Many transgender people choose new names to go by before, during, or after their transition to their true gender, whether it’s because their dead name (given to a person at birth) is too masculine or feminine, too binary, or just doesn’t fit them anymore.

The legal name change process, depending on the state, can be tedious and frustrating. It requires financial resources to pay court fees and physically get to bureaucratic institutions, and much more. It also requires a lot of emotional energy to undergo the process, especially when you haven’t gone by your legal name in years. There are bumps in the road that someone might encounter even after they've changed their name legally.

But even before you go about changing your name on legal documents, you need to achieve the first step: actually picking a name. Of course, you don’t need to change your name legally in order to start going by a new name, but for many, changing your name is a huge step in affirming your gender identity.

And sometimes, a new name isn’t just a new first name; it includes a last one, too. Changing your surname can represent a new type of independence, especially for transgender people who have been rejected by their families due to their identity, but most importantly, it represents who a person was always meant to be.

So how do you even begin to pick a name you’ll go by for the rest of your life? Teen Vogue asked 16 transgender people about how they chose the names they go by today. Some used baby name books while others were inspired by deeper meanings and translations behind their names. Here are their stories filled with self-love.

Elijah Emerson Buchanan Doss, 20, Pennsylvania

The name Elijah is deeply rooted in me. As a child, I hated my dead name and always wished for a more masculine name. In 7th grade, my best friend and I decided to give one another “boy” nicknames. I chose the name Elijah because of a book I was writing at the time with a character named Elijah, he was everything I really aspired to look like. The name was lovely to me. When I came out as transgender at 18, I went by Emerson, which is my now middle name. Some significant others told me the name Elijah did not fit me. After those relationships ended, I chose Elijah as my first name. I never looked back, the name is home to me.

Violet Edgar, 36, California

I got my name, as many of us do, by pretending to be someone online. In my case, it was from role playing an original character of mine — technically a gender swapped version of my character, who was originally male — in a certain fandom. I named it after her hair (purple — my favorite color) and, when I started meeting my online friends at conventions, I needed something to go by. I hadn't planned for that to become my actual name, but I discovered I had gotten used to people calling me that — and I rather liked it a lot. So, when it came time to choose a name for myself when I came out, it was really the obvious choice.

‎Lucas, 22, Illinois

‎I chose my name by going through lists on baby name websites and finding ones that I felt fit with me, and then I narrowed it down to a list of about five. I carried those around in a notebook for awhile before doing anything about it. Eventually, I stood in front of a mirror and said them all a bunch while i looked at myself to see if they fit with me as a person. I chose the one I did because it felt right, I liked the meaning, and it was not ambiguous (in regards to gender). I chose my Hebrew name because of the meaning and because of the loving, queer relationship between David and Jonathan.