Odd topic: feeling distance toward your own name

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In my opinion, I have an awesome name. It's one syllable, fits in arcade machine high score tables, and everyone remembers it.

At least, it was great until Wayne Rooney had to ruin it for me.

It's funny for me to hear such things...thankfully, I have a great NT husband who will listen to all these things that come to mind and just says "really?" But never makes me feel like a freak.

Anyway, I definitely agree with the whole "looking in the mirror thing"...and after that???

If I hear my voice in a recording, etc...it doesn't sound like "me".
When people call my name, I know they are calling me but I do not feel "that my name represents me, that it suits me, that it's really me...it's like that's just what people call me to get my attention, but not really me...very weird..."

My name I've always been fine with. It wasn't one of those names that people could make an obnoxious rhyme/nickname out of.

Every time I look in the mirror I see someone different. I think of them as aspects of myself, but no single one of them is the "real" me--for some reason, I'm thinking of the Psychology term "Gestalt" here.

I still don't like hearing myself on tape.

Thanks for your comments, you guys! I'm relieved to see how many people here experience names as labels that were 'thrust upon them'. I should repeat I don't dislike my name, it has a nice meaning, and many people comment they really like it for being so uncommon. There WERE greatly annoying pronunciation issues in the past, however

And ruveyn, I actually requested at the administration office last year if they could change my name (I wanted to add another first name to go before my current first name), but it was far too expensive! But I do realise that I could simply ask other people to call me by a different name even if my official name is such-and-such.

You know, in the past, one of my special interests was taxonomy, so I was fascinated by the scientific names assigned to animals and plants (because this appealed to my sense of order). These days however, while I still like them, I place less value on those names. A crow doesn't think of itself as either 'crow' or 'Corvus corone', after all.

I'm dutch too. And my mother gave me an Irish name too.

Something's not right about this.

I've felt this way ALL my life! Holy crap, I had no idea this was related to AS, I just thought it was 'cause my name is boring. "Matthew". Really? The third-most-common Christian name in the world? How can something so boring and common describe me, unless I'm boring and common? I've spent my life trying to come up with a name that "describes" me, or a nickname, or... whatever. Nothin'. It's really hard to contemplate myself as a name.

Don't worry, Gotholympians, and welcome to the forum.

I wasn't sure this was an ASD issue when I came up with this topic either, though I had my suspicions... but I decided to throw it into the forum, and here you go. :p

Never felt much of an attachment to my first or last name. My last name can be pronounced two different ways and people are always asking which way and I always answer that I don't care which makes them upset for some reason. My first name is boring and meaningless, but whatever, as long as it's something people can call me I don't care either. I've never really liked names in the first place, I hate calling people by their names too.

This may have nothing to do with this but I hate when people call by my name it bugs me customers do it all the time and it makes me feel like yes my name is on my shirt but you dont know me so why are you calling me that. Also everyone spells mine wrong so now when I say it I always have to spell it because otherwise it will be spelled any whichway. My parents dont even call me by my name anymore instead they call me the inside joke nickname they have and my fiance calls me all the nicknames he has for me too, when he says my name I get uncomfortable. I also hate calling people by their names more so my fiance again because its uncomfortable.

^
I think it's a diabolical liberty that some employers see fit to force their workers to wear little tags with their familiar names on them. It's as if they're trying to make people feign affection to the customers........horribly invasive and I'm grateful nobody's ever tried to get me doing that. They should leave people alone and concentrate on providing good value for money instead of all this psychological warfare stuff. Business relationships and social relationships are very different things.

I don't call people by name much at all. Probably because I've usually very little faith in my ability to get their names right, and it doesn't seem to do any harm to just avoid their names when greeting them, though Dale Carnegie stressed that people usually love hearing their own names, and strongly recommended using names as a tool for making friends and influencing people.

A name can be used as a way of getting somebody to listen.......I knew a guy who would start by saying my name, then that would get my attention, and he'd have time to think about what to say next. I keep meaning to use that technique myself, because mostly people only know I'm talking to them when I've mumbled my way through half the sentence, so they don't always get what I say.

I like shortening and "familiarising" people's names when I'm beginning to know them better. Some of the abbreviated forms sound very affectionate and it's my way of telling them I'm starting to feel closer to them. But you need to watch out that you don't use some hated diminutive that used to annoy them when their parents used it. I also like using people's middle names without warning, especially when nobody else has used them for years.

My name is Hebrew, but I am Roman Catholic(not a far cry from the Old Testament). I am named after a prophet. It means "unique to God" or "not like any other".

People misspell it constantly.

I do not recognise myself, in that it does not instinctively look like me even though intellectually, I know that it is.

I find it very difficult to look in my own eyes in the mirror.

My name is a boys name, even though I am female.

Mics

Im so glad someone bought this up. Since I was a little girl, I have wanted to change my name. I always felt like my name was not meant for me and I would try to have people call me a different name that I made up for myself. Some of greatest name change ideas: Lazinka, Starr, Johnny and Lucifer Jones. My real name is Barbara. It just seems like an old lady name to me.