Here's Exactly How (and Why) Caitlyn Jenner Chose Her New Name

Cover shoot was released yesterday

By Lily Harrison Jun 02, 2015 11:37 PMTags
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What's in a name?

One of the many questions one everyone's minds after Caitlyn Jenner's beautiful Vanity Fair cover was released was: what lead the E! star to choose the new moniker?

(With the release of her Vanity Fair cover on June 1, Caitlyn has chosen to publicly identify as a woman and E! News will refer to her using female pronouns. In stories published prior to this date, Caitlyn was referred to as Bruce and male pronouns were used.)

Jenner explained how she came to the decision in her interview with the magazine, saying, "It's one of the hardest things in life—choosing your own name."

She admitted that she tried to come up with ideas for her name by watching Miss America pageants, browsing the contestants to see if anything sparked her interest.

And while Jenner says she liked the name Heather or Cathy, Caitlyn always stuck with her.

The Olympian told the mag that at one point, her assistant Rhonda randomly mentioned liking the name Caitlyn.

Jenner took the coincidence as a sign, and decided to go ahead with it spelled with a C as opposed to a K—something the Kardashians and Jenners have seemingly trademarked over the years.

Caitlyn also spoke candidly about her difficult process transitioning, specifically when it came to her multiple operations.

"Pain is kind of, for me, part of the pain of being me," she said, when asked about having her beard permanently removed over the course of two very painful years.

But Jenner says it's all been worth it, and that even to this very day, it's hard to wrap her mind around the magnitude of her going public with her journey.

"I had this one time where I had not had a mirror behind me and they put this mirror up behind when I was doing this shoot," she recalled. "I had this rocking black outfit on, formal outfit, and I kind of, from a distance, looked in the mirror and I felt, 'Oh, my God.' That's the first time I'd ever really seen an image of me, of who I am. I mean over-the-top better than I thought it would ever be, especially at my age.

"You know, you think it's kind of over with at that age. And seeing that image was powerful to me, you know, powerful. And I kind of looked at it and said, 'You know what? This is going to work. We're going to be OK with this, you know?' So yeah, we move forward. I am so excited about the future."