Here's Why I've Changed My Name (and What to Do If You Don't Like Yours)

Plus how to find fitting names for your child, cat, or cactus—or should I go with baby, business, bonsai?

Mar 06, 2024

brown and white chick — Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash

Hi friend,

Thank you for being there as I’m growing and evolving. It means a lot! This publication isn’t even six months old, and yet, I have already gone through many changes with it.

What started as a side project that would allow me to try out my newfound channeling abilities has morphed into something quite different. It allowed me to get back into writing but to do so from a different place than before.

Perhaps the biggest change I’ve gone through, though, is of a personal nature: as you may know, I recently decided to change my first name. Although, actually,….

I changed my name and then I changed it again

If you read this article, you will see that I went through two iterations of changing my name. At first, I thought I would go with a different name—that’s when I drafted the original article in January.

Many things have changed since then. That’s why I thought it would be funny to add a running commentary from my current self. You will find it in brackets and cursive.

Why does this matter?

As my running commentary shows, change often come in waves/iterations. The initial change we make might not be the final result we are after but it helps get us out the door and on our way.

Also, taking the first step makes the rest of the journey easier, even if we initially set out in the “wrong” direction. At least, we are packed and ready to go, right?

The commentary also shows how much we often grow in a short amount of time. For instance, I’m not the same person I was in January 2024… and you probably aren’t either. Our past selves were wonderful…. and so is who we are right now.

Speaking of past selves, some readers expressed an interest in exploring past lives in a group setting. So, that’s in the works.

For now, however, let’s time travel back to January 2024:

What it was like to change my name

~~“Ostara.”~~

[Louise: Nope, not the name I’ve ultimately decided to go with.]

A weight got lifted off my shoulders when my husband called me by a different name. We were trying out a few names and finding one that resonated brought me a huge sense of relief.

It would be hard to overstate how important this is for me.

You see, my name has been an ongoing source of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) unhappiness and discomfort throughout my life. And while sometimes discomfort is good—for instance, when it shows that we are growing—this wasn’t the discomfort of growth. It was the discomfort of an ill-fitting shoe.

[Louise: It wasn’t that bad in retrospective and it allowed me/you/us to grow.]

Berenike—the name I was given at birth—doesn’t quite fit me. I’ve gone through many variations and nicknames—Nikki and Bere being the most prominent ones… and still, some discomfort remained.

[Louise: And yet, you sometimes miss being called “Bere.” Funny how that works, hmm?]

For the longest time, I thought this was a me-problem and that I shouldn’t be so sensitive. Maybe if I just got used to it, it wouldn’t be so bad. Over time, I’ve realized that that’s not the case. I’m not sensitive (well, I am but that’s a different matter), I just have the wrong name (for me).

[Louise: Perhaps you actually had the right name for you? By having the “wrong” name, you were given a special gift: you got a chance to name and define yourself.]

We should feel comfortable with our names. They should fit us like a glove. They should feel good.

[Louise: Ugh! Do you really want to think of your name as a glove? And why should it fit like a glove? What if you grow, will something that “fits like a glove” still fit?]

After all, our names are how we get identified throughout our entire lives. And that’s a big deal!

[Louise: Yes and no. In some ways, it’s a big deal, and in another way, it’s just a name.]

For instance, if you are called “Bob,” you are trained to respond whenever someone says that name. When you have a name you like, and someone calls you, it’s like hearing the sound of a beautiful note. (That’s my reaction when someone calls me ~~“Ostara”~~ “Louise”.)

However, when someone says “Berenike”, it feels more like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

Why I hadn’t changed my name before

If that has been my experience throughout my life, you might wonder why I haven’t changed my name.

~~Fair point. You see, even though I live in the US (which has very flexible name laws), I’m a German citizen.~~

~~And the German name law is about as flexible as… Damascus steel.~~

Basically, there’s no way for me to change my given names on my German documents. (Yeah, I know, it’s ridiculous!) Thankfully, there are at least exceptions for transgender people. Everyone else is pretty much stuck with whatever names they got at birth.

