So what’s the story of my name? It’s pretty simple, actually. After I came out to myself in late June, I started thinking of names, and Amy popped up in my head. It sounded good, it sounded right, so I went with it. I worked back from that to Amelia, my legal name* and that’s that.
Thanks for coming! See you next time!
Well, OK, that’s not the whole story. Picking a name is one of the most important things I had to do for my transition. A world of options awaited me, and it was easy to get lost in the choices. Where would I start?
Right off the bat an option to explore would be not changing my name at all. I’m a lazy person, the thought of avoiding the headaches and cost that would result from changing my name appealed to me. While my previous name was pretty ironic for a woman**, it has a diminutive form that works quite well. I certainly could have settled for it, and been adequately pleased with the result.
But darnit, I wasn’t going to settle just because it was the easy way. Picking my name is a clear way to establish control over my identity. There’s so much I can’t control in life, but this was something I could. Besides, adequate may have been adequate, but it didn’t feel right. Hopefully I’ll only be going through this process once, I should make the most of it and find a name that is my name.
So the “no name change” option crossed off (and only occasionally popping back up through the years), I surveyed the landscape of feminine*** names and started winnowing down the list.
Rules of a Name Search
First off I decided to limit the list to names that started with an ‘A’. This had both logistical concerns for things like usernames, but it also had a symmetry to it that I liked. I did consider some names that started with a letter other than ‘A’, but for the most part the other twenty five letters were left out.
From there, I had to rule out names that would be really awkward to pick, i.e. names of my immediate family, aunts, cousins, co-workers, and friends. This ruled out some of my favorite names that I would have considered were circumstances different.
So I eliminated the other letters and names that would be really awkward from contention (mostly). However, there were still are a lot of feminine ‘A’ names to choose from. I ran over most of them in my head over and over, but when it came down to it only two names popped up: Andrea and Ashley.
For years I alternated back and forth between the two, but neither of them ever felt right. I just felt like I was doing it to do it, almost as if they were stalking horses for the real name I was keeping back until it really meant something.
Bet you can’t guess what that is!
What about Anna?
If you’re a subscriber to the newsletter from before I came out, or took a chance to peruse the archives, you may be asking why Anna wasn’t a choice. And to be honest I just never considered it. As important as Elsa and Anna are to me, naming myself after them was never a thing I wanted to do.
Pop culture means a lot to me, especially Television and movies. It was unlikely I’d pick a name that wasn’t at least in part tied to some of my favorite fictional characters, and to a lesser extent actual celebrities and historical figures. But c’mon, I’m not all that subtle at times, but that’s too obvious.
So if Anna, or Elsa, wasn’t the name using the stalking horses, what was? Well, I mean that’s not really a question, the title of this newsletter should have given it away. I’m just trying to set up the next…ugh, it’s Amy.
The Genesis of a Name
When I say that I never considered Amy as a choice until it was my choice, this is not an exaggeration. In the 12 years I mulled over names, I don’t recall ever settling on Amy or Amelia. It just wasn’t something that even flashed in my mind. So it’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t it?
Yeah, except for it isn’t. Looking back now, it’s clear that it was always going to be Amy. I never considered it until it was truly time to consider it, because I couldn’t stand the thought of never getting to use this name I loved and wanted to use. As such, I pushed it back into a lockbox deep in my brain, keeping it secret and safe until the right moment to spring it open.
How do I know this? Well, I’m getting to that. But first, I need to clear something up so there aren’t any misunderstandings.
Was it Amy March?
No. Unlike the title of this newsletter, my name has nothing to do with Amy March****. Sadly, I’ve never read Little Women, and didn’t have anything more than a vague understanding of the characters until I saw the excellent 1994 movie in July (and saw the wonderful 2019 version this past week)*****. Amy March is a misunderstood character, and I’m a fan, but she in no way influenced my name. Unless she did, and I just don’t remember that.
