You mean they go with their given name. Their real name is the one they use. I realize this is not really relevant to this thread, but telling people who have changed their name that their given name is more real than their chosen name is offensive and sometimes hurtful.
(This is a common problem for trans people, but it’s not unique to trans people. Most people who change their name have some strong reason for doing so, and really prefer to go by their real, new, chosen name.)
Indeed. I have a coworker who hasn’t legally changed his name from Dacian Ignacio Federico Fiorello III to Fred Fiorello**, but he exclusively and consistently uses Fred Fiorello.
Nevertheless some assholes will figure out his “legal” name and address him by it because that’s his “real” name. We have a sucky HRIS that shows the legal name on your profile. It’s only been a few years* since he would have been forced to have Dacian.Fiorello@companyname.com as his email address.
No points for guessing where those assholes stand on pronouns or unwanted touching.
ETA:
*Okay 10+ years. Time flies when you get old.
** Names have been changed to protect the innocent
That’s typical in schools, too. The rosters might contain a field for “preferred name”, and that might or might not be relatively prominent, but the official records are all in the kid’s given name as it appears on their birth certificate. Look at the handwritten rosters on any teacher’s desk, though, and you’ll see the names the kids actually go by (which might be standard shortened forms of their official names, like “Katie” for “Katherine”, or might be completely different names), and if the “official” name shows up at all, it’ll be in parentheses.
It can be more complicated, though. You can, for instance, have someone who’s taken orders and goes by one name within the convent, but then when they’re visiting family, go by another. And I suspect it’s pretty common for people to go by a different version of their name for those they’ve known since childhood: One of my oldest friends still uses the diminutive form of my name, and likewise me for him, because that’s what we went by when we met.
Nicknames are a little different.
I was one of the school children who used a different name than what was in my birth certificate. I’ve always used that name, it’s what my parents called me as a child. It’s my real name. I knew that people like my guidance counselor didn’t actually know me because they would address me by my legal name, and not my real name.
I changed my legal first name to my real name when i got married.
I generally don’t tell people what the first name on my birth certificate is because they sometimes then feel it’s somehow my “real” name. They are wrong.
This is probably why I’m sympathetic to trans people being upset at being “dead named”, because it bothers me, too.
Anyway, it’s not an uncommon issue. I just wanted to alert @Melbourne that it’s not appropriate to refer to a person’s prior name as their “real” name.
In first grade, they had cards with our names on them and we were supposed to pick them out ours. I couldn’t find mine. The teacher flipped over “Charles” to reveal “Chuck.” I thought it a nasty trick; no one called me “Charles.”
Yeah, we always called my brother by his diminutive (not one that sounds childish…many adult men use this diminutive), but he decided he wanted to use his full name when he entered the working world. Whenever we’d meet any of his coworkers over the years they’d always comment on our using the diminutive.
About when I was born in the depression, my father was looking desperately for a job and started using a less Jewish sounding name. But my birth certificate used the prior name. That is almost the only place that name appears. No school record, no passport, no Canadian record anywhere, shows that name. The only other place it was ever used was on my initial passport application where I had to get a notarized statement from someone who knew me under both names that I was one and the same. Fortunately, my parents were still alive; they were the only two people in the universe who knew me under both names. But I would be highly annoyed if someone were to dredge that up.
And no, I never got a legal name change.
My granddaughter has told her school that she prefers the name “Mona”, which isn’t even close to her given name. Per school district rules, everyone in the school administration is required to call her that and address any correspondence to her by that name. Makes me wonder who is in charge, when that is a priority.
Haha, we found Charlie Brown on the Dope! 
50 years ago, i told my teacher that my name wasn’t the name on the records, but the name my parents called me (which are entirely unrelated names) and everyone except the idiot guidance counselor called me that.
I no longer visit this board because I formed the opinion that by benefiting from the community and moderation, I was complicit in the labeling, mobbing, and generally malignant behaviour exhibited, tolerated and encouraged.
But I still get notifications when my screen name is used, which gives @puzzlegal a chance for a correction and apology.
Oh, hey, I’m really sorry, it was @md-2000 whose post i was responding to. They were responding to you, and you both just have an “M” as your avatar.
And sorry for disturbing you, too. While I’m sad you decided to leave the board, i didn’t mean to poke you like that.