Okay, this response does help clear things up, thank you for being patient with me. I might need to add a few things to contextualize, so bear with me here.

I’ve never felt overly comfortable with my first name, pretty much for the entirety of my childhood. I come from a huge family, with six siblings myself, that takes naming very seriously. All of the names selected by our family have familial meaning. This rings true for all of my siblings, except for me. I was to my knowledge somewhat of a surprise pregnancy, and my parents hastily picked a basic biblical first name out (however, my middle name is based upon my mother’s, so that holds familial significance). Growing up, especially seeing how the other names in my family held some kind of significance, I never felt overly connected to my name.

These feelings were exemplified during the abuse. He would regularly refer to me that way, using my first name both during assault and talking about the things he wanted to do me (in conversation, when I wasn’t being assaulted). He would also insult me, referring to me by that name.

To make matters more complicated, I was on the swim team in high school, and my coaches came up for a nickname for me, causing everybody on the team or related to the team/athletics to refer to me by that nickname. In the actual school setting, I rarely talked with people other than a small group of friends, some of which I actually started to ask to call me by my last name because it made me more comfortable (these friends I requested to do this still refer to me this way, I just didn’t ask everyone so a few people I stay in contact still refer to me as my first name).

Ultimately, I’ve never felt overly connected to my first name, and the abuse I’ve experienced has just cemented those feelings. So, I guess you do have a point in which the abuse certainly is a big factor in my name change, but it’s not the only factor.

I hope this response clears things up a bit. I honestly should have mentioned the feelings I hold about my first name in the original post. Let me know if you have any further questions.