In my case, that’s a lot of given names. I used to be unhappy about having so many middle names. Until Germany loosened up its name laws just the slightest bit… allowing me to at least change the order of my given names. Which means that all of my middle names are now fair game.

[Louise: All that might have helped but it’s not the real reason you haven’t changed your name before. 1) Germany changed its laws a few years back so you could have done it anytime and 2) You’re not actually considering formally changing your name so it’s not like it matters. It just wasn’t the right time back then, which is fine. It wasn’t about the external circumstances but about your internal process.]

And, lo and behold, one of my middle names actually works for me! Which is amazing. It means I could even formalize this change on my German documents, if I wanted to. (Funnily enough, it’s now the American side of name change that’s more logistically challenging. If you only live in one system, count yourself lucky!)

[Louise: Blablabla. You’re not wrong but this is just mental clutter.]

I’m not sure I will formally change my name but it’s amazing to know that this is a possibility. You see, being human means that we sometimes have issues that feel very permanent and like we can never resolve them. My name was one of them.

[Louise: And funny how it has become a non-issue for you as soon as you resolved it.]

And if there’s one thing that feels amazing—like you’re invincible—it’s resolving a longstanding issue. Turning something that feels bad into something that feels good actually feels even better than never having had that problem in the first case.

This is even truer if you have very little wiggle room (like me with Germany’s inflexible name law) and you’re still able to use what you have to get to where you want.

Why? Because it shows you that you are a creator. That you have choice. That you can get what you want, even within the constraints you might be finding yourself in.

[Louise: You were a creator before you changed your name, too. You just didn’t like your creation very much, when it came to your name.]

So, anyway, this is my long-winded announcement that I now go by ~~Ostara~~ Louise :)

[Louise: Well, I’m sure glad you waited until you send out that announcement.]

Thanks for reading! If you would like to read more of my thoughts on names, this article comes with a comprehensive appendix:

A. What to do if you don’t like your name

B. How to find fitting names

Finding the right name for a baby
Finding business and domain names
Finding names for other things (this is were cats, cars, and cactii come in)
How to get good at naming things.

Warmly,
Louise

APPENDIX

A. What to do if you don’t like your name

If you like your name, I’m so happy for you! That’s wonderful!

If you might be naming something or someone in the future, you can still benefit from reading this whole section. Also, if you know people who struggle with their name, this will help you understand their process better—which means you can support them even more! :)

Do you know someone who doesn’t like their name? Please consider sharing this with them.

If you don’t like your name, please trust you own feelings on this matter. I doubted myself for the longest time, which adds an additional layer of difficulty to the process.

Understand that the problem is not you, it’s that your name doesn’t fit you. There’s nothing wrong with you, just as there’s nothing wrong with size 7 feet not fitting into size 6 shoes. There’s not even anything wrong with the name you currently go by—it might be a great name for someone else—it’s just not “your” name.

Oof, that’s a big realization, isn’t it? If you come to this conclusion, I would recommend for you to be gentle with yourself.

If you have some space in your life for these explorations, I would also recommend that you set the intention to find your true name. Your true name will be an easy fit. And, it’s not necessarily the name that logically makes the most sense. The right name is about feelings much more than anything else.

What to do if this feels overwhelming

Of course, even thinking about changing your name can feel daunting. Please know that you can take your time with this. For instance, you can first experiment privately—perhaps with your closest friends—until you find something that feels good.

If you go to coffee shops or similar places, you can also play around with using the names you are considering for your orders.

If you have middle names, it’s often easiest to start with them (as long as your middle names match your gender identity). As I mentioned before, the name I decided to go with is one of my middle names. I know two other people who are also now going by their middle name so this seems to be fairly common.

You can play around and see how much you need to change in order to feel good.

Perhaps just picking a new nickname for your friends and family is enough, while everything else (including your social media accounts and your email address) stays the same. Maybe you would like to change your name everywhere where it’s easily feasible to do so. Or you might even want to go through a legal name change, if that’s possible.

The thing is, you can’t know what it will take for you to feel good about your name until you experiment.

