I saw you were concerned about how to go about getting your friends to call ya a different name, what I did is complained about how much I hated [birth name] & would prefer Sam until they did, and then once it was a known thing I stopped responding to [birth name] except to like teachers etc. I would tell them I prefer to be called Sam & when people called me [birth name] I started responding with “I am Sam; Sam I am” i dont know if this is helpful, but I hope it is!