You see, when I came out, and first told everyone about the transition, the first questions from everyone were about bathroom privileges, gender pronouns, and what the Hell my new name was gonna be! And I didn’t know just where it would fit in, I just knew that I was meant to be called Argiope. Pronounced properly, Ar -jye (or a soft G) -oh -pee, it was the name, I discovered, from a very intimidating, yet marvelous spider I once came across in Texas. Argiope. It just fit fit. But where?
I considered Argiope Dionysus — to stick with the whole Grecco-Roman thing. Wilfred, Wendy, something feminine or at least androgynous starting with a “W”. W-Argiope-Hager? Hager was my last name; W-A-H were my old initials. And I really liked those initials because they were symmetrical and part of an old monogram I once came up with. Jeez!
So finally, I settled on Jadis Illiana Argiope. Jadis, being the name of the White Witch, The Queen in the Chronicles of Narnia. I took this name in honour of my mother. Illiana, being a name that my closest sister and I came up with many years ago, determined to be among the most beautiful sounding names a woman could have. And Argiope, mostly because it just fit, but the attraction to it can be accredited to my father because of the arachnofilia and the love of strange things he inspired in me and my younger siblings as a child. And so, I consider all three to be in honour and devotion to my Mother, Sister, and Father, all in ascending order.
That being said, I’ve always had a curiosity with names. They have meaning. And not just the personal qualities we give them, or the people we associate them with. Ultimately, every name is, or is derived from, a word. And from those words can be derived an even greater meaning. For me, my first name, my old name, translated to The Advancing Wolf; a name that implied a sense of cunning. My middle name was the name of either a Viso- or Ostro-Goth chieftain or something like that, and meant King of All Things. My last name, I honestly don’t really know. But with what I had, together it inspired a mock-up foreshadowing, and delusions of grandeur. Needless to say, even though it didn’t quite seem to fit, what I found attractive about it was a fantasy that I might one day get to grasp the world; to know and to keep, if just for a little while. Feelings inspiring dreams of control and power. A world that never made sense to me, that I might one day get have the privilege to give it order; mine.