Reruns!

[shadesong]

Okay, I'm rerunning a favorite old post, as I have about 100 more LJ friends now than I did when I first posted it. And I really loved the responses the first time around, and would love to see what newer people have to say. So.

On Names and Naming

This is a subject that holds a lot of interest for me, so bear with me, okay? :)

It's an old adage that names have power, so they've always been a source of mild fascination for me. I've always hated my given name - yes, first, middle, *and* last, the whole thing - and, from about the age of five, have been seeking out my *real* name, as this one just doesn't fit right.

For a while I went by my Hebrew name, Sarah. And I went through cycles of calling myself whatever random name happened to catch my attention. When I was 10, I had the dream that gave me what I refer to as my private name, as well as the public version of that name - Shadesong. It's like they say about cats - cats have the name that humans call them, the name that other cats call them, and the name they call themselves... so humans call me by the name on my driver's license, you other cats call me Shadesong, and I have a name that I call myself. :)

In addition to my early name-confusion, boyfriends, then friends, began to name me - I've had many different names for different people. Layne called me Harmony, for example, and he and I used the aliases Rock and Crystal Jones. :) This is more widespread with boyfriends than friends - off the top of my head, I can only think of one ex who never renamed me.

With the advent of the internet, it seems that many of us have nicks, handles, that the other cats call us. Fluid identities. And it makes me curious - where did you get yours? Do you use it in everyday life? Do you have different names for different places? Do you, like me, have difficulty remembering to sign your "real" name to work-related e-mails? :) Which name do you identify with most? My identification as Shadesong is so thorough that yendi almost always refers to me as 'song. :)

Four years ago, my birth mother found me. One of the first questions I asked her was, "What did you name me?"

She'd never named me.

Nine months in the womb and six weeks in her home, and she never named me because she knew she'd have to give me up.

Maybe that's part of why names don't stick to me. Maybe, by the time I got my legal name, I was too complete for it to fit.

Tell me about your names?

Comments

[snowelf.livejournal.com]

I never liked my legal name much. As far as I know, my parents didn't spend much time figuring out a name for me. They wanted something easy and short. And I admit, it doesn't look too bad with my last names, even if it's so short. I'm starting to get used to my legal name, though.

I have several online nicks...I try to use the same in most places...but I'm not entirely consistent.

For a long time, I went by the name Luthien...some people still call me Luth or Luthi. I don't mind.

When I roleplay online, which I do a lot, I go by the name of my characters. The one that's been most consistent is Elanire, to the point that some people call me El...and persist in calling me by that name. *chuckles* And some people can't spell it. But then, few people get my entire legal name right either.

One reason I don't like putting my real name up on the web is that I believe names have power...and I'd rather keep the knowledge of my real name to a select few people.

[suibhne-geilt.livejournal.com]

Hello...

Sorry - I'm hopping around the friendsfriends option...

Anyway, birth name "Eric". From the old teutonic, roughly translates as "Kingly".

LJ name "Suibhne_Geilt". He was a Pagan Irish king, who was cursed by a Christian saint to madness, and went wandering the woods for the rest of his life. I only use this name for LJ - there's a part of me that balks at the idea of wandering around using the name of a great figure from the past for myself. Ironically, "Suibhne" roughly translates as "laid back", while "Geilt" is "madman". There were many, many Suibhnes in Ireland and Scotland, and "Sweeney" is the modern equivalent to the old Gaelic "Suibhne".

Most of the time, I simply use "Suibhne" for online purposes.

I used the name Suil Bhran in my spiritual community for quite some time. It's Irish for "Eye of the Raven". However, that name has not fit me for some time now.

I've toyed with Gealbran, which is Irish for "Fire Crow", but that one hasn't really stuck either. I do, however, have a fictional LJ under that name.

I've also considered Cloachair as a spiritual name. It wanders in and out.

I have a name for myself, that I took a binding oath to "give to no man".

I have also had many, many nicknames that have wandered in and out of my life for different reasons.

- Eric

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Hey, no need to apologize! This is exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for. :) My name for myself is known to only two people, one alive and one dead...

why do i have that name game song running thru my head now?

