strawberry-snow.livejournal.comI should really be working on my Child & Family Studies paper right now, but oh, well.
Like a few other recent posts have discussed, the topic of the day: unisex names. Mine is Daryn Aimi (first/middle), but I had a long, wandering path to get there.
Prior to my birth, my mother wanted to name me one Korean name (JiAe), and my father wanted to name me a different one (SunAe). When I was born, mother caved and named me JiAe, but ironically, over the years, my mother began calling me Sunae, and my dad always called me Jiae. Funny how things work out, huh? To make things more confusing, my sister's name is MiAe, and my mother's relatives call me AeMi (although they spell it Ami). So you can kind of see where my fascination with names came from.
When I came to the U.S., however, my legal name was still Jiae. So since the U.S. wanted me to have a first/middle/last name set, I became Ji Ae [father's surname]. I thought that was horrendous, as I ended up with nicknames like "jiji" and "Chia-pet". Later in elementary school, my mother had me pick an American girl's name because she and I were getting naturalized, and being a stupid little kid (never give a child the option to name herself, she'll probably regret it later), I picked Stephanie. Yes, because of the girl on Full House. She had nice hair.
But that name was always too girly for me. The general connotations I, and other people I've asked, seem to get with the name Stephanie is either "preppy" or "sporty"-- neither of which I am at *all*. Somehow, sometime, in early high school, I took on the name Daryn. When I turned 18, I took it upon myself to go about getting my name properly changed (*again*), because I was using Daryn everywhere anyway-- I preferred it, it suited me better, and I was already using it in school and when meeting new people. So I became Daryn Aimi [mother's maiden name name].
There's been complications with this name as well, of course-- naturally. I was signing up for a language exchange program, and specifically requested a female partner because I'd be more comfortable with a female; however, the person in charge judged me based off of my name, assumed I was male, and placed me with a male. The entire term, while we didn't dislike each other, we also had absolutely *no* common topics to discuss. (This goes back to why Stephanie didn't work-- I'm not sporty, and he was... well... a guy. Sports, cars, those were his fortés.)
But regardless, I'm happy with how things have turned out now. Finally, for the first time in my life since infancy, I have a single name I can use everywhere-- an amalgram of a name I picked, a name I was given, and a name I switched family sides for.
Interesting how things work out, huh? And how wobbly the path to get there may be.
Cheers, y'all! ♥