None of my alters have names.

I'm still learning and discovering my system. I prefer to call them Parts. So far, I only know my Parts by their ages. There is one Part that we call "Little". And another part known as the "Bad Man" who is very, very mean to Adult Holly. Those are the only two with a somewhat proper name. The rest of them are known by their age, like "4 year old, 11 year old, 22 year old."

Is this bad, or wrong, or odd? Should I give them names? Or perhaps they have names I don't know about yet?

OceanWaves wrote:Is this bad, or wrong, or odd?

None of those. It's not uncommon, especially if your diagnosis is DDNOS or equivalent. Each system has its own rules.

Mine requires names; most have just always been. But that's us. Given our numbers, it helps.

Should I give them names?

Only if the part wants one. You might want to come up with a distinctive identifier if, say, you don't know their age or have any other info. We called one guy X briefly.

Or perhaps they have names I don't know about yet?

When the time is right you can always ask them. In some systems, some parts will have names, others won't. Some don't want to tell until there's more trust.

Hi OceanWaves,
I agree with everything Johnny-Jack says!
I'm still learning my system, too. Not all of my parts had names when I was first finding them.
Some of them had names with weird spelling, like Melleisha (pronounced like Melissa) or Jabbekpheka.
Some had descriptive names, like "Big Girl."
There is a teenage version of me we just call "Teen-Kerry."
I gave some of them nicknames like Mr. 2 (second alter) and The Omega (the End, who was a Hidden Self-destroyer part).
I had 2 very bad men who were Introjects of my Abuser ~ they both later found their "true inner selves" and metamorphosis'd back into Little girls (this was after my Therapist told me that sometimes an animal alter is really a Little "in disguise" ~ and then, sure enough ~ my Kitten alter transformed back into a little girl)!
When all the animal parts and man-parts changed back into the Little girls who were at their core, a few of them didn't have names...
One day I was connecting to a Little part and asked "Would you like to pick a name?" and she was so delighted I literally felt tickles in my tummy, like butterflies. She chose the name "Claire" and then, one after another, the others chose names too. I was so overwhelming I had to put all their names up on a bulletin board to keep them all straight! As time went by, I would write their ages, hair color, or different things I learned about each one, on their space of the bulletin board.

I think it's just "DIFFERENT" in every system, and there is no "wrong or right."
As you continue paying attention to them, you might be able to ask if they already have names...
Or, you can always just ask if they would like to choose a name... or help them by writing down possible name choices you think they might like (that's how I did it)!

I think it's common not to have names heck I never even know which part of me is out at a given moment or if I am even the host. I guess since I cannot distinguish within my self I don't attach names or age but if I had to guess I still say I have about 6-10 parts and potentially even more.

thing with something like this is that it is truly impacts everyone differently

Hi,

Names are like SUPER powerful. If you know a part's name you can call it out. Somebody found out Evan's name once used it to call him out and hurt him. We didn't want to tell anyone after that. It took a while before we even told our T (and she's nice). Maybe it will take time and you'll have to prove you can be trusted first.

Iain

early into our realization of our disorder we began naming our alters which, for them, seems to be a sort of validation, but of course we're speaking for ourselves. We have two who are currently nameless for one reason or another