IN June, my band performed at a party at a Lower East Side boutique that specialized in wool ankle cuffs and sheer tunics. A few weeks later, we were playing in Brooklyn when a man approached me and said, “I just thought you might like to know that a friend I brought to your last show changed her name to Alina Simone.”

I laughed and said something like, “Well, I hope that’s working out for her,” but the news was a strange revelation.

Twelve years ago, I changed my own name to Alina Simone. (I used to be Alina Vilenkin, until I swapped my father’s last name for my mother’s.) So I know that whenever someone changes her name, a body gets stuffed in the closet. When I think back to my old self, I think of an entirely different person, not altogether likable, whose singular distinguishing characteristic was the chronic inability to follow through with anything she said she would do. I picked up and abandoned projects with great regularity back then, careful to always avoid the frightening terrain where my true ambitions lay.

Then I changed my name and it changed me. In my new incarnation as Alina Simone, I had no reputation, no history of unmet expectations, nothing to lose. I started singing; I formed a band. I poured my best self into my new name.