[dorei.livejournal.com]

What's in a name. My birth name is Sharon. I had no nicknames growing up. I was always Sharon. I wanted to be a Deirdre or a Belinda, or some other fairy-tale sounding name, but no, I was Sharon. ~shrug~

No nicknames ever stuck to me growing up. Oh they tried ... Shar ... Shari ... nah. My exhusband tried Sherry, but that didn't really fit either.

I found the internet in 95. On there I became amethyst, which got shortened to ame on IRC. Of course, as I was involved with a dom online at that time, I became ame{Dh} for a while. Around the same time I discovered a sense of my own spirituality. I was fascinated with the ideas of knowledge, wisdom, inner truths. I searched for a name and came up with rowanne, which is a derivation of rowan, the tree that is a symbol for wisdom. So online, people knew me as ame, and others knew me as rowanne, which got shortened to row.

About a year ago, I went looking for kanji to get a tattoo (which still hasn't happened). I found the tattoo for slave, and the pronunciation for that kanji is "dorei". Thus my current name. Is this my final name? Dunno, can't say. M calls me piggy, but that's just an endearment. ;)

Maybe I'll do a guided meditation one of these days and find my name. It's just not something that's important enough to me yet.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, let's see. You get the rare but dubious privilege of hearing my given name: "Nickolas Frank Brienza." Nickolas is after my great-grandfather, Nick Pistillo. Oddly enough, I've had five or six people look just at the spelling of my first name, with a "k" instead of an "h," and guess I'm Italian. Frank is after my paternal grandfather, who I never met. Brienza is apparently a corruption of "Brienna," which is a regional name; there was a "Duke di Brienza" who betrayed Naples to the French in the Napoleonic Wars.

I got every possible variant on "Nick" growing up -- Nick, Picnic, Nikolai, Nickelodeon. My stepbrother Matt called me "Frankie" when he was little, and I would pretend it annoyed me just to make him happy. :)

My very first online handles were Foxbat (just a character), Howard the Dolphin (from the Illuminatus! trilogy), and Yoyodyne (from, uh, everywhere).

Kincaid is the original name of my wheelchair-bound-human-sculptor-turned-plastic-vixen on TapestriesMUCK. Her first name is Hannah. It was originally supposed to "Ruby," but a friend reminded me of Reuben Kincaid from the Partridge Family, and there went that idea. :) Kincaid is a reference to Unity Kincaid, the woman from Sandman who fell victim to "sleeping sickness" and bore Desire's daughter.

"Postvixen" is taken from the term "post-human," and has nothing to do with postal work. :)

[mystril.livejournal.com]

My parents were dating when they heard someone singing a nasty song about a girl with my real name. They decided that they liked the name and when they had me a few years later, they were almost positive that I was a girl and knew what I was going to be named. I'm lucky, too, if my grandmothers had their way, I would have been named something that doesn't suit me at all (Mary Margaret, or something to that effect). I like my name because it fits me. I have nicknames, but I like my real name better.

Mystril was one of my D&D/Earthdawn character names. (A couple of us bugged the DM until he let us translate obsidimen and windlings into a D&D world.) So when I was signing up for an email account for mailing lists that I didn't want to use my real name for (this was soon after one of my relatives starting emailing me pretending to be another relative, so I was a little privacy crazy) I used character name. And it's become my Internet identity.

(And, btw, I think you were the one complaining about school uniform policies -- there's in article in today's NY Times about why they don't work. If you weren't that person, sorry.)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

That was me about the uniforms... I'll go look at the Times. Thanks!

The naming of cats...

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

Funny... maybe I'm the only cat I know who doesn't have a private name. But that may have something to do with one of my names I use publicly.

Born "Jennifer Brett" (no last name listed for security reasons, 'cause I'm a paranoid government conspiracy buff *grin*). Apparently, Brett was drawn from a Playboy centerfold model who was in the magazine around the time I was born. As the story goes, my grandfater was JB, and my dad was JB, Jr. When my older brother was born, Grandpa declared there would be no JB III, so they named him after my mom's initials, and later named ME JB. :)

I was Jennifer throughout high school (after mostly casting of Jenny as a teenager). People who knew me then still refer to me as Jennifer now. People started calling me Jen in college, and I discovered I really liked it. It's the first time I'd ever been given anything close to a nickname; maybe that's why I'm so attached to it now.

