The Origins of Alters Names.

After speaking to many people here I'm curious to know how alters are named, if the host decided to give an alter a name or if an alter already came with a name.

For me I never named any of mine. They all introduced themselves to me with names already. However I have often wondered "Why that name?". After all, for me personally each alter seems to represent an emotion or function that I struggle to express and so their existence feels more symbolic. I often wondered why they have the name they have.
I did managed to decode one alters name after thinking carefully about it. All of my alters have last names as well which I feel I should mention.
Scott's full name is Scott James Simons. Again I didn't decide to give him any of these names. He just came with them. I never thought much about it but I suddenly realised something about it.

Scott is a very confident, attractive, funny and lovable person and in many ways is the person I wish I could be and who I feel I could have been. When I was about 3 or 4 my sister had a friend called Scott who I idealized. I looked up to him as an older brother and he would always let me play with his toys. Once I started school he used to look after me at lunch time. When I was about 11 my sister had a boyfriend called James who I also idealized and we were best friends for many, many years. I used to think of him as a brother as well. When I was about 12 I developed very strong feelings for a man called Simon. I admired him and he seemed to be a very confident and funny person even though ultimately my heart was broken over him.
Therefore Scott seems to be comprised of the three most influential males in my life. Scott, who looked after me, James, a brotherly figure and Simon, a confident and funny guy who I loved.
I first met my alter Scott when I was 13 so it seems likely his existence was influenced by these people or that, at the very least, at the time of his creation my subconscious gave him the name of people I cared deeply for and who shaped my life.

As for my other alters their names seem to have no significance. The name Darren Harrison means nothing to me. Nor does the name Theodore Adam Everette. Perhaps there names mean nothing or maybe I just haven't figured it out yet.
Anyway that's my take on things. Anyone else found their alters name has some kind of significance?

I haven't really thought about this, but mine came with a name on their own. I always thought that was the normal way.

First, the names I know are all female names - as they are all female that have (as of now) shared a name. So that makes sense.

** white text might trigger **

I once thought about a few of their names. Let's see.

• Ni seems obvious - she refuses to talk in my mother tongue and only wants to use English. And she has an English names, which makes sense. I have seen a talk (on the internet) of a person called Ni, living in the US, which I kind of looked up to. Maybe that is the reason of the name. She was (of course) female too in a situation where that is quite rare.
• San... I didn't know why but I think it makes sense now I think of it. Last summer I read a fantasy book which was probably hugely triggering for some (and I didn't know it). Writing about it now brings back some strong feelings (I don't know exactly which feelings). The main character in that book was called San. I think it was triggering because the main person had another person living inside her head, which was kind of like demonic (but was once a real person). Wait a moment... Of course! She tries to convince me at times it is DID. And I think she resembles the main character in the book in other ways too.
• Si - I don't know. She thinks she is dead, or ghost-like. She might have taken her name from the country (because of all the bad news from there involving the conflict and the many dead people. Another reason she might have that name is because of certain music I listen at times: Sirenia. "The lyrics are concerned with human existence, emotion, and mental states" so that makes kind of sense too.
• Child of the desert - Well, she likes the desert . I don't think there's much more to it. Makes me wonder why she likes the desert, I don't (yet) have an answer to that.

I have 330 named alters.

At first I did not understand how to communicate with them and thus did not know their names, but after a while I learned. I started to map.

I would ask an observing EP or the ISH how many alters are a particular level. Then I would communicate with that observing part and the alter to find out the alters name, age, who or what they are an introject of or if they are not an introject at all. If they did not have a name I would ask if they would like to choose one. During this mapping process all alters also chose a picture to use from the internet that they felt best described them. After this interestingly enough, all alters saw the image chosen as how the alter looks inside.

The only ones that did not want to choose a name were the ISH (no age either) and Observing EP (they did not know an age either, just like the ISH). I did not know they were these parts at the time though, just that they did not want to choose a name. They however did not mind if I chose one for them. So I did. It makes keeping everyone straight much easier. Some alters had names like "you", "it", etc.... and they choose to pick another name.

