I'm not male, but before my therapist suspected DID, none of us used any name except the birth name. We only adopted names if we were physically out somewhere and using an alias, or once therapy asked us to in order to keep personalities clear during conversation.
Stephanie

When I first met them they didn't give me their names. I thought they didn't have names too, and actually some didn't have names indeed.
I/We referred to most of us as "the nice one", "the pale one", "the front one" etc.

Im male and all my personalities have names now. But originally they started like your husband just going by their name based on the job they were created for.

I'm a guy and mine have names. Some of those names are not the kind of names that you would pick for a baby ...things like 'the shadow' 'others are perfectly normal human names that were picked out of a baby names site.

I don't know many other guys with DID but as far as I understand it whether people have names, what kind of names they are ('human' names, numbers, labels, names they refuse to share, letters, ect) is an individual thing between different systems and happens for various reasons rather than being a difference between males and females.

Off topic, C... I love your profile pic

Yo jake male n he haz namez 4 all uz. Tho we didn alwayz have namez n we made our own nicknamez.

He needed tu name uz cuz we were so different n people needed a way tu tell uz apart.

have one guy that bugz uz named Astaroth. tho hiz name really jake.

Shade/Delaroe out

I guess there's no difference between males and females with DID in that regard... very interesting topic, though, sossie! I'm really glad you asked. As soon as I read your question, I was intrigued.

Although I'm a gal, I'll chime in also, if that's okay. Mine didn't have names, either, until I started trying to keep track of who was who and explaining it in therapy or to Hubby. The first ones I knew about were called the sad one, the angry one, and my inner psychologist. (I love that your hubby has a psychologist, too! They sure help keep the peace and help us work toward healing. Hooray for inner-p's!)

When I started differentiating, I figured they'd all just suddenly say, "Oh yeah, my name is so-and-so" since all the books on DID used names for alts. When I asked mine, they all just looked at each other, and no one really had a name except the angry one, who said "Mother." So I asked if they would pick names for convenience's sake.

I've always loved the name Tia, so my teenager grabbed that one. Hubby had recently sung "Dear Prudence" to me very sweetly, and my little girl had just loved it, so she immediately chose Prudence. My Inner Psychologist, who doesn't feel the need to have an identity of his own, simply goes by IP. There are also those without "regular" names, like Wyld, Acceptance, and the musical one.

What their called doesn't really matter to them as much as being valued for who they are. Each has a role and certain strengths that helped us survive. Being respected for those finally is huge. Whatever your hubby calls them, I hope you both can see the good that each one has done for him, and encourage them to share their strengths with him.

You know something else this awesome thread did? It brought out lots of our male members into one place! Hooray for that, and a big thumbs' up to all our guys here! You guys always add a lot to the discussions, and I love to see your posts.

~ 'Tala

I don't have alters but have friends who do. In some cases the alters have no names.
When they were out they had to use birth names. In one female, some alters did, others didn't or had forgotten therename because they were called words like slut or which were profaneso often they sort of telt that was their name. One alter told me that she never needed a name because no one before me had ever talked to her..

I'm just learning to speak out about my feelings, so I just wanted to say, the example names you gave seem to me to be derogatory. Although I know you didn't mean them to be. yeah, I did the same thing at first...just knew them by titles, or the jobs they did on the inside, (like, gatekeeper, etc.) but as time goes on, I either discover their names, or give them a chance to give themself a name, or help them pick one out. Choice is a big issue for me; giving us a choice in our name is important to us. My name is Mary.Thank you for your question, because it gave me an opportunity to come out and talk!!