I’ve made the big decision to come out to my parents about being trans when I come “home” from college for Christmas Break. This is going to make a major, drastic change to my life, but I feel like it’s the most important thing I need to do right now. I know it’s not going to go over well with them, and I know I’m going to become truly separated from them soon. But I’m an adult, and I feel like I’m genuinely ready now. And as part of that, I’ve actually decided to change my last name. (It won’t be legal for a long time but it still stands to me). In the process of making this decision though, I began to think about my names and realized what they really mean to me.
I chose my first name a few years ago, when I truly, genuinely accepted the fact that I was a girl. It was taken from a character I was mildly obsessed with at the time, who conveniently had a name that sounded like a female equivalent to the one given to me by my parents. That character was actually Della Duck from the reboot of DuckTales, which I had gone through a pretty big phase over back then. Nowadays, I still love the name even though I’m not in that same phase I was before. I feel like it represents where I was when I truly accepted myself as trans. I still think the name’s cute anyway, and it has always felt like MY NAME ever since I chose it.
My middle name is slightly less notable of a story. It was actually a suggestion from my best friend, and it’s just a feminine version of the middle name my parents gave me. But it’s still pretty, and I love it~
And so, after truly realizing that I am going to be independent from my transphobic family, I’ve decided that I should change my last name as well, to strike out even further on my own.
My last name has been chosen by a similar basis to my first. I chose to inspire it by something else I’m currently obsessed with, which is Pokémon. I thought about how almost every professor in the series has a last name based on a tree, so I chose a last name inspired by a tree that I thought sounded pretty. I feel like it holds the same kind of meaning to me as my first name; it basically represents where I am now as I’m finally at the point where I’m separating from my parents, moving out on my own into the world, and BEING MYSELF.
So, allow me to finally truly introduce myself.
My name is Della Joanna Elowen!