What's in a Name?

I've always gone by many names.
My "real" name is actually the least common of all of them.

The most common one however, I never thought I would consider putting away.

Many of my friends have their own names for me.  We consider it a term of endearment, and I tend to use alternate names for most of them.  Names we have adopted to be more fitting to who are.

At certain venues, I use names I've chosen.  My stage name has become something I use at all faires and events of similar nature.

If on the rare chance I use my birth name, I prefer to use it fully.  I dislike how it shortens, and find it childish.  There is one particular shortening of it that I absolutely despise, and have hit people for calling me by it.

I even have a name I give when I simply don't want to exist.  My name when causing trouble, so it doesn't get linked back to me.

Whether it be Aislin, Demon, Spike, Jocelyn, Vlos, Chaos, Trouble, or a myriad of others, the most common, the one I have been given time and again, for different reasons, and sources, and for the longest amount of time, is Loki.

And recently, I find myself wanting to introduce myself by it less and less.

Even if I identify with it completely.

I received it the first time when I was ten.
Certain friends just called me Demon.  I was emotionally distant, loved violence, and incredibly intense as someone who was already an adrenaline addict.

One day, I asked that if I was truly a demon, which would I be.
So we researched, and I found a database of demons from different mythologies, and cultures.
There it was.
We all agreed.
Loki was a Babylonian fire demon.
Something ancient, and wise, but made of chaos.

It... Fit.
And so I had a name, with those few.  Something just they held.

A few years went by, and I started reading runes while the rest of my friends who practiced whatever magick they chose tended to look at tarot for their divination of choice.  I felt too many people played with the cards, and so I wanted something a bit more natural.
So, I went further, as someone who loved to learn.  I taught myself about the Nords, and picked up the style in my own art.
Then the Norse pantheon came.
And we all looked at it.  We saw the great Gods the Nords had come to discover.

Then while looking, we found Loki.
A shape-shifting, trouble making, God of mischief.

And they all looked at me, and told me they'd found who I was.

I laughed, and said I'd gotten the name from elsewhere, but I'd certainly take it from another source.
I took the name now, and ran with it.  It became something I used everywhere, and soon I had more presence by this name, than my own birth name.

Unfortunately, pop culture can destroy what we have.
When I introduce myself now, I worry how the other person will react.  If they will see me as just a fangirl, or if I will get the snicker and comments that so many decide to give when they've just seen movies, and recognize a name.

But it's more than a name, and I'm not a fangirl (well, not in this case anyway).  It is my identity.  Something that feels more right than the name I was given by my parents.
I will continue to use it, because some day it will stop being a fandom, and I will still be Loki.