Arlo

As I mentioned in my previous post my partner was unhappy with their current name and they’ve settled on a new one. It’s Arlo! Taken from the dinosaur in the Disney film The Good Dinosaur. As promised I’ve gone back through all of my old posts and changed Arlo’s old name to their current one which might have confused a couple people.

So if you’re new here and are thinking ‘Wait! I thought ‘Arlo’ had been your partner’s name all along?!’ I understand the confusion. I went back through all of my old posts and changed the name so that people wouldn’t get used to Arlo’s old name and then have to switch. However if you have seen people use Arlo’s old name ‘Soph’ (I’ve included it here because it’s pretty easy to find their old name especially on Arlo and I’s social media) they’re not dead naming I promise! They’re just using what was Arlo’s preferred name at the time.

If you’re not new here you might be confused as to why Arlo’s name has changed so drastically after being out as non-binary for a while. They found that when they were going by a shortened version of their birth name, people seemed to think it was optional – like a nickname, you didn’t have to use it but you could. Also Arlo had a very honest conversation with me about feeling like their name had too many female connotations, Arlo presents more masculine and (living in a very binary world) they would rather be misgendered as male than female. As ‘Arlo’ is a very new name it seems more male but doesn’t have any hugely strong connotations of gender.

The process of adapting to a new name is much more difficult than I thought – especially since I managed to do it with pronouns with such ease. If I think about the name before I say it, I use the correct one; and a couple times I’ve started saying Arlo’s old name and quickly corrected myself. However if it comes out my mouth before I think about it I use the wrong one. Arlo and I visited a friend who’s recovering from top surgery, and when I introduced Arlo and I used their birth name, not even their old name but their birth name. What’s worse is I didn’t even realise I’d done it so I never corrected myself until Arlo and our friend told me about it later. How I messed up that much I’ll never know. I felt terrible about it all day but I’m working on getting their name right every time.

What’s even more confusing is at the moment Arlo is only partially out about their name, so not everyone knows about it. Which means I’m currently flipping between Arlo’s current name and their old name depending on who we’re with. Hopefully after they’re out to everyone that will change and they can have a legal name change (yay!).

I prefer Arlo more than their old name anyway, I never felt like it suited them and I’m glad they’ve chosen something that feels like them. I’m looking forward to helping change Arlo’s name on all their paperwork and set up a new email address and such – it feels like starting over but in a really good way. When Arlo first came out to me as non-binary I thought I was losing my partner, it felt like mourning a death at some points. When I reality I only lost the bad parts, Arlo has been so much happier since coming out and it’s improved our relationship tenfold. I still associate their old name with a very sad and withdrawn person so having a new name feels like the perfect way to celebrate their new happiness and confidence.

I also realise there are very few photos of us on this blog so here’s the most recent one I could find (it’s of my 22nd birthday):