When I acted upon the command of God to take on a new name, I immediately suffered persecution. My first persecution was by my immediate friends. People who I had known for many years simply would not accept my new name. "You'll always be that old name to us," they would say.
"I have changed and am a new creature," I would explain. But they would not believe me. Friends fell away fast.
I also tried to communicate with my earthly parents. They refused to acknowledge the new name. They continued to write letters to the "old man." They reasoned that they had created my name and were not going to abandon it. Finally, I sent back one of their letters, unopened, along with a properly addressed, stamped envelope. Even then, they would not put the letter inside the envelope and remail it. For then they would be acknowledging that I was a new creature.