What's in an [Instagram] name?

And what to do when you feel like your name no longer represents you?

Hi everyone, the whole of this post is available to read to everyone, AND paid subscribers will also receive a recording of it to listen to as you go about your day (I know I’m not the only one who stares at a screen enough already). I’m launching my full menu of exclusive content in June, but anyone who signs up now will secure an Early Bird price and never pay more!

I have always been Nic, or Nicola, never Nicky, Nikki, or Niki.

My husband often calls me ‘Wash’ - short for my surname, Washington - which sounds like an embarrassing invective when said in a room full of people. But I call him FannyRaver in return - a nod to the many mispronunciations his surname has collected over the years - so I call that evens.

After we got married in 2022, I didn’t taken my husband’s surname partly because I’m useless at admin, partly because I like the surname I already have, but also because the changing of names is a throwback to a time when women were property to be transferred from one family’s ownership to another’s, and I’m not down with that.

Both of our children have my husband’s name as their surname (something that ‘felt right’ and annoys me in equal measure), but have kept my surname as a middle name. It isn’t double-barrelled as we thought about future-them filling in Anglo-centric forms and realised a 19 character name might present some problems.

I honestly want to keep telling you stories about names - how we learned the hard way not to share potential baby names with anyone; the names that only family and close friends use; the confusion that entails when you’re talking about the same person using two different names (but also how easily this is overcome); how jarring I found it as a teenager that my parents didn’t give me any middle names, not even Louise, Sarah or Emma, which at least half of my 1980/1 born friendship group had at least one of - but I realise that’s not what you’re here for so, suffice to say I find names fascinating.

Names are powerful.

Names hold the stories, intentions, histories and ambitions of those who bestow them; conjur assumptions, expectations and at times, prejudices, in those who hear them; and when we think of ourselves, which name is it we use? When we introduce ourselves, how do we decide which name to share? And what happens when we no longer feel like a name represents us?

Ok, but what does this have to do with Instagram?

Well, last week,

Laura Pashby

posted this Note to Substack:

Aside from the fact I was flattered to be paged, I was reminded of

Katie Clapham

’s recent experience of changing her publication’s name from Katie Clapham is Terrible at Titles to

Receipt from the Bookshop

. Within 48 hours she had 40 new subs and despite her initial reservations about her new ‘sensible’ name, she has stuck with it.

Next, my squirrel-brain dug up how

Cath Counihan

, a Trauma Therapist and Educator changed her Instagram handle from psychotherapy_mum to her actual name in June last year. She posted about it on her Instagram account at the time, explaining that, ‘on a personal level it feels important to own and claim my name’.

After revisiting her post to write this piece, I then started to think about the particular cohort of women I was on the tail end of when I joined Instagram in 2016.

We were all mums, many of us were bloggers, and some of us were very successful at building ‘followings’ by sharing ‘honest’ posts from behind the scenes of motherhood as a backlash against the soft-focus, #blessed representation of motherhood that had dominated until then. But few of us used our own names.

The typical MO was to come up with something catchy, borderline rude, or that said something about who we were, (or perhaps who we wanted people to believe we were 👀).

My own handle was toomuchmotheringinformation. If Instagram had allowed it, I would have put the ‘mothering’ part in brackets to read toomuch(mothering)information as my experience of motherhood was only one of many subjects I’d been made to feel I had too many opinions about. Nevertheless, the handle was a reference to my habit of ‘going on’ about things but, for the first time in my life, Instagram and my blog of the same name provided safe, even welcoming, spaces to pour it all into.

Alongside posts about everyday life, books and writing, I posted about my sometimes-dark experiences of motherhood, my politics, my anti-racism unlearning, and my feminist education, so while I don’t think I could be accused of ‘playing it safe’, I find it interesting that I did none of it under my own name.

Why is that?

Was I ‘hiding’ behind this handle (my name was on my account, but not front and centre)?

Was I simply responding to an unwritten rule of Instagram etiquette to not use names as account handles? This was the mid-20-teens after all and the concept of having a ‘personal brand’ hadn’t yet become ubiquitous.

Was this trend itself indicative of a generation of women conditioned not to take up too much space, or, god forbid, think so much of ourselves that we slap our names on the front of something, and declare ownership of our ideas and ‘territory’?

The honest answer is, I don’t know. I can’t remember. But I do know there were many times I wished I’d chosen something shorter.