Was given the name "Tailchaser" as part of a Pagan initiation ritual, in reference to the Tad Williams novel, "Tailchaser's Song." The name Tailchaser was given to the main character, who was looking for his own secret name. I guess I'm still looking for mine, too.

And 'Jenkitty' was something I made up, and it's managed to stick, since I use it socially. I figure, I'm feline, and there's far too many Jens in the world, I should come up with something personalized and unique.

Been there described that :)

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

Took me forever to find the post ... but here 'tis!

http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=branwynelf&itemid=39674&view=90362#t90362

[songwind.livejournal.com]

My real name is Eric. I use my real name all the time in the Big Blue Room. I just haven't ever really identified myself in the real world by any other name. There are people who call my girlfriend by her longtime internet handle, and it always confuses me when I hear it spoken. "Who? There's no one here by... oh, wait, you mean her. Hang on."

[fiddledragon]

pbpthth...and for the longest time, I couldn't call you anything but Darkwind in my head, but I could NEVER have called you that f2f. It doesn't fit. Sometimes I do think of you as Song...could *never* get SuKoMing through my head. Nor any of the others through that time. Oh, and then there's featherhead, and and and :P....so while *you* haven't identified yourself as anything but...there are people (at least me) that have identified you otherwise :)

Just call me Legion.

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

The name of this body is Vincent. It's also my father's name, and my grandfather's name. It's not me. But I'll answer to it. People called me Vinny when growing up in New York. When I moved to North Carolina and entered college, people automatically called me Vince. Since I still had very little identity, I let it go. But nowadays I realize I hate Vince. I'll allow only one person to call me that.

I found BBSes and the 'net and called myself Dreamweaver. I got the name from an album by Sabbat: "Dreamweaver - The Clerical Conspiracy." Besides, I was a writer and a lucid dreamer. It fit me. And I began to understand that I had a personality. I had thoughts that I could express. But I didn't quite know how.

Due to my expanding awareness, I felt the need to express myself in different ways, through different aspects. I named these aspects and gave them personas. Dreamweaver, the Keeper of Secrets, was the main persona: loving embrace, ethereal wisdom and comfort, my male side, personified as a winged panther. Carrissa, taken from a series of stories I wrote in junior high and high school, was aggression, bitchiness, and confidence, my female side, personified usually as a young asian woman. Painkiller, taken from a Judas Priest album, is Divine Judgement, judging all who pass before him. Soulstealer, taken from the same album, is Divine Punishment, and mindless work. Timekeeper was the regulator, the clerk in my head, the one who scheduled and tried to keep track of trivial stuff, personified as a greying, officious-looking elf. And Amber is my innocence, my inner child, a little girl in rags crying and hiding in a dark corner. The others all gather around Amber to protect her.

When I introduced my people online I would usually say something like, "I am the Weaver of Dreams, the Keeper of Secrets, and the Stealer of Souls."

As I grew in my understanding of myself and others, the personas changed, became dominant or faded to the background. Amber in time stopped wearing rags and started wearing an outfit halfway between a Starfleet uniform and an X-men uniform; and she started smiling. I also created another persona, Tsunami, representing Amber all grown up. (Yes, I'm a Tenchi Muyo fan.) Tsunami is my persona of fun. She can just go wild and enjoy herself. I think it says something about me that I needed to create a part of myself that could have fun.

So again I grew and learned enough about these different personas that I didn't have to select each one to act in a different way. But I still think of them and acknowledge when one is dominant. Dreamweaver is now Auryn. Mostly because I got tired of people singing a Gary Wright song that I hated whenever I approached.

I remember once in college someone was trying to attract my attention by calling out Vincent, but I didn't hear her until she said Dreamweaver. So yes, I answer to it. Some people still call me DW.

I answer to Auryn quite readily. The name is of course from Michael Ende's _The Neverending Story_. I grant wishes, when I can. And I'll still go by Soulstealer, or SS, if I'm in a bad mood or if I just have to get something done and I can't think about it too much. Soulstealer has no emotion. There's only the work. Carrissa is now Vicki. If I need to take on a female persona online somewhere, I'll usually use her name. Or if I'm just feeling aggressive I can feel her around me.

So, that's me. In a kind of large nutshell.

Re: Just call me Legion.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

You're so like me! I posted briefly the other day (took the post down) that a certain friend brings out the Alanna in me, and this is pretty much the way I meant it... Alanna's the manipulative part of my sexuality, the dark part, the secret domme who will rip you to shreds without you even realizing it.

