Names Are Blowing On The Breeze

Thanks Adrian CDTPPW for tagging me in on this interesting challenge. It took more contemplating than I expected.

“If you had named yourself, what would your name be and why?” — writing prompt by Karen Schwartz

I knew from a young age, I am a rainbow baby. I wouldn’t exist if not for my mother losing a pregnancy she had already found out about. The one that came before me apparently made it just past the first trimester, so my mother and father went so far as to choose a name. Cassandra would have been the girl’s name.

I always thought that name would fit me better. When I read the story of Cassandra from Greek mythology, I felt a very strong connection to her plight which has only grown as time went on.

That isn’t right though, my own first never fit me at all, there’s my middle name Bailey though. I have taken that up to distance myself from my past, and I like it well enough. I have almost universally gotten compliments on it since I started introducing myself with it, so I can tell it fits me better.

It is a family name in fact. Actually, almost as soon as I started using it, I found out the side of the family it had been handed down from, was not really biologically related, you can read more about that here.

I really like the name Ollie, and it is the name of the Character I played in the TTRPG while getting comfortable with the more masculine side of my personality. I played probably an even number of male and female characters over the years, but playing Ollie was just different, I could look farther inward at that time. I’m not trans, and even though it is a beautiful name, I still see it as being male. So I probably wouldn’t really want to go by Ollie for my name all of the time. This is really hard, which is the other reason I didn’t actually change my name legally.

Maybe Hollie. It has the same sounds that I liked in Ollie but is a little more feminine. I think If I could choose my name I would choose Hollie.

K.B. Silver