That account has now been dormant for over a year as I focus on building my business account toomuch_social, but one day, should I ever achieve my ambition of becoming a published author, I plan to bring it out of hibernation with, yes, a name change.

Whether my handle ends up being nicolawashingtonauthor, nicolawashingtonwrites, or some other version of the same isn’t decided, and will depend on what’s available, but what it will represent is a change of identity, a stepping into a new chapter in my life, and a new beginning.

Which brings me back to Laura Pashby.

Laura is a ‘writer, photographer and fog lover’ who, since 2012, has grown her Instagram account circleofpines to just under 100k people.

Her page is a feast of dreamy photography and natural colour palettes with such a strong visual identity that I can identify her posts as soon as I see them.

Her first book, Little Stories of Your Life was published in 2021, and her second book is due out later this year, and yet, despite having this incredibly strong brand to launch that from, she is considering changing her handle. Why?

When I asked Laura, she told me she, ‘chose the name circleofpines because it represented a place that meant a lot to me—I didn’t give it much thought! At that point, I was just sharing tiny moments—little stories—from my life: flowers, knitting, tea.’ And while she feels Instagram has brought opportunities and brilliant people she might otherwise not have a met into her life, she also wants her Instagram account to, ‘reflect who I am and what I do now—I’m a writer.’

This shedding and shifting of identity is not an easy one though. Circleofpines has been Laura’s online identity for over a decade and she’s torn: ‘I want to make it easier for readers to find me online but I do wonder if a name change could confuse people. I know it’s just the click of a button to switch account names but somehow it feels like more than that.’

I agree wholeheartedly with Laura. I think names might seem like a small thing if you only perceive them as the space they take up on a page, but their psychological size is so much greater.

So, I thought I’d ask an expert for their take on changing your ‘brand’ name/ Instagram handle.

Michelle Noel, founder of Studio Noel, a Brand Strategy and Design Agency, agrees completely that renaming anything is no small task.

She said, ‘It's how people remember you; it's how they refer to you; it’s what differentiates you; and it’s what encapsulates your brand essence.’

However, she continued, ‘as trends come and go and your objectives change, there are times when changing your ‘brand’s’ name becomes a necessity to staying relevant and authentic.’

According to Michelle, three signs you might need to make a change are:

• if your ‘brand’ name no longer reflects your objectives and values, or might even hinder your progress in achieving your long-term goals. To me, this sounds a lot like saying, ‘if you write, you’re a writer’ when people wonder if they’re allowed to identify as a writer if they’ve never been published. The point is, your ‘brand name’ needs to project what it is you want people to know about you.

• if your ‘brand name’ is difficult to spell – or pronounce – contains acronyms that only insiders can understand, or hinders clarity, it’s wise to explore alternative naming options. Basically, if you have an Instagram handle based on a nickname from university, like bunnyhopz1989 let’s say, it’s going to make you harder to find.

• if your brand name is misleading. An inaccurate name doesn’t just lead the wrong audience to your account, it could create confusion among potential readers about what your writing and account are about. If your name sends the wrong message and misguides your intended audience, it’s a clear signal that it might be time to consider changing it.

Part of me is cringing at the use of ‘brand name’ for writers as I know how many of you feel about the idea of having a ‘personal brand’.

If that is you, try asking yourself the question, ‘what do I want to be know for?’. The answer to this might help crystallise the uncomfortable concept of being a ‘brand’ into more friendly terms. It is, after all, just industry jargon and if your online self aligns with what you genuinely care about, and holds true to the values and beliefs you hold dear, you’re kind of already doing it.

In short, a ‘personal brand’ isn’t about bolting ‘stuff’ on, it’s about representing yourself in a way that feels true to you, and that will help your potential reader understand what they are getting when they pick up one of your books, or click through to read one of your articles.

So, with all that in mind, is it the right time for you to change your Instagram name?Does your old Instagram handle no longer reflect who you are? Perhaps you’ve evolved and your online presence needs to evolve with you. Or maybe you’re ready to take up more space and own your ideas with conviction. Leading with your name could be the first step towards making that shift.

Let me know what you think in the comments as always ✌🏼

Hi everyone, I hope you found this piece interesting. I just wanted to let you know that in June I’m launching my Too Much Instagram membership here on Substack (find out more here) and if you join me now you’ll lock in the Early Bird price for as long as you stick around 💃🏻 As you were!

Photo by Anthony Melone on Unsplash