I don't like her.

In my head, I call you Auryn. :)

[nukewolf.livejournal.com]

First and middle given names: Steven Michael. My first name came in a roundabout way from my great-grandfather's Hebrew name, Samuel. I'm not entirely sure about my middle name, now that I think about it...

The name of my longest running muck character, Kierne, was assembled from a handful of Scrabble tiles drawn at random from a bag. As far as I know, it doesn't mean anything. It's become my fandom name through association though, and if you call me by it I'll answer. Most folks pronounce it "KEE-ern".

Playing online games, I'll use either Kierne or Briareos. The origins of the third name can be found at www.briareos.org.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Glenn, as in the astronaut. Robert, as in E. Lee. (Can't prove whether the Lees up my fathers side are related to The Lees of Old Virginia; it seems Lee's opposite number (that'd be Gen'l Grant) burned one too many southwest Virginia courthouses with the appropriate evidence... :)

First computer name was The Guru, followed by "R. Daneel Olviaw II", which lasted about 30 seconds before being corrupted to Glennbot, and then just Bot for a long time. Picked up taliesin out of Bradley's Mists of Avalon, added the agechanger myself. technoshaman is one I made up totally out of my own brain. It's more a what than a who... If I were ever to figure out a way to take advantage of my 1/64 Cherokee heritage, I would take the name Speaks With Fingers.

So, 'song, that's what people call you f2f?

I've known a lot of folks who've changed their legal name to their chosen name.... and a number of others who know damn good and well that if someone calls them by their legal (first) name, it's a salescritter or some other officious type... talek falls into that category...

Oop, forgot one. I've gradually been growing into Glennbear (which is an old childhood nick I'm re-claiming)... tabbifli has gone so far as to shorten it to just Bear, which I don't mind either... :)

da Bear (with that Saturday Night Live Chicago accent :)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Most of the time, yeah, I'm 'song f2f... my legal name is slippery. It doesn't fit or stick. yendi has slipped and called me 'song while talking to his mother, even! Only people at work and salescritters call me by my legal name...

[mfree.livejournal.com]

Michael Paul Free... though at birth it was Bates. I've always stuck to this, even though I think it sounds somewhat clumsy. The name I use online is a construct of it though... MFree, plus some numbers if they were necessary (80286 is indeed the processor I worked on most as a child). I get called, Mike and Mikey a lot, but never Paul... though I'd answer if addressed that way.

Gaming names... there were a lot, but the one I used and liked most was Brynnae. It was invented, and simply sounded good, though it was disappointing to find out that the closest to a real name it would ever be is a corruption of a Celtic woman's name :) Kind of like a D&D version of "A boy named Sue".

I've never given much thought to names... probably because I never, ever remember them. I can always remember the face and the voice, but never the name (unless it's pounded into my skull for a few weeks). Because of this it always ends up with me thinking I appear rude because I have to address people by simply looking at them and starting to talk, or starting out with a "hey" or a "you"... because I can't remember their name, even though I do make an effort at it.

In my head, identifiers aren't as important as actions. I don't know why...

[mfree.livejournal.com]

I just realized I just called myself a "child" even though the time I was referring to was high school.

I feel old now...

[avivasedai.livejournal.com]

I like my given name. I don't use it online because even though I'm not one of those people who puts all her info on her accounts and can be tracked down by the Bad Men who Stalk Women Through the Internet, I never like the idea of putting my given name down. I've had many nicknames through it, five that I can think of that various family members use, and one that my older brother used to torment me when I was little that he doesn't repeat now. (It's total nonsense and it only amused him to use it because it made me furious.)

When I plunged online, I used Ert as my newbie-name, to get used to things. This was the name my older bro used for my AD&D fighter char. that would be the one to do the major killing, get killed, and the revived by the cleric when the battle was over. When I had a grip on the protocols and the concepts of the talkers I frequented (EW-two based telnet sites: Foothills, Resort, Dreamscape, Vineyard, infrequently others), I chose aViva Sedai. I like the name Aviva, it's Hebrew and pretty and vivacious. Sedai is the title used by a Aes Sedai, a group of women in touch with the female half of the One Power in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. (I'd probably be a Green, she said to herself and others before realizing just how much she identified with them. I'm much for the competitiveness and battle spirit once I get into things. I have some Brown and Blue tendencies as well.) I've been aViva Sedai since about 1995. I don't call myself aViva offline, nor do others. aViva Sedai is me; I represent myself truthfully through that name. I think I tone down all private aspects of myself; through that name there are things I won't talk about.

