Since coming out, one of the most common questions is: “How did you choose that name?”. That name, of course, is Alla.
Back in 2006, I started playing the MMORPG game World of Warcraft(WOW). When creating your character for the first time, you can choose between several races and two genders. I initially chose a male character because I thought I might get discovered and called out even in WOW. Silly, I know that now. Flash forward to 2007; a new expansion and two races, Blood Elves, and Draenei, have been added to the game. The female characters were beautiful. I chose to play a female Draeniei. I wanted my character to have an exotic name, but every name I tried to select was taken. I eventually started to type names at random with no luck. I eventually found the name, Alla. What a beautiful name; she was the woman I could be, even if it was only a game. Of course, people would ask, “Why did you choose a female?”. My response which I said more times than I can count: “If I am going to look at a character’s ass for several hours a week, it might as well be a woman’s ass.” I spent many hours playing that character I think I have played almost a full year in-game time(I will post the stats later).
Later, I would choose the Alla when creating characters on other servers and in other games. It became a running joke with my friends. The year is now 2020, and I have joined a support group for trans people even though I still did not identify as trans(I considered myself a cross-dresser only). The very first question asked of me was: “What is your preferred name?”. WOW, I was blown away. What name did I want to be called? I could use my old name because it could be both masculine and feminine. No, that would not work; even though I did not know that I was on a journey, I realized that choosing this name had to be meaningful. I thought about the choice for about ten minutes. There was no doubt the woman with whom I spent many years “looking at her ass” was the woman I wanted to be; thus, Alla Nicole Davis was born. At the time, her name was Alla Nicole Andrews; however, I decided to keep my birth last name in January this year. Family history is important to me, and I do love my family.
I hope this post was informative, and if you have any questions, please comment.
Alla Davis
P.S. The featured image is of my character Alla from World of Warcraft.
