Pride | Essay
My Name Goes Beyond Gender
Thoughts about my name and the way it doesn’t fit into any one idea of gender.
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I wanted to share a short essay I once wrote about my name. This essay is based on part of my application to law school, so it concludes in a way that makes sense in that context. I did change and add things for Medium since I’m not confined to a 350 word limit.
As a Greek-American, I go by Peter in most of my daily life, and by Panayiotis (Παναγιώτης) when I am around other Greek people. For reasons that I’ll share in a moment, I was a bit confused by my Greek name when I was growing up. But, as I thought about whether or not I wanted to go by a different name when I came out as non-binary, I found to my surprise that my Greek name was really affirming and helped me understand myself even better. I still go by Peter and like that name and everything it means, but here and there I also go by Pana, a shortened version of my Greek name. Thank goodness I didn’t write an entire book I hope to publish one day and numerous short stories featuring a character named Pana (spoiler alert, I did). That would be confusing.
