I legally changed mine nearly ten years ago. I caught a lot of flak for it (I still am catching flak for it) from people who didn’t understand why. I did it for these reasons:
- My totem animal is a black cat in two forms: domestic and melanistic jaguar. They, as guides, have taught me much about survival, and my new name helped me gain a firmer root on my life. I am who I am, not what someone else chose for me. (There is more spiritual reason for this but I’ll spare you that detail.)
- I needed to be free of all the emotional and psychic baggage and bad energies that hung around the birth name (note I don’t claim it). My formative years came with a lot of trauma from birth on, and there was so much negative energy tied in with that name it was like wearing a lead shroud. This extended to my stage/professional name as well. So, I dropped both and moved on.
I usually have to remind people that I am not the name I had before and ask them to please refrain from using it — especially those whom I haven’t seen in a long time. The reaction ranges from apologetic to downright belligerent. “Well, I know you as ‘___’. I’mma call you ‘____’ and you just gonna have to deal with it,” was one response I got from someone who isn’t even in my life except when I see him every few years. My response? “Be prepared to ‘deal with’ being ignored, then, because that isn’t my name. You KNEW me as ‘____’. I’m not even the same person I was yesterday.” In fact, I refer to the time before the name change as “Past-Life” and to myself back then as “Past-Lifer”.
Most people have remembered and call me by my chosen name, like most of my friends and relatives and both of my parents (my mother had her moments, but got over it). It was easier for some because they had never known me as anything else, and because I’d already started using it prior to making it legal. Some people needed and still need more convincing, so I show them my ID, and in some cases, my birth certificate. And for those who lapse, I ask them to respect me enough to not throw wads of shxt at me please, because that’s what it feels like when they use the name. Some understand. Others don’t. I just shield myself from them and keep it moving.
So, while it wasn’t done for the reasons that prompted this article, it was done to free myself from a different kind of bond.
