Does your lay Buddhist name follow you for life or does it change with different temples and masters? When you are laity and given a Buddhist name does it change with different masters and temples or do you carry it with you for life? While mostly pertaining to the Vietnamese tradition I'm very curious about all. Thank you.
Within the Triratna Buddhist Order, an order member is given a name upon ordination by his or her preceptor. This is part of the "private ordination" at which the practice of the ordinand is witnessed by the private preceptor as being effective. At the "public ordination", some time later, the name is made public and the ordinand is welcomed into the Order by a public preceptor (sometimes, but not always, a more senior order member than the private preceptor).

The name is both an aspiration and a recognition of something already present in the person, or one or the other (what may or may not be conveyed to the ordinand). The name may also hint at the individual path taken by the order member, as recognised by the private preceptor.

Some, but far from all, also change their legal name to the name given at ordination.

It happens that people leave the order for various reasons. I believe that some choose to keep their "Buddhist names". The name is, after all, actually not directly linked to them being member of the order, but to the recognition and witnessing of the effectiveness of their practice.

Regards,
Kusalananda