Random thought: names

[redbird]

All names are chosen names. It's just that some of us are using names we chose ourselves, some are using names chosen by people close to us (especially parents), and some are using, and I hope happy with, old choices.

Outside LJ, I use "Vicki," the name my parents chose. (Mom wanted the long form, Dad the shorter, he won that argument, so I insist on the spelling as given there.) redbird was chosen in an odd moment for use on ElderMOO, and is totemic, from my first tattoo.

My surname comes from a great-grandfather who sojourned in Germany for a while.

I could change any of them, some more easily than others, but I'm basically happy with what I've got, and continuity has its own appeals. So, for some people and purposes, does discontinuity, and reading a post related to that prompted this: a name change can be a way of affiliating with something or someone new, or of saying "I am no longer who you thought I was."

Comments

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

Names are important. True names, use names, nicknames; they're all important. This is one of those things that everyone going into computer related fields should learn, which these days is nearly everyone.

Rick, who is also "Richard" in the world of legal documents, and "Rik" to those who knew me in my teen years when I still believed that spelling reform and the adoption of the metric system were right around the corner, and "Egon" to those who knew me when I moved to Madison and joined a social circle that already had seven people named Richard in it, and these days the handle "rdkeir" which is my email address in many places is becoming my common designation.

The naming of cats is a difficult matter, 
It isn't just one of your holiday games; 
You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter 
When I tell you a cat must have three 
different names. 
   -- T. S. Eliot