i finally picked out the PERFECT new last name for myself!
So my birth name starts with “J” (as does my last name), and my mom-in-law always called me “Jay”…
And around the time she was starting to have some obvious signs of dementia i had discovered that my gender wasn’t really accurate, and i also thus didn’t want to have a gendered first name, so it was really easy to choose “jae” for myself (i also de-capitalize my name).
But i couldn’t think of a good last name. “Lee” is/was my middle name, and i’ve been using “jae lee” for a lot of things. BUT there’s a comic book artist by that name, and i’ve dabbled in comic bookery myself, so it couldn’t be permanent. “jae nyx” (Nyx being the ancient Greek deity of night – i’m a lifelong night-owl and also a goth… and also i happen to like Nyx cosmetics haha) was another good choice, but there’s a wannabe Insta influencer by that name. (I want my name to be pretty unique.)
I asked ChatGPT and got loads of cool but ultimately a bit unwieldy “dark, cosmic” names. I think one was Nox? Which was cool, but there is at least one person using that name already. No big deal though, there could be two, but… i kept wondering…
I happen to also be a Discordian (the one TRUE religion – along with the Church of the SubGenius of course). And one day i was randomly searching for dumb shit (to get Microsoft credit to keep my Xbox addiction going), and i kept looping through dwarf planets – Makemake, Ceres, Haumea, Pluto, Sedna, Eris… and i wanted to read more about Her Chaosity (one can never learn enough about Our Lady of Confusion), and i saw it: She had family, of course (Nyx being her Mom), including… children. I read a little about each one, but one in particular jumped out almost immediately:
Lethe (pron. LEE-thee).
Also the name of a mystical river in the Underworld. So what’s Lethe’s deal? She’s a personification of Oblivion and Forgetfulness. So it checks the nihilist and goth boxes rather nicely, plus it continues to honor my sweet, dear mom-in-law (oh and also i am becoming really forgetful myself, ever since the last time i had COVID).
