How I Selected My Name

I have been asked this question so many times and I never really thought about answering it publicly until I saw a post on a crossdresser blog talking about how to select a femme name. I guess I should probably talk about how I selected my own name and each bit of my first, middle and last name but there is one thing that cannot be explained fully – I chose it by following my heart and knowing what I wanted. The most interesting inquiries I get are about my last name, Sideways. Some people think it is pretty awesome that my last name is really Sideways, some people think that I am pulling their leg and some people are kinda indifferent about it. Last night when I was arguing with someone I know from high school who is Christian, they actually tried to hold my last name against me, referring to be as crazy or overly weird. Of course, I am not the one who believes in a 2,000 year old Jewish zombie that is coming to save their (and only their) souls. But, alas, I digress.

My first name is Jessica and this is after one of my old friends back in the Jesus cult, Jessica May. She was a fairly nice girl and good looking to boot. It is a shame that she and the other friend whom I got my middle name from are still trapped in the Jesus cult and there is no way to help them get out. This is one of my biggest regrets, that I cannot save more people from the Jesus cult but I digress. She gave off an aura of a pretty hip girl, well as pretty hip as a Christian can be (which is, admittedly, as hip as a mental patient can be). Since I model my personality after the super-snarky Daria Morgendorffer, this is kind of the image I feel I wish to evoke. Well, a combination between that and the identity that Jin Xing from Shanghai Tango has struck.

My middle name is Emily and this is named after another friend from the Jesus cult, Emily Crowder. Her sister was one of my best friends in the Jesus cult and she was pretty cool too. Plus, I want to add that like Jessica, Emily was a common name for girls born in the year I was. In addition, I liked both of the names Jessica and Emily and could not really identify with the name Hilary since it sounded too clunky.

My surname is Sideways and the way I selected it is a bit off the map, I do have to admit that. No, contrary to popular belief, it is not because of the book and movie of that name. I do not drink wine (right now, my favorite drinks seem to be Bailey’s Irish Creme, black russian and Applebee’s Mud Slide) but I saw the movie after the name change and thought it was awesome. I am planning on reading the book later on in the year (yeah, lame, I know – I saw the movie before reading the book) but I digress. My surname came from the online community called Second Life by Linden Labs. I was setting up an account one day and I was choosing a name for my character on Second Life and I came upon two surname choices I liked for my own surname in real life – Sideways and Sinister. I tried them both on for size and it turns out that I liked Sideways very much.

A contributing factor into why I needed a new surname was simply because of the fact that I wanted to start to disassociate myself from my family, which never really cared about me in the first place. This is one of the two reasons I moved to Colorado, the other reason being to try to attend Naropa University up in Boulder (I am currently in the application process, waiting to hear from the admissions department). I was, however, wishing to retain a thread of my polish heritage since I was only disenchanted by my immediate family. However, when I tried out other surnames, like Wozniak, that just never seemed to fit. Furthermore, I feel as though it is wrong to usurp the surname of someone who likely has a good, loving family. That is something I will probably never know until Samara and I start planning our own family together, which will happen when I am done with school. But alas, I cannot use that old surname since it is tainted with bad memories of everything my old family has done to me.

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