Dear Prudence,
I’m a queer person with a tightknit group of friends from college, all of whom are somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. We are generally very supportive of one another and act like a found-family in many ways. We are also a group that has seen a few people changing their names over the years, when people have come out as trans.
The issue is that one guy in the group has changed his name six times in five years. He’s a trans man, and when he first came out, the name he picked was a bit unusual but not too bad—think “Aloysius.” We were all supportive, and I had just gotten used to “Aloysius” when he changed it again to something like “Dorian.” Getting a bit literary and pretentious now, but okay, it takes a while figuring out what new name you want to go by, I guess. A year went by, and he announced that “Dorian” was being changed to “Fitzwilliam,” then after a few months this changed to “Gatsby” (I’m making up the closest approximations I can to give you an idea—they’re all based on famous literary men with unusual names, basically). Most recently, he has announced that his new name—and the one he is thinking of changing to legally! —is “Heathcliff.” This announcement was met with awkward silence in the group chat we shared, broken finally by one person going, “Right … er, why Heathcliff, then?” and receiving an enthusiastic answer about the book that inspired the name choice. We diverted the topic onto other books quickly.
Everyone else in the group has complained about “Heathcliff” behind his back, now. The regular name changes were annoying a few people anyway, and two of the other trans people in the group feel like his whole attitude on name changes kind of trivializes what for them was something very important and meaningful. I don’t feel able to comment on that, but I can see their points. None of us are happy about needing to refer to someone as “Heathcliff”—not least since we’re in a hiking group and don’t really feel like yelling “Heathcliff!” across the moors! The problem is that no one is sure what to say to him beyond things we’ve already said, such as, “Why that name, exactly?” and, “Do you think you should wait until you’ve liked the name for at least a year before changing it legally, since you’ve changed your mind a few times?” Are we being assholes for finding this as incredibly irritating as we all do? If we are, how do we get over the urge to exchange rolled eyes about it, and if we’re not, is there anything tactful or gentle that we can possibly say to him that suggests maybe, just maybe, this is a silly and pretentious choice?
— What’s Wrong with “John”?