What does it mean to like your name?

I've been exploring the possibility of changing my name. I'm a bit more trans than I was giving myself credit for; I had a funny moment involving some dysphoria that I hadn't experienced before, but don't want to go too far into detail about. And now, my deadname, derived from the greek root meaning "manly," has not been sparking joy.

I've thought about my name in various forms over the years. During a formative moment in my gender journey, I was reading YA lesbian fiction, and Nancy Farmer's "Annie on my Mind" had me thinking of taking the name Annie as a first step. I have journal entries from a decade ago referring to myself by that name; if you visited this gemlog in April (I think?) I even introduced myself by that before switching to the pseudonymous 'hush.'

There was a period where I was thinking of Irish names, since my last name and heritage are suitably such; Aoife? Aine? Merrill/Merrit? For a time, I was very attached to maintaining my initials. I'm not so much, now.

I did have an interesting question pop up, though. How would I know? What does it feel like to like the name you go by? I asked this in the town chat, and while I didn't get an actionable answer, it did lead to a fun moment of several of us changing our chat nicks. I felt very supported.

I've been going by Everly online and with a couple friends of late. It means "wild boar in a forest clearing," and I also find the idea of shortening it to Ever to be evocative. It feels nice when I read it out? I don't know how to describe the feeling. It is a joy; It is not a joy of belonging, necessarily, so much as pride, maybe? I chose this thing.

I'm not sure how to know if this is a name I'll stick with, or if I'm just having a bit of a "honeymoon" with this and the shine will wear off.