Re: Changing your name after leaving Islam?
Reply #11 - December 17, 2010, 10:30 AM
One thing that always bugged me about Islamic conversion is the insistence that a convert changes his or her name. It more than bugged me, it is disturbing in a way, because it is so loaded with symbolism of the cutting away of an individual from his or her moorings, a symbol that the non Islamic is jahil, even to sever the individual from his or her cultural background and family name (and in so many cases the act of distancing the individual from his or her family and culture is a test and vital act of submitting to Islam)
Ex Muslims feeling the need to change their name because of assimilative pressures is a slightly different thing. It is sad. After all, your name is the name that your Mum and Dad gave you, and if you feel the need to make a break with the religion by refusing anything Islamic in terms of names, I think you should wait until you have kids, and give them the name you might have wanted for yourself.
At the same time, in Britain and America, there is a tradition of immigrants (Jews, Italians, Chinese, Indians etc) slowly Anglicising their names. These are symbols of the assimilative impulse, and is different from an immediate change of a name as part of an act of rejection of the religion.
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