Should I standardize data using sample statistics? Suppose I sample 1,000 $\mathcal{N}(0,1)$ observations
>>> import numpy as np
>>> x = np.random.randn(1000)

The sample mean of x is
>>> x.mean()
-0.034215203795331606

The (biased) sample standard deviation of x is
>>> x.std(ddof = 1)
0.9923790554909595

Now suppose that I standardize these observations using these sample statistics
>>> y = (x - x.mean()) / x.std(ddof = 1)

The sample mean and (biased) sample standard deviation of y are
>>> y.mean()
1.5987211554602253e-17
>>> y.std(ddof = 1)
0.9999999999999999

However, I feel that this standardization procedure is a bit misleading, since y is no longer normally distributed. More formally, if
\begin{align}
X &\sim \mathcal{N}(0,1) \\
\hat{\mu} &= \frac{1}{1000} \sum_{i=1}^{1000} X_i \\
\hat{\sigma} &= \sqrt{\frac{1}{999} \sum_{i=1}^{1000} (X_i - \hat{\mu})^2}
\end{align}
then
$$
Y = \frac{X - \hat{\mu}}{\hat{\sigma}}
$$
My questions are:

*

*If $Y$ is not normally distributed, then when is standardizing data using sample statistics appropriate?

*How is $Y$ distributed?

*Does this standardization procedure using sample statistics have a name?

Update
I was not precise enough in my original question. Suppose that
$$
X_1,X_2,...,X_{1000} \sim \mathcal{N}(0,1)
$$
are independent and identically distributed, and suppose that
\begin{align}
\hat{\mu} &= \frac{1}{1000} \sum_{i=1}^{1000} X_i \\
\hat{\sigma} &= \sqrt{\frac{1}{999} \sum_{i=1}^{1000} (X_i - \hat{\mu})^2}
\end{align}
If
$$
\forall i \in \{1,2,...,1000\}, Y_i = \frac{X_i - \hat{\mu}}{\hat{\sigma}}
$$
then are
$$
Y_1,Y_2,...,Y_{1000} \sim \mathcal{N}(\mu_{Y},\sigma_{Y})
$$
for some mean $\mu_{Y}$ and standard deviation $\sigma_{Y}$? It seems that the answer is no, since each $Y_i$ is a non-linear function of $X_1,X_2,...,X_{1000}$ via $\hat{\sigma}$. If I am wrong, then what would $\mu_{Y}$ and $\sigma_{Y}$ be?

I had to edit this after already having picked up 2 votes because I realised that what I wrote about the conditional distribution isn't correct. In fact this is a surprisingly tricky question.

*

*A major reason to standardise is if you have several different variables and want to make their values comparable. If you only have a single variable, I don't really see the point of it. Generally whether standardisation makes sense or not depends on what you do with the (un-)standardised data.

Note in particular that there is no reason to standardise if you want to estimate $\mu$ and $\sigma$, because standardisation amounts to removing the information about $\mu$ and $\sigma$ from the data.


*The fact that $Y$ is not normally distributed is a nice observation. In fact, it's not i.i.d. normally distributed.
"I.i.d." means identically and independently distributed. Independence is violated, because in particular the $Y_i$ have to sum up to zero, meaning that if you know $n-1$ of them, you know exactly what the last one has to be.

The marginals have mean $\mu_Y=0$ and variance $\sigma_Y^2=\frac{n-1}{n}$, however they are not normal, see below. That their mean is zero is easy to check (note that if random variables that are identically distributed sum up to zero, all their expected values must be zero regardless of dependence). The variance can be obtained from a similar argument, realising that $\sum Y_i^2=n-1$.
However, the marginals cannot be normal, because for example, if $n=2$, $Y_1=3$ is impossible because then $Y_2=-3$ because of $\sum Y_i=0$, and $\sum Y_i^2=9\neq 1$, which it need be. This means that the range of values of $Y_i$ is bounded, hence cannot be normal. (In fact, if $n=2$, $Y_i$ can only be $\pm\sqrt{0.5}$; from $n\ge 3$ it should be continuously distributed, but still with bounded range, as too large absolute values would spoil $\sum Y_i^2=n-1$.)
I had earlier claimed that  $Y_i$ is normally distributed conditionally on $\hat \mu$ and $\hat\sigma$, but that's not true either, because knowing $\hat \mu$ and $\hat\sigma$ doesn't change the argument above.
Interestingly, if you plot $Y_1,\ldots,Y_n$, they will have the same distributional shape as $X_1,\ldots,X_n$, which are i.i.d. normal, just with different mean and sd, so normality will be kept in a certain sense, but I don't know how to make that a formal statement.


*Many names are in use, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_score
