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

[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.