The Importance of My Name Change
See also: Personal Update: A New Me
Background
Yes, it's changed again; my penname is now seeing a new version except this time...this time it's different. This time, I'm legitimizing it. Yes, the name that's been the source of the bane of my existence in terms of trying to come to terms with my permanent/fixed identity is finally getting legalized as Dylan. Here's the process I went through and why I went through so many changes in the process, and why I felt like it was necessary to do so.
Starting the Journey
Most people assume changing one's name is just
about the desire for a fresh start—but as I can tell you, as someone who’s been
spending decades searching for my identity and never feeling quite rooted with
my birth name, it’s actually a deeply personal and significant decision. More
than that, it’s a journey; a process of self-discovery and self-acceptance. A journey
that for me was not just about adopting a new identity but also about embracing
my true self, like I finally found my way back home to my own personal identity
as I finally understood the significance of my identity.
Though the process toward wanting to change my legal name has been long in the making, it wasn't until a baptism that I started seriously thinking about doing so. It was after that baptism where "Dylan Sabrina" was adopted as my spiritually chosen name, with Dylan being chosen as it was "supposed to be" my legal name (back when my parents thought I'd be born a boy and then heteronormatively thought a girl couldn't be named Dylan) while Sabrina was chosen for strictly symbolic/spiritual reasons. Even though I'd like to move away from using "Sabrina" in my day-to-day life and start only using for what it was supposed to be used for—my spiritual work and practices—and move toward using the name "Dylan" in my casual, artistic, and all other general and legal aspects of my life, which is to say I'm only going to make "Dylan" part of my full legal name and Sabrina will be kept as a symbolic name for which it was initially supposed to be.
My Personal Identity
The name I was given at birth never truly
resonated with who I felt I was which is why, growing up, I always felt a
disconnect between my name and my sense of self. It certainly didn’t help
matters I had at least two different types of lisps—the first being that I
couldn’t pronounce my S’s, and the second is that I couldn’t differentiate
between “f”, “ph” and “th”. As such “thirsty” became “firsty”, “fishy” became “thishy”
and “Stephanie” became “Dethanie” which means people could never quite
understand me from the get-go; people often assumed my name was either Destiny,
Daphne, Bethany…it was a struggle. Not to mention I was exposed to jokes like “Step
on Me” or “Steph/Staph Infection” which didn’t hurt my feelings but it definitely
didn’t make me feel good.
My birth name also didn't quite align with the
personality or aspirations I wanted to embody. Probably because I felt so
shrunken down by the limitations imposed by the inability to say my name
correctly, and for getting teased by my name in the first place. For a long
time I started to play around with different variations of my name, as well as
different names entirely—Effie, Kay—until I eventually landed on
Dylan Sabrina. Now there were two names that reflected my identity accurately
in a way that none of their “predecessors” could.
If you look up the meaning of the name that the name Sabrina on ChatGPT, you’ll learn it's of Celtic origin, which is the root(s) of which the majority of my bloodlines are from, and has a lot of other significance to me which I wrote about years ago [back in 2019] when trying to come up with a character for a story that I felt personally close to, during which I wrote this blurb on my Writing it out Blog: "Happy May! A Personal Update":
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You will also find [via ChatGPT] that “Dylan is derived from the Welsh elements dy (meaning ‘great’) and llanw (meaning ‘tide’ or ‘flow’). Therefore, the name Dylan can be interpreted to mean ‘great tide’”. And while this name often refers to a son, according to NameBaby, in gender neutral terms, it also means ‘being delivered from the sea, either in birth or in the form of a baptism.’” As someone who underwent a very significant baptism back in 2016—one that truly and genuinely changed my entire outlook on life in more ways than I can fully explain; a baptism that led me to become an ordained minister determined to start their own church and lead people on a spiritual quest like the one I endured—I truly feel that the names "Dylan" and "Sabrina" embody my values, beliefs, and the person I have been striving and continue to strive to be, but to keep Sabrina as my symbolic name while legally changing my name to Dylan has allowed me to express myself more authentically and confidently in both personal and professional settings.
The Greater Significance
Names typically carry cultural and familial significance.
They’re also typically carefully thought through, processed, deliberated on, and
chosen with great care. This was actually the case for the name Dylan. The name
that was supposed to be my birth name. This was the name they wanted to call me
from the day they learned I was a little fetus was “swimming around” in my mom’s
womb. This was the name they wanted for me when they thought I was going to
be a boy. Everyone told them I’d be a boy. There was essentially no one who
told them they’d be a girl until my mom went into active labor. And then
I was born, and in my parents’ heteronormative thinking there was no way a girl
could carry a name typically given to boys and so they came up with a few names
on the fly, which means my actual birth name was chosen almost at random. It
took them 3 days to finally settle on Stephanie, much to my dad’s own disappointment.
