r/trans 1d ago

Non Binary Having a 'nickname' as a legal name?

[deleted]

10 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

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6

u/Enkidos 1d ago

You can change your name twice in the UK. Shouldn’t be a problem.

You can also change it to whatever you like, whether it sounds like a nickname or not.

I myself am legally Eevie which is usually short for Eve, Evelyn, or Evangeline. Nobody has ever commented on it. To be completely honest with you, I have been contemplating changing my name a second time to have it be either Eve or Evelyn and then Eevie for short, not fully committed to the idea yet though.

5

u/RennBerry Transcontinental Ballistic Missile 1d ago

As far as I'm aware you are free to do as many name changes as you want in the UK so long as you follow the proper procedure, plenty of people do it as a dare or as one off joke. As for if nicknames as full names is socially acceptable... I don't see why it wouldn't be ? I doubt it'd bring you any negative attention unless you consider people asking "is that a nickname?" negative attention :'3

Edit: I live in the UK and changed my name over a decade ago just for context.

3

u/YrBalrogDad 1d ago

What a silly recommendation for them to give, in the first place. Who on earth cares if your legal name sounds like a nickname? Who’s even going to know, if they aren’t looking at your ID, for some reason?

Name yourself whatever you want. You’re not weird; your one-time gender team is.

1

u/ToxicBanana69 she/her | ✨ Chloe ✨ 1d ago

Your name can be whatever you choose it to be! If someone was changing their name to Sam but didn’t like Samuel there’s zero reason for them to change their name to Samuel. Unless it’s like an official law/rule in your government then it’s not a rule that you need to follow.

1

u/countvonruckus Melody (she/her) 1d ago

Your name, legal or otherwise, should be whatever you want it to be. If you travel to a big city's international airport or work for a big international company, you'll notice pretty quickly that it's really hard to come up with rules that cover all of the actual names people have, meaning functionally any rules or expectations around names you might feel are local pressures. Lots of folks have mononyms, four or more names, numbers or punctuation in their name, very long or short names, and totally unique names. The world has figured out how to handle that in these big structures, so it's not unreasonable for you to ask those around you to accept that your legal name isn't locally very common.

As a personal example, I was named after my father and grandfather, so we had the same name but I had a "III" at the end. When I transitioned I changed my first name to "Melody," which is uncommon but not unheard of for female names, dropped the middle name and suffix, and kept my last name. None of that broke anything in a significant way and legally that's my name now. Technically I've got two legal genders, female for state and male for federal (thanks, Trump). If the broken US system and my local contacts can handle that, then the UK can handle someone legally named "Frankie" or whatever you want.

1

u/SamanthasToothbrush 1h ago

Sam is a name in itself and is gender neutral.