[CM213]

How did you come to choose her name for those of you who are transitioning?

Is it just the feminine version of your original name? Is it completely different? Obviously I know this is deeply personal to each of you. 

I am struggling with accepting her as myself. And I feel as soon as I'm able to give her a name then I'll finally be able to accept her since she is me and I am her. Like giving her a name makes it more real I guess In a sense.

[Caylee]

Choosing name

My wife and I made a list of all the names we thought we liked, when the list was complete, about 15 names we flipped a coin to see who would start. Each of us, one at a time would scratch their least favorite name off with last name being CAYLEE.  Then Caylee picked the middle name.  Can you think of a more diplomatic way.

Caylee

[DruLactin]

I was on a plane to a funeral and I was running through names, and i wandered around all the names and realised i did like the Acronym my initials already made, and i liked my name still starting with an A (formerly Andrew). Eventually i ran through a bunch and remembered


And i debated whether or not i wanted to name myself after a grandma, and decided it wasn't a very grandmotherly name in practice, so i chose it. I do music stuff so it fits, too.

-Aria

[HelloDiDi]

I just changed few letters around. But now I'm regretting it a bit, Lara is way too easy to mess up with my deadname and few people constantly do it. They just can't change me in their minds? My second name I absolutely adore these days. Old one was a masculine version of the same name, they're both medieval names btw. 

My second name is Johanna which is super nice, its one of the most common names in Finland, there are 120000 of us here. But I still love it because it shortens into Jossu which is so cute, I've never had such nickname before and this is the name I introduce myself with to people who don't know me from old life. I'm almost tempted to make another change at some point and take Jossu as my official first name.

There's some weird twist of fate with this, both my parents are using a nickname as their first name and that's the name people use to call them. It would feel weird if I used either of their official names, it just doesn't sit right.

[CM213]

Yeah I agree I typically go by a nickname over my real name. I usually introduce myself as Robby a shortened version of Robert, and my middle name is Andrew. I'm leaning towards keeping the same initials at the very least for now but I'm not opposed to a complete radical name change either. 

I had a friend growing up whose name was Robin and she goes by Rob. A few other names I was thinking of are Raelynn Rebecca Roslyn and Robin. For my middle name I was thinking of Andrea Ava Athena or some form of Alex Alexa Alice. 

But that's just me going through a list and picking out names nothing's really resonated with me besides just staying with my nickname I use which is Robby

But again I feel like I need to figure out the name situation for me to make it more real and make her more real so to speak. 

Most of the other suggestions and advice say that the name will just come to me and when you know but that has not happened yet

[Marica]

My female name "Marica" is born a night that i was driving en-femme with my partner besides me. We where going to a party with other open-minded couples. During the travel she was smiling me and she asked: "And... What's your name darling ?" I thought just a second and laughing I answerd: "Nice to meeet you, I'm Marica" (That is a sort of modification of my males name)

[Karen Hart]

This is an interesting topic. There are several ways to go about it as have already been mentioned. 

Modification of your male name. This is good because if someone calls you from behind, you are more likely to "hear" it.
Also, it makes it easier for friends to remember it.

Keeping your same initials can be an obvious benefit. 

One thing that I would add is to let your spouse give you your name. It honors them and they are more likely to relate to it.
If you were to choose a name that they could not relate to, that did not fit their vision of you, they may feel very awkward calling you by that name.
However, this never worked for me!

Over my many years of dating, I had plenty of girlfriends who had no problem with my crossdressing but none of them would ever call me by any feminine name,
neither when I was dressed, nor even when we were being intimate. I really longed for that.
When we went shopping, they would say things like, "Do you think your sister would like this dress?" meaning "me".

I chose "Karen" because I always loved the name and it felt soft and comfy... and Hart because, well, you get that, right?
This was way before "Karen" meant -- somebody you would hope to avoid.

Karen 

[Shirazmn]

I am not transitioning but I'll drop my 2 pence in here.

There has been a very dark time in my life when I was about 28 years old. Work sucked, I had plenty of debts from a previous divorce, and I suspected that my GF was cheating on me. The year before, I had created an account on an Italian crossdressers website (travcompany) using the name "Sara" but I was then stupid enough to use my actual email address in association with it on a few websites (noob!). Fast forward a few months, things with the GF are going even worse and I was working 18 hours a day just to cover my debts. Crossdressing became an increasingly important part of my little free time because I have always "dressed to de-stress" and I was having a lot of stress to let go off. One night I decided to dig a bit more into myself and try to understand what I wanted. I opened a new account on that same website, this time with a burner email, and started chatting around with guys to see if anyone local would want to chat with me. I had never been with a guy, but at that point I really wanted to understand who I was. So, under some generic "Girl123" name I started chatting with this guy from my same town and we decide to meet at some poin one of the following evenings. Obviously he asks me my name and I didn't want to link my identity with my old nickname, so I had a "Mrs Doubtfire" moment when my eyes wondered around looking for a name that suit me. As I said, it was a dark time, and the only dinner I allowed myself to have that night was a pot of chickpeas and a bottle of wine: Shiraz. That name sounded "magical" (something like "Shazam" in my head) so I just went with it. It also sounds a bit like She-Ra (He-man's cousin). (The "mn" part of my name has to do with the name of the town where I come from, and nowadays I just use it for consistency).

It is a sad story. A name essentially born out of depression, while hooking up with strangers online. But it reminds me that I have been through some shitty times and somehow managed to get out of them alive. My wife knows this story and we still exchange half a smile when I open a bottle of Shiraz to drink at home.

[Jamie-May]

for me, the name Jamie was simply cus i was always referred to as Jamie since I was a child. it wasnt until i was about 10 or so when i found out my name was actually something else. so since Jamie is gender neutral (to me its always seemed more feminine than masculine), i decided to stick with it out of familiarity and to make it easier on my parents to 'accidentally' call me my new name since it is one they were already used to. in fact my court date to officially have my name change is set for the end of next month ^-^ once that is done ill be changing my gender marker as well~

[Stevenator_]

My court date to officially have my name change is set for the end of next month ^-^ once that is done ill be changing my gender marker as well~

Congratulations!