Top image: Stephanie Lee / RICE File Photo
Three years ago, I fell for a girl named after a Greek goddess. I was half in love by the time we finished introductions, simply because she had the most attractive name I’d ever heard.
I found myself enamoured–it seemed that the majesty of her name had reflected onto her. Where had she been all my life?
And then Athena* told me: “Actually, we do know each other from school. I just changed my name.”
“I used to be Jiahui*.”
“Oh,” I said. In that moment, I realised two things:
1.I’d left the stove on; and
2.I was a lot more attracted to Athena than Jiahui. They might be the same person, but they weren’t, not really.
Athena, like lots of other people, took a name that she thought suited her. I saw ambition rooted in her choice. She’d decided that it was who she was, or at least who she wanted to be–someone powerful, wise, and intelligent.
Boringly, I’ve gone by my given name all my life–nothing as much as a monosyllabic version of my name, because there’s no nice way to shorten ‘Nadine’. I’ve never thought about changing it. It’s the call-out I answer to, and the designation my boss can make cheques out to. I’ve just never felt too strongly about it.
But there are plenty of people who have.
‘I Don’t Like What It Stands For‘
When I first met Isaac* in junior college, he said that he would change his surname one day.
Now 22, he’s gone ahead and done it. He’s changed both his surname and his Chinese name by way of deed poll. His surname is now his mother’s surname instead of his father’s; his Chinese name was nixed in favour of a middle name he chose for himself.
“I changed my name to cut off my birth father,” he says plainly. “Because of the things he’s done to me, I felt that he didn’t deserve to be called my ‘family’.”
Coming from a culture where surnames could sometimes be more important than one’s given name, changing your surname may be the most drastic thing you can do with $100 and a lawyer. A surname—generally a patronym, which is a name taken from one’s father—denotes lineage and belonging. It ties a person to their father, clan, and family, which makes what Isaac did even more drastic.
But he was more than happy to make the change, which he views as severing the last tether to the paternal side of his family. The gravity of the act hasn’t been lost on them either—he’s heard that they’re “very upset, which makes me very happy to hear.”
He changed his name as soon as he could do so independently, which was right after his 21st birthday. Also coinciding with this period of his life was his ORD date, which really let him stamp closed a less-than-ideal tranche of his life.
Here lies the old Isaac, who had to bear the name of a man who mistreated him and his family. Long live Isaac Oliver, who gave himself a middle name that means ‘victory’.
“I feel proud of my name,” he says. “I feel connected to myself, and I feel that it’s my identity–and I think that’s what a name should be.”
The Euphoria of a Name Change
There’s a group of people who aren’t strangers to changing their names at all. For the trans community, changing their name might be part and parcel of the social transitioning process. I’ve heard some people call it a form of gender-affirming care.
Apart from using a new set of pronouns, name changes are often the first way that someone may express their gender identity.
Kai*, a 22 year-old trans man, tells me of the euphoria he felt the first time he heard his new name acknowledged.
“The first time someone called me ‘Kai’, I was so happy,” he says. “Some of my friends messaged me to say that they changed my contact name in their phone from my deadname to ‘Kai’. I felt so grateful.”
Kai took on his name when he first came out as trans, and before he started hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The name Kai was the salve that would soothe a lifelong dysphoric ache. He’d already seen himself as male for the longest time—”I’ve wanted to be ‘Kai’ since I was 7, maybe?”—so going by a new name was just a means of declaring his identity to the world.
Kai’s dead name is tied to a gender that he doesn’t identify with, so calling him by the right name goes beyond personal preference and into the nitty gritty of his gender. And it matters—especially in a country that’s still leery about trans people.
And it’s obviously just not him. Gender affirmation by way of legally recognising people’s names and pronouns is directly linked to better mental health outcomes. Calling someone by their preferred name may not quell their gender dysphoria entirely, of course, but it’s a way for friends and loved ones to help someone on a journey that’s usually very, very lonely.
Are Some Names Better For Business?
Even cisgender people who change their names experience the happiness of having their new name affirmed. Chelsea, also 22, took on an English name when she was in Secondary 3.
“I used to be uncomfortable introducing myself because people would never pronounce my name correctly.”
Having to repeatedly clarify mispronunciations dented her confidence and made her uncomfortable with herself. By the time she turned 15, she’d decided she wanted a name people could pronounce more easily.
Now, she feels a lot more confident because of how easy it is to introduce herself to people. She no longer feels the same pit in her stomach that she used to feel when saying her own name.
And she’s also reaping professional benefits—she says her colleagues and bosses remember her name easily.
She’s not the first person to make a name more ‘pronounceable’. I grew up around Gen Xers like my parents who chose to take English names in the workplace in lieu of using their given names, especially if their given names are multisyllabic or use uncommon sounds.
A friend of mine once put it like this, if not a little crudely: The professional world doesn’t do well with ‘ethnic names’.