Whatever you do, I would encourage you to make certain you are certain before taking action steps that are hard or impossible to undo. Telling your best friend that, actually, your name isn’t “X”, it’s “Y” is easy.

[Louise: Yepp, I can confirm. Whether or not it was easy for the best friend in question is another matter.]

Changing all your legal documents for the second time is probably something you want to avoid.

So, takes as many malleable steps—orders at the coffee shop, changing your name on Discord, etc.—as you like. However, make sure you know what you want before setting something in stone.

[Louise: Honestly, the only time your name gets set in stone is when some puts it on a headstone. For a grave. At which point it presumably won’t matter too much to you anymore.]

To summarize:

Set the intention to find your true name and get clear how your name would feel like (for instance “comfortable” or “it lights me up” etc.).
As much as possible, try to play around and have fun with this process. There’s no rush here.
Identify your right name by feeling. The name should feel good for you.
If you have middle names, it’s can be easiest to start with them.
Take your time before finalizing anything (if you even need to).

Thank you for reading! This post is public, so you are very welcome to share this.

Finding the right name for a baby (and why it matters so much)

I’ve recently considered moving into what we could call “spiritual doula-services” (or “Adoula”, for short). An Adoula is someone who helps prospective parents connect with the soul of a baby that is right for them.

(Side note: if that’s something you might be interested in, you can set up a complimentary discovery call and I can share more about what I offer.)

In the Adoula training I took, it got stressed that it’s important that the incoming soul gets to choose their own name. That’s right—parents shouldn’t choose their baby’s name for them. Instead, they should let their baby’s soul choose a name.

This is very different from how people often find names. Consider, for instance, all the people who are named after their fathers and/or grandfathers (Robert Anthony Smith III, etc.). That’s a clear example of the parents picking the name, as opposed to letting the incoming soul make that choice.

There is, of course, an obvious problem with letting a baby’s soul choose their name—which is that the newborn can’t talk. But, you can receive answers in meditations, in dreams, or through your feelings (the right name will feel very resonant).

For some people, finding the right name for a bay is a really easy process. It might almost feels like someone is whispering a name into their ears. In other cases, it can take a little bit more. Either way, you will know it when it happens!

Finding business and domain names

When it comes to finding a website or business name, there are of course many considerations. I won’t go into these marketing/branding considerations here.

If you have a list of potential names and all of them are similarly good from a marketing/branding perspective, I encourage you to actually say the business or domain names out loud, perhaps even to other people.

How does each option feel? Do you feel comfortable saying it? Does it roll off your tongue? If it doesn’t, perhaps consider one of the other options.

To give an example of why this matters: a couple of years ago, I thought the domain name “leaderforgood.com” was a great idea. What I didn’t consider at the time is that I don’t feel comfortable saying it… which isn’t a great basis for sharing it with people. So I know have a fully built website with hundreds of blog posts and traffic from search engines that I don’t love talking about. 10/10 don’t recommend. :)

[Louise: Speak for yourself. I love the name!]

On the other hand, I love saying “joyful growth” and was really happy that this option was still available on Substack. However, that .com domain isn’t available. So, I played around with Namelix until I came across another domain name I love: “higherjoys.com.” I like saying it and it ticks all the boxes I have—it’s positive, uplifting, easy to spell, the com.domain is available, etc.

So, that’s my announcement that I might eventually move this publication to www.higherjoys.com. :)

[Louise: Why wait?]

Finding names for other things

While you will probably not put as much effort into naming non-human things (for instance, your car) or beings (for instance, your cat), it’s still helpful to check in with your feelings and make sure the name fits.

If you come across a potential name that lights you up, that’s your intuition talking. I’d encourage you to listen to it. If you are naming a dog, you will be saying the name a gazillions times over the next years so keep that in mind when making your choice.

Naming cars, plants, and pets is also great for practicing the art of naming. Unlike babies and businesses, it’s very easy to change the name of your Bonsai tree. So, this is a great place to start. :)

Question: If you have a car, does you car have a name? If so, what name did you pick?