationship with my family.
I didn't wanna totally, like, leave all of that behind with my new names.
So I took something else that I felt had a tie to my family,
which was this other name my parents were going to name me, which was Luciano,
which was Luciana, for me now, because, um [smacks lips] obviously.
And it's as simple as that for me.
It was what was comfortable, and I did have a lot of other ideas,
and I thought about them for a very long time, months.
But in the end, I decided to go with what made me comfortable, and I really think that's the best choice.
I think writing these names down, looking at them,
you don't have to spend literally an hour looking at the names on a piece of paper,
but if you write them down, look at them for like two minutes, a couple times a week,
eliminate a name here and there as you grow and as you develop and as you change,
you will find something that just feels right.
And I think that's what you've gotta do, so.
If you guys have any other tips that worked for you to pick a new name,
I would love to hear what you have to say in the comments.
I'm sure other people can learn from your experiences as well.
And until next time, just remember:
you are [pauses] the greatest Pirates of the Caribbean background, like, character,
the greatest extra on set, that has ever lived.
I just - this shirt makes me feel like I'm a pirate, so that's where that came from.
Anyway, [pauses] that's what you are. You're a great extra. That's amazing.
You're getting paid the big money to look cool in the back - it's really impor - it's a very important job.
I love you so much! Byeee! [makes kissy noises]
[louder ambient music]