Hello.
So, I’m kind of a late bloomer trans dude. Though I was 15 when I started to experience dysphoria and such, I spent all of highschool in “girlmode” and graduated a woman.
I used to, as a nickname even IRL, go by my former online name “Angelica”. However, Angelica isn’t a very masculine name and you won’t get very “manly” vibes from it. I’m looking for stuff maybe similar to Angelica or fit my vibe of “cutesy”, “femboy”, etc. Maybe names that symbolize kindness or good/light.
That’s great advice. And worded far better than I could have.
Yeah a lot of trans people go for really cool names and that’s awesome but when you choose your own name it’s wise to remember the advice given to parents about their kids’ names. Yeah it’s badass and hilarious if a woman names herself Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way (no relation of course), or Margaret Killjoy, but Ms Killjoy is able to get away with it because she’s an anarchist theorist and entertainer. A trans guy naming himself Lucifer Eveningstar is going to really struggle to get jobs. Hell, making a conscious choice about names that are read as “ethnic” is also valuable. Like, it’s not my place as a white lady, but I have a very normal female name and a male dominated career and women in my career talk about whether or not you should use an androgynous nickname on your resume (you get more interviews but they’re with people who wouldn’t have given you an interview if they knew you’re a woman).
If OP looks like he’s anglo or germanic, the name Angel/Angelo will likely occasionally get him questions on if he’s Italian or Latino if he ever passes for cis. If he takes the name Uriel people will think that that’s odd (but I’ve met a cis dude named Zebulon so it’s not like weird names are auto clocking). Gabriel could easily just be a name his parents liked or a grandpa or something, it’s uncommon but normal (where I’m from). Michaelangelo is very easy to brush away by professionally going by Mike and people will assume his parents are art lovers.
Zeb (i assume it could be short for Zebulon) is a more common name than I ever expected. I’ve known about 3 different people named Zeb in about 40 years.
This is actually something I’ve run into in my day to day. I changed my full name when I got married because I’ve hated my name for my whole life. My old name was very cute and very white, and I frequently got questions about the beloved children’s show I was named after. It made being a working adult pretty hard. What I didn’t expect was that my new name is heavily assumed to be Latino. I was going for the Italian poet but a few people have been confused to find an absolute honky in the interview.