Though SOAK never connected with her birth name, she did connect to the children's book Where the Wild Things Are, which is where she got her first nickname: Max. "When I was growing up I never really liked my name Bridie," she explained to The Line of Best Fit during an May 2019 interview. "Everyone thought it was short for Bridget — Bridget is such a granny name for me. I didn't know any cool Bridie's when I was growing up. I really liked Where The Wild Things Are, and I loved the main character, so I made everyone call me Max for two years of my life."
Eventually, Max became SOAK, and she hasn't looked back since. "I've always been trying to get away from the label of my own name and I didn't want to release music that way," she continued. "I was 13 [when I] came up with the whole SOAK thing. I wanted a new identity, because I was about to be so honest with my music and I wasn't in my real life. Doing it through the medium of SOAK felt safer."