I hate my name

I haven't posted on here in a long time. A few years ago (has it been that long??) I posted an Entry called My Story, talking about my dad. I later posted an Update, filled with more memories I'd remembered or left out of the first one. Over time, more memories came back, but by then I felt I'd said enough, and talking about those things would just be dwelling on it. Maybe I'll write about them someday, but for now I just feel like doing that would be like "Okay, we get it!"; But there is one thing I've been talking with my friends about for the past year that I felt should go here.

On 26 August 2011, I created a Facebook page called Pottermore Hufflepuff's Chat. It's a Harry Potter-related page. It soon became very popular, and people started wanting to add me on my private account. I have privacy issues and this made me uncomfortable, so I made a second Facebook account, which I named Trevor Boot, for the sole purpose of adding the fans from PHC. But it's grown so much. I don't just mean the page. I have stopped going on my real Facebook account, and in fact my phone is connected to my Trevor account, and I get the messages and notifications from that account on my phone. In fact, when I am with my family and they use my real name, it takes me awhile to respond because I forget that's my name.

Yes, I forget my own name.

Someone asked me why I prefer Trevor Boot over my real name. I said I didn't know why. But then it hit. I've always hated my real name. To the point where I never even liked saying it out loud.

The reason is because I was named after my dad's cousin, Brian. When I was little, he was as much a drunk and drug addict as my dad. When I met him again in 2008, he had married someone who had watched me when I was little. When I went over there, she had bruises on her. It was the first time I had seen her since I was maybe 5, and here she was with a black eye and a limp. One day while I was over, I witnessed him slapping her because the dog was in the house.

And I was named after him.

But it's more than that. I've got my dad's last name. I think it's cool, because I am half-Scottish (half German), and people look at my last name and say, "Hey, you're Scottish!", which I love. But at the same time....it's his name.

So I prefer being called Trevor, and actually accept it as my name more than my birth name, and it's because of everything I already posted on this site. I've even considered having my name legally changed to that, but then the whole reason I created that account would be void. Heck even my real Facebook account doesn't have my real name (I used the Romaji characters of the Japanese version of my name).

From a personal standpoint, my real name may as well be Adolf Stalin.

[Update on 11 January 2018]

In 22014 I moved to Ohio. Fresh start. When people asked me what my name was, I said Trevor. So now everyone I know calls me Trevor. I mean, I still use my real name for legal purposes. My boss knows my real name, and my closest friends as well. But as far as everyone else I meet here knows, my name is Trevor.

Also, if you click on my Facebook page link at the top of this post, you'll notice it's no longer called Pottermore Hufflepuff's Chat. We changed the name because we changed the focus from strictly Harry Potter to fandoms in general. We're now Popular Heroes Chronicle (so we are still PHC).