Everyone is a Steve or Alex, including me!

I have a really annoying glitch about playing online. Every time I log onto a server everyone is a Steve or Alex. It used to just happen occasionally and I was never a Steve myself but now it is constant and I am always a Steve. I decided I didn't want to complain so I searched it up and watched two youtube videos. They were both quite helpful but both said I should try to change my version to 1.7.2 or 1.7.4. I found this helpful and attempted it on Minecraft but later discovered that can't log onto any version but 1.8.9. I would appreciate some help. Thank you!