My office has been doing a lot of work with transgendered folks over the past few months. There seems to be an odd trend among some M2Fers that stikes us all as odd: picking female names that essentially guarantee that they won't be taken seriously as women. Like, at all. I could name these names, but gosh, I won't, as many of them are absolutely wonderful women otherwise, except for the goofy name. Suffice it to say that they're names that won't be appearing on roster of partners gracing the stationery of a White Shoe law firm any time soon. Or ever.

If I were to transition, I think the name I would chose for myself would be Opal. Opal is my birth stone, it's an unusual name, although in a disuetudinal kind of way, not a faux french or imaginary African country kind of way. And, if I had been born a girl, my name would have been Odette. What's up with that? Simple. My godmother was Odette Myrtle, a french actress who after originating the role of Bloody Mary in the original Broadway production of South Pacific (I heard that she had something to do with the creation of the drink of that name), had a bit part in Rhapsody in Blue, the George Gershwin story, and plaid a maid in a 1960s soap opera called Secret Storm, retired to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she opened an eponymous restaurant where my mother worked as hostess, and where Jessica Savitch met her untimely end. And Odette is sort of like Opal.

I like Opal. It's no nonsense, speaks of intelligence and sound values, and--just like my given name--doesn't have a diminutive.

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