My mom’s too, as they both wanted the name Dylan for me. But they never felt
they could change it. And then years later we met a girl named Dylan and my dad
said he immediately felt like he had “buyer’s remorse”, but that it never occurred
to him or my mom that they could get my name legally changed and so they
continued with Stephanie.
Flashforward to several years later when I
was about 12 or 13 and I started watching a TV show in which a female character
was named Dylan. I related to her so much to the point where I found myself
feeling a strong kinship [with the character], especially as she too was
dealing with the struggle of coming to terms with her own identity, albeit in a
very different way and for a very different reason, but it made me start to
want to change my own name. However, I was living two streets down from another
neighbor, [a boy] also named Dylan. One I was frequently teased to the point of
bullying and harassment for once having a long-deadened crush on in early toddlerhood,
and I knew our neighborhood bully would have perpetuated the harassment by
telling me and everyone me that I was only changing my name out of some sort of
sick stalker-ish mentality. Now I couldn’t tell you if that was an actual conversation
that went down with her or if I just knew her that well (although I do believe
it might have been the former). Even so, that’s when I started playing around
with different identities, starting with “Kay” but it never felt right,
and so I kept trying to find “that one name”. What I was trying to find, or
rather what I realize I was trying to get back to and embrace, was the name
Dylan. The one I wanted and the one my parents wanted for me all along.
A Fresh Start
At the very start I said that “most people
assume changing one's name is just about the desire for a fresh start”, and
yes, that is a large part of why I initially decided to change my name. And
while I did flounder a bit for several years (perhaps even decades if my math
is correct) changing my name symbolized a fresh start and the beginning of a
new chapter in my life; a conscious decision to leave behind certain negative
associations and experiences tied to my old name. A fresh start that came at
the moment of my baptism when in the aftermath I decided to choose a spiritual/symbolic
name for myself that I chose with careful consideration: Dylan Sabrina. This
name wasn’t supposed to be used in casual every-day settings and life; it was a
name that was supposed to be used in spiritually oriented settings. However, I
quickly lost sight of that and began to use it for everything, except in a very
essentially shallow decision, I determined that because both “Sabrina” and “Stephanie”
began with S that I’d use the former in my every day life and Dylan in my
spiritual settings. But I was never truly happy with that decision. I
floundered for years after making that decision (back in 2019) while dealing
with crippling health issues, turning my entire world upside down making me
feel completely unsettled and not all at home with myself or the name Sabrina
that I was completely misusing in the real world.
It wasn’t until right smack in the middle of
2024 that I moved, got healthy, and began to see what I’d been missing in my
fogged-out state of mind—it wasn’t the name Sabrina I was supposed to be using
every day. It wasn’t even the name Dylan Sabrina I should have chosen for my symbolic
name. No, it was the fact that Sabrina should have been the sole symbolic name
I settled on and used only in the right spiritual moments while Dylan was
the name I should have used for my everyday life; in all casual and all other
non-spiritually inclined aspects. It should have been my legal name.
Now that I have come to accept this reality, I am slowly making the transition away from using my birth-name and all other pseudonyms as I begin solely using the name Dylan.
A transition that has been truly empowering, allowing me to take control of my
narrative and set the stage for new opportunities. The act of choosing Dylan to
become my legal name has been absolutely liberating, marking yet a new pivotal
moment in my journey toward personal growth and self-discovery.
Conclusion
As I’ve said, my original name was supposed
to be Dylan; a name that’s tied to an important thought process that never was
able to come to fruition. A process my actual birthname did not fully
encompass. It seems admittedly a little insane to me that the influences from
infant hood in regards to name Dylan have positively shaped me in a way that my
actual birth name could not. But by choosing a name that honors multiple
aspects of my background and history, I am finally able to pay homage to my infanthood
and my parents in a way that feels inclusive and representative of my true
self. This change has also provided me with a sense of connection to a broader narrative
that I feel proud to put out to the world.
Changing my name to Dylan is and has been a crucial step in aligning my external identity with my internal sense of self. It has allowed me to embrace my true identity, honor my parents’ wishes for me prior to my birth, and embark on a new chapter in my life with confidence and clarity. The importance of this decision cannot be overstated, as it has profoundly impacted my life in meaningful and lasting ways. Through this change, I have found a name that truly represents who I am and who I aspire to be. Above all, it is me. No words can stress how truly great it is, that I can finally understand the significance of my own identity.
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