I have multitudes of Mother and Father introjects with the same name and some of them did choose alternate names, but I had to ask if they wanted to change names with all alters. Grandma, Grandpa and my best friends introjects all kept their same names even though there are many with the same names. We just call them for example: Becky VII on Level 9.

All the animals also have a name, besides the animal they are known for like Frank the Gorilla.

I have over 100 alters that have been the host. Each of them choose or were given a name by the ISH once they are replaced and go inside. The last host before me has the name Jessica. She did not choose this name. It was given to her by the ISH. When she was host of course she used our birth name - not knowing anything other than she is the only part that exists.

tylas wrote:The last host before me has the name Jessica. She did not choose this name. It was given to her by the ISH. When she was host of course she used our birth name - not knowing anything other than she is the only part that exists.

** possible trigger for DID theory/defined roles **
This makes me wonder how much names are a property of humans. Just a theoretical question/thought, could it be that every developed 'sense of self' needs a name of some sorts? In singletons, this name is of course the name of the body, but also of the one sense of self they have. Tylas: you say your ISH and your Observing EPs do not have a name, and also do not have an age. Could it be that there is some intrinsic property of certain senses of self that has both an age and a name? A real-world identity?
Just a few thoughts. If this gets out of hand this might be better continued in a separate thread.

I think like all humans, alters would have a name. None of us need a name. We can get use to being all she, she, it, you, hey, etc... but it's nice when someone cares enough to give you a nice name or lets you choose one.

My Observing EP were not sure what they were. They knew they were different, but they were not like the ISH either, but they were closer to ISH than anything else. Take Sage for an example - who I thought was an ISH for a long time, so did she, but only because we did not know of any better alternative. She liked to be a 4 year old girl when she would come out to sleep next to the host, but she did not feel like she was a 4 year old girl inside like the other alters who have a gender and age.

In fact Sage, Ice and Stefon - those that are Observing EP, I had thought were all handicapped. They did not have arms and legs as they described it. They are different from the other alters. It took me AND them some time to sort all this out.

ISH - Elysian
Observing EP: Sage, Icylar, Stefon and
Monique (who was deaf, but always had an age and gender) She is different from the other 3 OEP. She is limited in what she can watch inside. The others are similar to the ISH and able to watch all inside.

However none of them knew of the 5,000 plus fragments until recently, so they can watch, but they are not always aware of ALL that goes on inside. They seem to have different things they pay attention to as well. Sage keeps track of when alters were created, their twins, their names, their ages, etc... None of the others do this. It's like we had so much to keep track of we needed more OEP to help.

(some of these might be triggering)

All but Frankie has had a name for a very long time.

R. and Aurora was named by Anya. They are too young to name themselves.

It's a long story why Frankie didn't have one so we're not going to go into that. Her name was chosen by herself.

emma, previously named L got her name from the father. She didn't like it and ended up choosing Emma instead later on. Why emma, she hasn't shared - but it's emma with no capital letter.

Anastasia has the name of the Russian princess from the movie of the same name. In the movie she forgets her identity and takes on the name Anya, has a very rough upbringing in a foster care system and later on finds her grandmother, restores her memory and lives a happy, loving adulthood.

Frida has the same name as a childhood friend of ours. She says the mother gave it to her because she used to say things like "Frida and Nin play together" and such - and Frida didn't identify as Nin - e.g her name was Frida.

Anya used to have a name given to her by the father. It was a very bad word, and so it was changed to Anya, to reflect to same as Anastasia. Anya and Anastasia are very close in a very special way, and their names need to "match" it some way they feel. So it made sense to change it.

without going into it much for privacy reasons, m's & sia's names are very obvious to us why they are what they are.

l had her name given to her by the father.

eliesa's full name can't even be searched up in google. No one I have ever met has her name and I've never heard of it before (and neither, obviously, have google). Why that is her name, she usually replies "I'm a weird girl so that's probably why I got a weird name". She doesn't seem to know herself why her name is what it is.

isalin. isalin is the first of several alters that we know of that have the name "lin" in their name. We don't know yet why this is. Isalin is a name I have never heard before and we haven't known about her long enough to have asked much about her name yet.
emmalin. A composit name from emma and lin. Probably because she was made in a trauma where the both of them were affected and subsequently emmalin was "made".
lianne. usually goes by Lin and her name in an English version of the name Hay Lin, which is a figure most of her personality is based on, as well as being on of the "Lin's".

