An unexpected part of supporting your trans child, is that the cis child gets her ideas from her big sister, and while everyone should be supporting kids figure out who they are - regardless of their gender identity - it does mean you have to have the same standards for both kids, despite their differences.
My eldest is a better big sister than I was. I would've pulled my little sister into a ditch and left her there.
My eldest is currently picking a middle name. We discussed changing it legally but after we go abroad this summer at the very earliest because I am not paying another 80 quid for a passport that only has a year left on it. Even if she does look like a Victorian waif in the picture. She’s keeping the first name that developed from a nickname but wants a middle name too. She’s leaning towards something Welsh.
This does mean however that her six year old sister also wants to change her name. At the moment if changes from day to day, and is usually something you would hear on My Little Pony (like Sparkle) or names I definitely could imagine a stripper would use (no shade, but that’s the vibe I get).
I’m fine with them changing their names - legally or otherwise. I grew up surrounded by people who had either changed their names or went by nicknames. My uncle Andrew was Jacko, my mum’s best friend from school was Biff, her long term partner was Jay, my dad had a cousin called Elaine who had changed her name five times before I was even 18. My mum responds more to her surname than she does to anything else and another of her friends changed her name in her 20s, then changed it back in her 60s. Dad frequently drank with people who all had nicknames (my dad’s was Phil the Fit cause of his epilepsy in case you’re wondering) including Rollsey (he had a glass eye) and Kiki (no fucking clue) whose actual names I’m unsure of (though, thinking about it, Kiki might have been called Owen…).
Jackson and Jacko
My own grandparents went by different names. Everyone called my gramps Bill. Everyone, even my nan. It’s written on the back of old photos, me and Bill in Skegness, Bill and Dick (his brother Richard) and me at the house. I didn’t really think much of it as a child until I realised his name was Charles Henry and no one called him either of those names. I assume the name Bill came from his surname - Williams - but I never thought to ask before he passed.
My nanna was known as Nita. What I assumed was a perfectly normal nanna name growing up. And it definitely is, but that wasn’t her full name. This very white English woman who was born in Coventry and died in Coventry was actually called Juanita. Everyone pronounced it Ju-nita (hard J) because these are a bunch of white people and I didn’t know it was supposed to be pronounced Juanita until I was older. But that was 100% her birth name.
Now, as the theory goes, my great grandad was a race car driver - my dad has a couple of his winning medals and a pic of him and his car. He raced all over Europe. When he came back from a race in Spain, my great grandmother was pregnant and he’d fallen in love with the name and so she was called. Me and my sister joke that he probably met a woman over there called Juanita.
I too have changed my name, have never really liked or felt like it fit me. I went by one nickname or another from the time I left home until I changed it a few years ago. I had already taken my wife’s surname at that point - there are enough Williams’ in the world without me and I wanted to share the same last name of my kids (something I found difficult growing up with divorced parents).
So, the kids changing their names - doesn’t bother me. Something may fit now and they’ll keep it for the rest of their lives. Something may only fit for a few years.
Names are a gift. A gift my children are not expected to keep, a gift to use how they see fit, a gift that does not come with strings, just acceptance from the people who love them the most.