3.

"The funny thing about changing my name was that I was the only one between my mother, (biological) father, and brother with a gender-specific name. My younger brother hated his name (Kelley Lee) growing up and so did my father (Adrian Lauren) because they both thought their names were a girl's name growing up. My mother (Pat) always liked hers. There simply wasn't a feminine version of my birth, first, or middle name. So I had to come up with a totally new name and I wanted one that no one I was friends with had.

Initially I liked the name Samantha because I love the show Bewitched as a child, but decided that it just didn't seem to fit. I went online and searched the U.S. Census for the top female baby names around the year I was born. I found Sydney and it just clicked. I still hadn't picked a middle name so I decided to talk to my supportive mother about my name choice. I asked her what she would have named me if I had been assigned female at birth and her second choice was Sydney.

I asked her about my middle name and she suggested 'Madison' — that was also my great grandfather's first name. As a young child, he was the only male figure who got me (I was a somewhat feminine child, as you can imagine) and let me be me until later my mother met my stepfather who has also been very supportive — so, Sydney Madison was reborn.

—Sydney Madison