• Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’ve always felt like the names we pick for ourselves ought to be more valid than the ones others choose for us. We should choose names for ourselves at different stages of life, and just tack them on in whatever order we like. You want something more fun than mummy and daddy gave you? Knock yourself out. Were your idiot parents drunk when they signed the papers? Well you can fix that at 12 if you like. We are who we choose to be and this the goddamn future.

    • aicse@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I wouldn’t trust the 12 years old me to decide a name for myself.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Honestly, I think it would be fun to choose new names at various stages of life, adding them on as we age. If our parents aren’t going to take naming us seriously, why should we? So what if we have a dozen names we no longer use? It becomes a summary of who we were, how we came to be ourselves, a reminder of growing up.

    • aliceblossom@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wholly agree with your initial sentiment, although I envision it being structured differently. I think it makes sense for a person to have a name when they are growing, especially one given to you by your parents since they are (typically) a huge part of who you are at that point in your life.

      But, no one stays who they are when they were 7, or 12, or 16. By the time they’re not a minor I would argue that they’re hardly the same person. Thus, I think it should be expected and tradition for people to change their name once they truly become individuals.

      And I think it doesn’t even have to be a legal thing. Parents can just be like, “think about and pick your new name” and once the person decides, they (and everyone else they inform) just starts calling them that name.

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I agree that there should be no need to make a legal name change. Likewise, it’s nobody’s business how many middle names we build up over our lives. If one of them is “Superman” from when we were six, nobody needs to know.