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The basic problem with naming people is that you're supposed to do it when they're babies.
Like, we want names to be meaningful, which is why there's so many websites about name meanings, but of course nobody knows if their child will grow up to be brave or wise or joyful or whatever when they are a baby. Naming your child something that translates to "great warrior" in some language you don't speak will neither make them a great warrior nor make anyone else more likely to think they are a great warrior.
The only actual meaning names have, as in the thing you communicate to someone else when you tell them your name, is gender and culture of origin (obviously with some failure rate for both of those). Under some circumstances also "my parents were really into this movie/book/tv show around the time I was born" and such, but those are exceptional cases and ultimately not really facts about you.
Aside from meaning, though, we also want names that sound good. This is deeply subjective! And, unfortunately, the person whose subjective opinion matters most, i.e. the person whose name it is, has not figured out their aesthetics yet and even if they did they'd be in no position to communicate them. Because, baby.
This is, of course, why by any reasonable standard trans people just have better names than cis people. This is frankly cisphobic and should be fixed, making it more socially acceptable to change your name as an adult even if, through no fault of your own, you happen to have a gender that matches your asab.
[this is my sincerely held opinion, minus the use of the word 'cisphobic']
Like, we want names to be meaningful, which is why there's so many websites about name meanings, but of course nobody knows if their child will grow up to be brave or wise or joyful or whatever when they are a baby. Naming your child something that translates to "great warrior" in some language you don't speak will neither make them a great warrior nor make anyone else more likely to think they are a great warrior.
The only actual meaning names have, as in the thing you communicate to someone else when you tell them your name, is gender and culture of origin (obviously with some failure rate for both of those). Under some circumstances also "my parents were really into this movie/book/tv show around the time I was born" and such, but those are exceptional cases and ultimately not really facts about you.
Aside from meaning, though, we also want names that sound good. This is deeply subjective! And, unfortunately, the person whose subjective opinion matters most, i.e. the person whose name it is, has not figured out their aesthetics yet and even if they did they'd be in no position to communicate them. Because, baby.
This is, of course, why by any reasonable standard trans people just have better names than cis people. This is frankly cisphobic and should be fixed, making it more socially acceptable to change your name as an adult even if, through no fault of your own, you happen to have a gender that matches your asab.
[this is my sincerely held opinion, minus the use of the word 'cisphobic']
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I think generally, the hope is that there will be a minor influence in that particular direction (both in the child's self-perception and the perception of others). But this may have worked better when more people knew the meaning of the names in question.
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Anyway, in the last round of survey, everyone said "these names suck; have you considered _ instead?", and now I'm _.