The Three Amys
So if it isn’t Amy March, who is it then? There are plenty of Amy’s that have left good impressions, and a few Amelias. There’s Amy Alden from Fly Away Home, and Amy Wong from Futurama. There’s the “girl who waited”, Amy Pond, and Amelia “Mia” Thermopolis from The Princess Diaries. All good choices, and I’d be happy to say they were influences if I thought they actually were influences on my name choice.
A more intriguing option is Amy Archer from The Hudsucker Proxy is warmer. I’ve liked the movie well before I knew that what I was dealing with was being trans, and I really liked the character. I just don’t have anything substantial to back that up.
The biggest influences are three Amy’s from the first half of the 2010s. Amy Jellicoe, the main character of Enlightened, is an obvious choice, as there are few characters I’ve identified with so much as her. Where I was in my life at the time I watched the show (long story short it was not a great time for me) it was a salve. Watching a show with such a flawed character still doing her best to make a difference despite the odds helped get me through those dark days. Again, I don’t have proof it was Amy Jellicoe, but I did forget that was her name. Not because it didn’t mean anything to me, but I think it was blocked with my effort to not think about the name in my pre transition days.
Over the next couple years, two more favorite characters showed up: Amy Brookheimer from Veep and Amy Elliott Dunne from Gone Girl******. Neither character is exactly what I’d call a role model, but there were parts of these characters that resonated so much with me, even if some of that resonance was more as cautionary tales.
In the end, I’m not sure I’ll ever know why I picked Amy. Perhaps I just really, really liked the character Amy from the movie Her. Maybe I wanted to stick it to the Amy Gardner haters out there. Heck, it’s the wrong spelling, but maybe I just loved the Aimee Mann’s music from the Magnolia soundtrack.
Or maybe it wasn’t a reference at all. Maybe I just heard the name one time when I was young, and fell in love with the sound of it. I love how it sounds, how it rolls with my last name. I never disliked my previous name, but it just never felt right. Maybe I just fell in love with it this past June when I decided upon it, and the story from the first paragraph was the whole story.
Or hey, maybe it was Amy March. Perhaps when I very quickly and haphazardly skimmed through the Great Illustrated Classics version I had when I was a child, I saw that short sweet name, and devoid of the context of the character stored it away for another time, when it made sense why I liked that name so much.
Whatever the reason, the name fits so well. I can’t imagine being named anything other than what I am, and as of this morning I never will be. I am now legally Amelia Carter Andrew******* Tate. So while I never got a definite answer in my search for the origin of my name, I still found a great answer to the question “Why Amy?”:
I’m Amy
* A name I really like as well, feel free to call me it if you aren’t a fan of brevity!
** Most of you know it, look up its meaning and you’ll see what I mean. And if you don’t, it’ll show up at the bottom and you can look up its meaning then!
*** Here is where I state that just because someone is trans does not mean they have to use traditionally feminine names, or to even express femininity at all. It’s absolutely valid for a trans woman to keep and use a traditionally masculine name. I’ve got two of them as middle names, after all (although one is apparently a trendy name for girls these days).
***As my email address has my first and middle initial, this played a part in my middle name decision as well.
**** My reference bank for Little Women is primarily from the 1994 and 2019 movies, and the whole “I’m Amy” thing may be just from the 2019 film. If you haven’t seen it, then those references just sound like I’m saying “I’m Amy”.
***** I am actually pretty angry that I wasn’t familiar with Jo March until this year. She’s a character that I would have identified with from a young age, and would have helped me figure some things out about myself. However, that’s a story for a different time.
****** Amy Elliott Dunne was definitely the main influence of part of my email address. Or rather, the character in the series of books written by her parents and based upon her. By putting “Amazing Amy” in my email address, I simultaneously reference a favorite character, sound a cautionary note to myself to not get too full of myself, and a sincere statement of my desire to live my best life possible.
******* I am keeping my previous name as a second middle name, in honor of my dad’s side of the family, as it is his middle name. My primary middle name, Carter, is a family name from my mom’s side. In addition, I like how it sounds with Amy, and apparently it’s a trendy name for girls these days. In this instance I show my previous name because it just happens to also be part of my middle name. In the regular run of things I’ll just go by Amelia Carter Tate, although I do like how my full legal name’s initials are A CAT.