Why you should change your name

Or: Dare to create your own rite of passage

You don’t see a lot of women named Gormy walking around, do you?

That’s because most parents love their children and Gormy is a terrible name, unless your children are either insects or very oily.

The presence of bad names suggests the presence of good names, meaning there is a spectrum of quality for the noises people make when they want to get your attention. That spectrum has more axes than just good and bad, there is also ‘masculine vs feminine names’, ‘fancy vs plain names’, and ‘baby or dog names’.

Names can also reflect time periods, such as Minnie (#6 female name in 1880) and Mildred (#9 female name in 1920). Unless you were in India, where the respective eras were more likely to have an Aditi or a Pavarti. There are also broad cultural connotations, such as how no American family with the surname Epstein is considering naming their baby Jeff right now.

My point is, names carry weight, and can impact people’s first impression of you when they hear, read, or say it. A name is as much of an introduction to you as a face, and I’m surprised more people take it so lightly. Your parents, without even knowing you, gave you the label that you’ll probably keep til you die.

Unless you don’t, which gets us to my premise: you should probably change your name. If you want to completely own your life, begin with the words that describe it, the header of the whole category, the label under which all else falls. Choose your own name.

You know yourself better than anyone, meaning you know the kind of costume you want to present to the world. You understand how you want everyone to see you, deep down. If the world is a stage and you are naught but an actor, wouldn’t you want to have a hand in the script? To have the reviewers of your life talk about the grace of Rosalia, instead of the grace of Gormy? To have the crowd chant for an encore from Midas over the return of Wamble?

Sir Wamble does have a nice ring to it, though

Jack Butcher, the founder of Visualize Value, famously named his child ‘Baby’ for a year, as UK laws allow you to easily and legally change a child’s name up to a year after birth. Why? Jack wanted to get to know his daughter as much as possible and learn about her personality and mannerisms before giving her a name that might not fit.

Whereas your parents, lazy bums that they are, probably just gave you the name they liked the best, or even just pawned off the name of a grandparent born 85 years ago. What if your parents have terrible taste? What if grandpa is kind of a dick? Is it your destiny to suffer the slings and arrows of a name not meant for you, simply for the lack of initiative and creativity from others?

No. Choose a name that embodies the person you want to be, then choose to live up to it. Give yourself a title, then earn it. Make a choice and stand by it. Name yourself.

Personally, my own name has always sounded very lame to me. As an obese child, I abhorred it, the way it started so wide and ended with a weird click in the back of the mouth. Alec is a great name for a brand of cottage cheese, soft and lumpy, but not for me. I asked Claude to break the name down phonetically in the context of being an American male, and this is some of what it said:

‘Low front unrounded vowel’

‘Not a prestige vowel’

‘Abrupt termination with no voicing or release resonance’

‘Moves backward’

Who wants a name that gets described like that?

Phonetically, it seems to have low qualia, which helps explain why it never felt good coming out of my mouth or entering my ears. It’s a bunk name for a boy who wanted to be perceived as going forward, not backward. It annoyed me to be associated with that name, when so many much more fitting names were available, and I was annoyed at my mom for choosing it just because she thought Alec Baldwin was pretty cool. I read a lot of Redwall in 3rd/4th grade, and when my nerd friends and I would create fantasy battle scenes, I would proclaim myself to be Lance Shrew, and proudly wrote that name over my own in my elementary yearbook.

Decades later, as I work to have ownership in my life from every aspect, to guide the pen as it inscribes my narrative into the history books, it’s time to christen myself and I would suggest you do the same. Come 2026, I will be changing my name (after I move to San Francisco to settle in for good.)

As I discuss in the essay Why Everyone in Their 30s is Sad, there is a Second Death of Innocence that occurs once you transition from being peer-defined to being individually-defined. The world stops having a defined track to follow and you are left to chart your own way forward, defining success and failure on your own terms.

This is disorienting for many, as the paradigm shift leaves them adrift in an ocean of possibility. You may choose wrong and be unable to go back, so you are left paralyzed with fear and overwhelming opportunity, slowly decaying in your inactivity. Those who instead decide to forge their own life feel a sense of control. A weight behind their own choices, and an ownership contained in that weight. Every downstream consequence and win, joy and pain, tiny moment and grand experience, becomes a reality they have directly created.

In an American culture that lacks a Rite of Passage into adulthood, I challenge you to create your own. Cross the channel from a name chosen for you (bleh) into a name you have chosen for yourself (wow!). Become adult by seizing the reins of your own life and directing its energy. New name → new you, and the new you is ready to stride with swagger into a new phase of growth.

So which will you be? Will you dare to redraw the map of your own kingdom? Will you look into the endless list of letters to string together and make a choice of which string will be yours? Will you ever escape fuckarounditis and live up to your potential? (Thanks Hyde).

Start to look for inspiration in the world to see what vibes with you. Find names of literary characters you admire. Compile a list and ask Claude for the phonetic linkages between them, to parse out the sounds of what the highest version of yourself should be addressed by.

Own your life, beginning with your name.

With love, from me to you.

-Alec (for now)

Note: No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article.

P.S.- A funny anecdote about my life. Back in September, 2021, I was pondering the name change, and put a list into my iPhone Notes app to think over them and ask my friends their thoughts on what would suit me.

There were about 12 names on the list. One of which was Dorne.

Now, I had spent about 29 years of my life without knowing my father. My mom said it could have been one of three guys, but she wasn’t sure which one. Very Momma Mia.

In 2022, through Ancestry.com, I ended up meeting my father. Wonderful man with kind, impressive kids. He’s since opened up his heart and home to me, and all is well between us. We met at the right time and I’m glad it didn’t happen earlier.

His last name? Dorn.

Not saying there’s anything cosmically linked to names, or that label predates destiny, but my being drawn to the name that I would come to know later as my own paternal lineage is pretty cool.

It also helped me scratch that one off the list. Seems weirdly Oedipal to steal my father’s last name, and I do not want to anger the Old Gods.