Jacob & Cassie. Both are names or close to names from a book series I had read at the point in time that they were "made", that they both like very much. In the book series they are boyfriend/girlfriend, while in our system they are twins/siblings though. Their personalities also bares some resemblance to those in the books.

Cornelia is a name from the same show of characters as Hay Lin, mentioned above. Cornelia shares some of the same attributes and looks as the character of the same name.

Piz's name is kind of long to explain but it does make sense after we had thought about it long enough. It kinda clicked and made sense.

No one. Doesn't have a name, but has lately started going by "No one". She's Plain (as in the religious group) so it makes sense with her job in the system as well as her religious affiliation to not want a name.

Both Key & Aicha is very obvious to us why is names as she is.

Nin has the legal name.

Sorry this got so long, we're kind of switchy and tired right now.

This is going to take me a while to type up, I'm dissociating and am switching like crazy.

I met my future step-grandma Barb when I was 8. One of my child alters is named Barbara. I don't know if it's connected, Barbara according to Michael came when I started school so before I met my step-grandma.

I've never known a Jessica, so I don't know where she got that name. i always hav this nam but i had to go by joanna when i was oot mos!

Michael is a pretty popular name, especially in my uncles' generation in Oklahoma where I grew up.

I be gettin' my name from my parents. I lived 36 years before I came to Jo. I'm named after my grandfather.

- Michael

I don't know where Nadia's name came from. I looked it up and I know it's French, and oddly enough before I knew of Nadia I had used that name in a short story I wrote.

Theresa is the name of one of my heroes, Mother Teresa. Theresa just spells it differently. It's also similar to the patron saint I was baptized under, St. Therese. My grandma prayed to her to get me back from my adoptive parents.

As for Amelia, I have no idea except I view Amelia Earhart as one of my historical heroes. It could be related cause Amelia Earhart was headstrong and followed her dreams. My Amelia is also headstrong.
I f#!king have my name cause I like it, get the f#!k over it.
Amelia

I actually used to think Milana was my spirit name, but it turns out that's what everyone calls the wolf.

Gosh that took me forever.

I have a few different categories, it seems:

Group 1 - names (possibly) originally relating to function
Violet apparently was changed from Violent. Victor wins fights. Sneaker sneaks. Scout - I'm not sure if he is some sort of scout or if that's just his name . Snow - she freezes all emotion.
Group 2 - names relating to the original body
Ellie - close to the body's name, Mireille sounds like Mary Elle
Group 3 - (with some overlap) that have been given by other alters
Nina - Ellie hated that she didn't have a name.
Genesis changes her name every few years. I don't know why. It's been what it currently is for several years now because the last time she announced it was changing again no one really remembered.
Group 4 - I have no idea
I don't know the origins of my own name.
C doesn't want me to talk about her name.

Mine are nearly all named after people who had a lot of (usually positive) influence on my childhood. Some are names I've gone by myself in the past, thinking at the time that it was because I don't like my 'real' name, but presumably because that alter was the one 'out' most at that point. The name 'Jake' is a bit of a mystery, though, don't know where that came from. I suspect that when he first came he didn't have a name, and chose Jake himself at some point, but I don't have enough communication with him yet to know for sure. Curiously enough, I haven't found anyone who uses the 'real' name, even I prefer not to use it (although, of course, mostly I have to).

I haven't found anyone who uses the 'real' name, even I prefer not to use it (although, of course, mostly I have to).

We were like that too but now we've changed our legal name several time (not due to DID) and that has helped it a lot.