Questions new Muslims ask

The sincere declaration of faith, the shahada, and the commitment to follow Islam. Everything else can be learned a step at a time.

No. Many converts choose a new name because it marks a turning point, connects them with the Muslim community, or reflects their new faith, but it is entirely fine to keep your given name if its meaning does not go against Islam. The Prophet, peace be upon him, changed some companions' names whose meanings were troubling: he renamed a woman called Asiyah, meaning disobedient, Jamilah, beautiful (Sahih Muslim 2139), and gave Barrah, which praised its bearer as pious, the name Zainab (Sahih al-Bukhari 6192). He left many other names as they were, and when one man preferred to keep the name his father gave him, the Prophet did not force him (Sahih al-Bukhari 6190). If you do take a Muslim name, you can use it in religious and community life while your legal name stays the same.

It is lunar. Each of its twelve months begins with the new moon and lasts 29 or 30 days, so the year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year. That is why Ramadan and the other Islamic months move earlier each year in the Gregorian calendar and pass through every season over time.

Ramadan is simply the ninth of the twelve months in the Islamic calendar's order. What gives it its importance is that the revelation of the Quran began in it (Quran 2:185).

Because the month moves about eleven days earlier each year, the fast falls in every season over the years. Fasting days are long in summer and short in winter, which changes the experience of the month.