And this is something my friends with non-English names attest to: They’re called on less. It starts innocently enough during school orientation games, when they notice they’re picked far less often than groupmates with easier-to-pronounce (and often English) names.
But when this follows them into the workplace, it might impact their professional success.
It’s not the most pleasant thought. And it begs the question—are we going to have to give up our names for professional success?
The Cost of Identity
Some parents go to feng shui masters who derive a name for their children. Others consult religious texts like the Quran and the Bible.
It’s not ‘just a name’ to these parents, just like how it isn’t ‘just a name’ to their children.
Chelsea’s parents supported her name change; her mother even helped her with the administrative procedures. In fact, her parents also changed their names, so they understood why she might want to.
The whole process was surprisingly straightforward, if not a little pricey. It cost just shy of $300, says my 31 year-old colleague, who changed her middle name from Khadijah to Alfieyah. Most of the costs were in lawyer’s fees and the fees for changing her passport and IC.
A quick Google search shows myriad law firms clambering to help you (yes, you over there!) execute a deed poll–quotes start at $50. It’s pretty crazy that a lawyer can charge that amount for what’s essentially a piece of paper, but I suppose it’s the price of peace of mind.
Chelsea’s sister would change her own name a year after she did. I ask if her brother’s gotten used to his sisters’ new names. Was it hard to call his siblings something new?
“He doesn’t call me Chelsea,” she says, “He just says ‘Oi’.”
I suppose a name change won’t change sibling dynamics.
For Kai, it’s been harder for his parents to get on board. His name change is a bit more loaded. It’s inextricably tied to his gender identity, which his parents already don’t accept. But there’s another layer of contention, because his parents also resent the fact that he’s changed his name at all.
“My mum says she owns me because she gave birth to me,” he says. “So she hates that I rejected my birth name because, to her, it’s like I’m rejecting the ‘gift’ she gave me.”
His parents refuse to use his name. I see it happening in real-time during our conversation–he checks his family group chat and scrolls past a message that says, “Nic, remember to switch off lights”.
“Who’s Nic?” I ask, belatedly realising that it stands for Nicole*, his dead name.
But the rejection from his parents doesn’t seem to hurt him as much as I thought it would. In part, it’s because his friends and colleagues have made it easier to cushion that blow. His workplaces allow him to go by ‘Kai’ even though it’s not his legal name yet, and his friends are accepting of him and his gender identity.
“Honestly, even if someone were to deadname me now, I’m comfortable enough that it no longer causes me gender dysphoria,” Kai says.
But it’s been a long, painstaking road to get to where he is. I imagine he’ll never be too thrilled to hear his dead name.
There’s a popular Genshin Impact character with Kai’s dead name. He refuses to play her. This means forgoing a strong character for his roster, but it’s simply the principle of things.
Making a Name For Yourself
As someone who’s been on the sidelines of my friends changing their names, I will say that it’s been interesting to watch.
Name changes help them draw a clear line in the sand between who they were—a person struggling with his gender, a person tethered to a family member he holds no love for, an unconfident girl who felt like she might melt into the background—and who they are now.
It’s fascinating to stare yourself down and say: “This isn’t who I am. I’m someone else.” To formalise it with a legal instrument is even more gutsy. This reliance on legal instruments is what differentiates them from their Gen X counterparts, many of whom were fine to skip the official process of deed polling and all that. Juxtapose that with Isaac, who changed his name as soon as he became a legal adult.
Young Singaporeans finding comfort in bureaucracy: It’s a real remember-your-roots moment.
Or, if I’m willing to be a little more cynical, it’s also because these people know how to capitalise on the system they were raised in. Isaac’s been very deliberate to make sure his name change was on the record, so he has a paper trail in case his birth father ever comes looking for parental allowance.
“I’m not sure what my mum thinks of [my new surname],” he confesses. It’s not traditional to bear your mother’s surname, but he’s never been a staunch traditionalist, anyway. He wouldn’t mind his future children taking his wife’s name over his own. He’d even like to double-barrel their surnames “if she was up for it” and dismisses the tradition of patrilineal surnames as “kinda patriarchal”.
Isaac is emblematic of the modern cosmopolitan Singaporean. He’s willing to re-evaluate and question things presented as fact and adapt accordingly. And his sense of identity is equally non-Newtonian–malleable to accommodate changes he wants, but resolute in the face of mockery.
But I don’t know if these attitudes are an unconditional win. While not everything is a Western import culture war, changing your name to suit corporate environments better bothers me a little.
Is this globalisation’s tithe? Anglicising our names to comfort those in the Western head offices?
Obviously, I’m not saying that everyone who changes their name to an English one is capitulating to Western fancies. But I do think there’s something worth thinking about there.
And if they find themselves missing their old names, there isn’t a limit on how many times you can change your name. It really just comes down to how many times you can stomach seeing a lawyer.
But for now, any doubts, annoyances, regrets?
“Absolutely none,” Isaac says. “But I guess it was kind of annoying to deal with the banks.”
