More change. In the weather I mean.

So the other day I was talking to a friend, and he said to me "What do you think would be a good name for me?" I'm thinking, 'well the name you have is pretty good, it matches you, ya know.'
 But it ends up, he was serious, serious as in, he legally wants to change his name.
So naturally, I ask him, 'Why?'

Okay, in my mind, there's no reason I would ever change my name, I mean, why..?  It's your identifier, the way people know you, your name is one of the first things you learned, especially about yourself.

To continue, he told me that he felt he needed a 'fresh start,' and that he felt that when he moved away, if he changed his name, he would be able to have a new start. He wants to cut all ties to current friends, get new Facebook, Skype, and email.

Now I have talked with someone else about this, and we have come to the conclusion that he is seeking attention. This is hard enough for the type of person who likes to share things, and talk about what they're feeling.
But with this guy, it's even harder because he has this need to keep everything inside himself. He doesn't believe in telling professionals his problems. "People don't want to listen to other peoples problems." So he especially doesn't want to pay someone to listen to his problems.

This for me is the hardest to understand. I mean, I can see he suffers from depression and maybe some social anxieties, but refusing to face them, will just make his life harder. He wants to run away from it all, pretend like his 'past' mistakes never happened. I mean, I can understand how he may have this illusion, wanting to get away from everything, most people turn to alcohol, some turn to drugs.
Though we all know that no 'escape' is the right way to go about all of this.

So I write this mostly to tell someone, but usually this helps me come to some kind of 'conclusion.'
Though this time I have no idea what to do, no idea how to 'council' this guy.

All I can do is Pray. Which can be quite disheartening without results, but maybe something is going on behind the scenes.

Edit:
Talked with him tonight, he seems to be open to talking to me, and allowing me to 'help' if I can.