Names have always held a lot of significance for me. When I was a kid, I carried around a battered and heavily dog-eared copy of the Oxford Book of Names, a book written in the 1940s that gave historical background and etymology for names. I read that thing all the way through many times over, pretty much memorizing it. I used to make lists of all the names I’d like to have, and I used to imagine the person I’d be if I had that name. I made lists of my favorite names and then asked people about their own favorites. Later in life, with the advent of the internet, I was fascinated by the idea of usernames and the ability to choose a name. I went through many – Poetfox in high school, Antipeople in college, Driftingfocus in my 20s. I’ve had names for reenacting, names for the Society of Creative Anachronism, and most recently, a magickal name for O.T.O stuff and ritual work (consider this last tidbit a teaser for another post). Names have power, and are not meant to be taken lightly. So, this was not a task I took on without an understanding of its significance.
The name my parents gave me is actually hilariously well-suited to me. I won’t post it here, but it originates from an old Teutonic word that means “from the ship” (hilariously appropriate for someone who spent 14 years working on ships). It’s also a name that originally was a men’s name, but that has in recent decades switched gender, as names sometimes are wont to do. I never disliked it. If it weren’t for the fact that I needed a clean break in the way people thought of me and associated with me, I would have kept it. But, since names are representative of the person they belong to, and I was no longer really that person, I needed a new one.
First I asked my parents what they were going to name me if I’d been born as a male child. My mother said she never picked one out, and my dad said he’d thought of “Keegan”. I’ve never known a Keegan who wasn’t a douchebag, so that was a no-go. My family had no traditional names (indeed, my paternal grandfather actually changed his entire name in his 20s) for me to pick from amongst either, so family as a source for a name was out.
Next, I looked up a bunch of other K names, so that at least my initials would remain the same – turns out there aren’t many out there for guys, and none of them really spoke to me. Next I looked through some traditional Russian, German, and Jewish names, as my family has a strong connection with those cultures, and I couldn’t find anything that didn’t sound like I was being ethnically appropriative (though I toyed with the idea of Pavel for awhile).
Where did this leave me? I plucked my trusty Oxford Book of Names off the shelf and thumbed through it to see what I had underlined nearly twenty years ago. Lots of old fashioned English names, apparently, was the answer. Alastair (and its dozen spellings), Cyril, Seward, William, Sidney, Wilfred, and others were all underlined or otherwise noted. A lot of these did speak to me, but I wasn’t sure how much I felt they were me. I needed to give them a test run, to see how they felt in my mouth, and how they sounded to the ears of others. I went by Alastair for my first few months of therapy with my new therapist. Though I really liked the name, and I really identified with it, the multitude of different spellings was a logistical nightmare, so I decided it wasn’t the answer, unfortunately. Then, I went by Cyril for a few months. It’s fun to say, fun to write, has a feel that suited me, but after a few months, it just wasn’t…me. Seward was out, as it sounded too much like I was saying my name was Sewer – not good. While thinking of going by William, always my favorite of the common men’s names, I had an epiphany: I already had a perfectly suitable name, one that even had the slightly old-fashioned cache that was so appropriate for me, as part of my legal name: my middle name, Wilson.
Wilson is my mother’s maiden name, and my middle name, legally. Taking that name as my first name would neatly tie a bow on the whole affair. It was still a name my parents chose for me, it was tied to family tradition, it had a traditional, old-fashioned British sound to it, it was easy to spell and write, it wasn’t unfamiliar to most people, it’s uncommon enough that, like my birth name, I’d almost assuredly be the only one with that name at a gathering, and importantly, it was already part of my legal name. I could sign with that name without getting into trouble. It also gave me a great cover story if someone saw my birth name on a document – “Oh, yeah, [birth name] is my first name, but it’s mostly a girl’s name nowadays, so I go by my middle name to avoid confusion.” No one has ever questioned it.
So, there you have it! That’s how I got my name.