My name is Daelynn

When I was born, folks thought I was a boy, and they named me accordingly. Jason, they called me. It was a *very* popular name at the time!

When I got into the working world, there were far too many of us Jasons, so I started using my middle name. For the last 35 years or so, I have been Damion.

My relationship with my gender has been nothing if not exploratory… one of constant discovery and unfolding. I have never been gifted with a clarity of destination or indeed even route relative to my gender adventures. It was about 6 months ago that it started to become apparent to me that there was a time in the near future that my boy name would no longer serve. It was time to pick a new name.

As it happens, my wife’s name also starts with a D, and we’d settled on the moniker, “Team Double-D”, to refer to our relationship. It was a strong brand, and we wanted to keep it. Obviously, my new name would need to start with a D!

So I started searching baby name websites. And then I searched more baby name websites, and even more. I started making a list of the names that seemed like candidates. I read them, I spoke them, I used them in sentences, I generally obsessed over them. Eventually, there were two. Two names that seemed to capture me, that felt like monikers I could live with for the rest of my life. Two names, but I only needed one. The decision was proving difficult.

Last week, I had a dream. In that dream, people were easily and naturally referring to me by one of those two names. Daelynn. They said it over and over, and it felt so good. Clearly my subconscious (or the universe?) was helping me to make up my mind. And so it has come to pass.

My name is Daelynn. It’s pronounced day-LINN, and my pronouns are she/her or they/them. Nice to meet you!