chosen names

[redbird]

I don't normally judge people by their names--if you're named Kevin, that doesn't mean you're anything like the Kevin I knew in seventh grade, or for that matter the other Evil Twin, it just means that your parents liked the name Kevin. (Or that you did--but my first assumption is that people are using the names their parents chose. [Aahz, Avedon, yeah, I know.])

Handles are different. On the one hand, everyone needs a unique handle here, which may be part of why filkerdave isn't just "Dave." On the other, okay, maybe your own name was already taken, but if someone labels zirself "Amok the Berserker," I figure that's like putting a "warning, dangerous cargo" sign on a vehicle, and I'm going to be careful.

Comments

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day when I realised that out of half a dozen friends I'd hung out with or chatted to that day, only my boyfriend is still using the name he was born with. And none of the others changed for the same reason as me, either. (Okay, I'm cheating slightly -- wandra uses a version of her given middle name instead of her first name, but I'm counting it anyway because I like counting her).

[jenett]

It sort of depends for me.

I mean, the two names I use online (Gwynyth and Jenett) aren't my given name (which is Jennifer) or my middle name (which is Clare). I don't use my real name on Usenet or - at this point - any email account except my account with my ISP. (Which is the only one my family knows about, and the only one that I use for professional stuff.)

It is a sort of twisted joke: when my parents were considering names, they were looking at Greek, Welsh, or Cornish name derivations. They just happened to pick the one out of that set of groups that was the most popular name for not only the year I was born in, but 5 years on each side of my birthyear - and in the top 10 a lot longer.

But I agree with you - if someone picks something odd, I may look at it sideways for a minute, and then keep a closer eye on them. Sometimes it's just an inside joke they've long had with friends. (Darkhawk still refers to me occaisionally as "She who sleeps on the high place which happens to have a mattress." which doesn't make much sense to people who don't know the story behind it)

But if someone shows up on a Usenet group or webboard I read with a name like SexxyBabe or whatever like that, I'm going to probably not take them terribly seriously until I get a chance to see what they're like. "Amok the Beserker" also falls in that category. I'm not going to dismiss them out of hand, but I'm probably also not going to commit a *huge* amount of my energy to helping them until I get to know them a bit.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Well, yes.

Back in my old BBS days, I used Lost Johnny (http://home.ggn.net/~phydeaux/lostjohnny.html) as my handle, because the song had some personal meaning for me at the time; I stuck with it because people who knew me would know who I was.

Later on in life, when I needed to take a new handle (since we needed, it seemed somewhat sillier to hide behind a song that didn't have that same meaning for me anymore. I was no longer the person I was back then. But there are thousands of Daves out here in the Great Wide World; there needed to be something to connect it to me.

And I am very proudly a filker.

I can't not write songs; that's part of who I am, has been for longer than I can remember (I don't say that they're necessarily good songs, but they're songs).

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I say they're good songs. :) *wave to filkerdave*

Hmmmm. Now I'm wondering what people think my LJ username says about me. It's a reference to a poem I wrote about myself, and through that poem to issues of race and gender and beauty that are all important to my self-conception (but none of them all-important).

I usually use my given name's commonest abbreviation, but for various reasons my journal is semi-anonymous (yes, I know "semi-anonymous" is a concept much like "a little bit pregnant").

"Ayesha"

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I have a lot of trouble with fannish names or "handles." Here on LiveJournal, I find that I have a lot of trouble with the combination of a handle and a non-photo picture. I just don't parse them into people the same way I do with someone whose name and face appears on the screen.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I try really really hard to appreciate the names people chose for themselves, but it is an effort. This is so, I think, since I have never had any slight wish to change the name people call me by, even when it's something I don't really recognize, like "Kare." I don't really understand why people change their names or what they get out of doing so.

I've changed my last name at marriage a couple of times, but that is more societially acceptable than any other kind of name change, and is practically expected. It was inconceivable not to take my husband's last name the first time I got married

Anyway. Our handle here was chosen for a couple of reasons, not least because it is the name of the street we live on.

K.