what's in a name

I know, I'm just so enlightened and fantastical for using probably the most cliched Shakespeare quote to do this, but who cares? 

I'm changing my name!!

Like the whole thing. Legally. To the tune of $300 (Thanks Seattle). Forever.

You might be asking, why, oh (insert old name here) would you want to change the beautiful name your parents lovingly crafted for you to something you just made up? 

And I'll tell you:

1-Deadnaming is mean, don't do it

2- that's sort of a rude question (and definitely a rude way to phrase a question) unless we're close enough that you ask me about my identity on the regular

And 

3- I personally am not throwing out a proverbial baby with any kind of bath water (though there's nothing wrong with doing that either if the baby in the metaphor was abusive/caused harm/is generally not something you want to be associated with) 

Okay, that one for away from me a little. 

What I mean is, like everything else in my life, the name I have picked is something that I have thought far too much about, and holds an immense amount of Meaning ™.

This Meaning™ is probably only important to some people, but those are more or less the same people that read this blog, so I figure this is a good space for it. 

So, without further Ado, here is a break down of my new name, and what it Means.

Nyx Calais Ryder Lewis

That's me! Why change my name at all you may be asking? Well, I'm non-binary, and I grew up with everyone I know thinking that I was a girl/lady/woman. I associate with exactly 0 of those words. I never have. Especially as an adult and a teen it felt like the weirdest thing ever to call myself a 'woman' and it took about a billion years to figure out that that's because I'm not one. To make matters even more confusing for all you binary pals out there, I'm also not a boy/man/dude (I refuse to put gentleman on this list, because I definitely am a gentleman and a scholar). So I fall into a fun category we don't have in English speaking western society where I am kind of both and kind of neither and I don't have a good way to explain it but hey how's it going?

So I wanted a name that would reflect a sort of inbetween could go either way kind of deal. Also I'm of cusp of gen x millennial, and I wanted my name to look cool, which meant it had to have a y in the middle of it. But I digress.

Nyx

I also wanted something that still sounded likey old name, because ile en though I've learned a lot about myself and my identity, I find that my past informs a lot of who I am even now. 

So I came across Nyx, and she was a super badass goddess of night, and a child of chaos, and I was like, yeah, I could do that. 

Lewis

Going slightly out of order, I picked Lewis because it is the English version of my old middle name, Louise. It means Warrior, which I've always loved, because my old first name means Victory of the People (I was born to be a social worker) and I loved the juxtaposition of those. So I moved it to be my new last name, since I am much more of a warrior than I'll ever be a purveyor of finely dyed garments. 

Louise is also a family name passed on through the oldest afab people in my mom's family. It's my grandma's middle name, my mom's, and was formerly mine. 

I'm not having kids of my own, so I'll likely never be responsible for anming anyone, so instead, this namesake gets to live on in my academic work, and on my new diploma for my MSW instead. Hopefully the teachers who wear it ahead of me will think that's a fitting place for it to stay.

Calais

My middle name is where I struggled for a while in coming up with what I wanted my new name to be. For a while I thought of going without, but I wanted to be able to include at least the meaning of my old last name, even if I wasn't holding on to the name itself. So I spent a bunch of time googling name meanings with 'dye', and 'ink' and 'paint' in them and came up empty. 

Then I searched for 'color'. 

Calais, in the original Greek, means Changing Color. 

Yes, you can all gasp and applaud. I mean, how much more perfect of a transitionary name can you get? But the awesomeness of this name does not end there. 

Calais (pronounced callAY) is a place in France (both my old first and middle name are french). 

Calais (pronounced CaLIEas)is a boread. What's a boread you ask (because you haven't read every book Rick Riordan has ever written)? The boreads we're the sons of the north wind in Greek mythos, and we're responsible for all kinds of shenanigans. As a family of origin name replacement, I can think of nothing better than a name that reminds me of all the great times my family and I have had on and around boats and water and sailing. 

(For those who are wondering, I'm choosing to pronounce it the Greek way)

Ryder

Ryder was a late entry to the game, and frankly one I debated leaving out, but in the end decided I liked the way they all rolled together, and I needed at least one that didn't end in an 's' sound. 

Ryder also means Warrior, so it could have replaced Lewis. It's also (almost) an anagram for my old last name, so it honestly could have replaced Calais as well, but I'd already been sitting with those names, and it didn't seem like a complete fit if I lost the reasons I'd chosen those names. 

So Ryder got added, first as a hyphenated last name, which I pondered for about three minutes and decided I absolutely hated, and got added on as an extra middle name instead. 

Cause I'm bougie like that. 

So there you have it. Not pulled out of a hat. Not to spite the people who raised me. Just a way to claim my identity in a new way, and to maybe someday stop getting misgendered literally everywhere all the time. 

My new diploma gets here in a few weeks and will be my first official document to hold my new name. Hopefully my name change hearing will happen soon after and then I get to start the endless process of sending paperwork to every agency, bank, and franchise I've ever signed anything at to get it updated. 

Yay bureaucracy!