I'm not sure if I'll ever change my name. It'll depend on the person I'll marry, if/when that happens. My last name has significance to me as well, and I'm not sure I'll want to give it up when the time (hypothetically) comes.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I knew the Sedai part... I'm a Green, too. :)

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

You already know my answer, in depth, of course, so I'm not going to post it. But I've recently seen your legal name (and yes, I cringed, too, even before I read your response...knowing that had to be your legal name and knowing 1) that it was just plain rude to use it on a public journal where you NEVER use your legal name, AND 2) that I think it's disgusting, in general, that people would call someone by a name they actively dislike when they have a preferred one) and I wanted to say something about it.

I don't know why you don't like it; that's not my business to comment on. But the first thing that came to *my* mind upon reading it was the Stargate character Shau're, who was beautiful on both the inside and the outside. (Personally I think the actress who played Shau're on the TV series was prettier and a better actress than the one in the movie, but that's neither here nor there.) And...well, now you're Shau're, in my head. You remind me of her, much. I'll go on at length, if you like, but for now, I'll shut up.

Just one last reassurance, no matter what may be in my head...I always, ALWAYS call people what they WANT to be called. Names are highly intimate and personal. So far, none of my children have actively disliked their names, but their names were chosen carefully after their births to suit them, except for Christian and Grace, who were named for *reasons*. Christian very much honoured his name. He refused to let people call him "Chris", even. (I still remember him, at 3 years old, standing straight and tall and *insisting* to his grandfather, "My NAME is CHRISTIAN.") Sharon Rose decided to go by her middle name, Rose, but never wanted a *different* name (she was five days old before she had a name, BTW). Grace Hannah was named (translation: grace grace) for the grace of God in granting us another child after a miscarriage at six-months. She went by Hannah for several years, but went back to Grace after her brother and sister died. I've never asked why... Josiah Abel has always gone by Josiah. He doesn't care if you call him Josiah or Jo, as long as you don't spell it Joe. He thinks it's neat that he has the same nickname as his Aunt Jo (whose name is Laura). Robert Calvin...well, if you *ask* him, he says he wants to be called "Bob", but he doesn't *answer* when you call him that. I quit calling him Robert when he was about a year old, because he *answered* when you called him Calvin, but not when you called him Robert. At almost-five, he's still that way. He only answers when you call him Calvin, no matter what he claims to want to be called. *giggle*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I don't like my first or last name. Or even my middle name. My first name just doesn't *feel* right to me - it doesn't fit. Plus, no one can pronounce or spell it. Sucks to have people mispronouncing your name all day, every day! My middle name likewise doesn't fit, although it's spellable; my last name is bulky, unwieldly, and just plain ugly.

A rose...

[archmage45.livejournal.com]

Given name: David Barrett Brawley.

David because it had never in 8 centuries been used in my family.

Barrett for a great Aunt who wanted the name to continue past her.

Brawley is my fathers family name. It goes back to a French count who fled france during the revolution.

Online I go by The Archmage, taken from Ursula K le Guin's novels about Ged. David Diem for AIM. A play on an old nick name of Dave DM, cause I was *always* the dungeon master.

One of my good friends calls me Old Wolf from David Eddings Belgariad.

I've also been known as Toad (from wind in the willows) for my exuberant passion about new things that lasted only a short while. Tucker... Im not exactly sure where my mother got that one from.

But I am content with being known as simply David. It is the name of the king, and means "Beloved" What more could I want?

Re: A rose...

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Great list... and Yu Watase art, too! :)

Self Identification

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

cats have the name that humans call them, the name that other cats call them, and the name they call themselves...

I love the T.S. Eliot reference.
::Smile::

I've had several legal names. And I've been a little wary of Naming ever since an acquaintance tried to summon me in university, some two decades and more ago, and evoked something that he was able to send as a messenger several times over the next few years - and he didn't even have my full birth name (it was convenient - I always knew when to go down to the dorm phone for his calls - but not comfortable, nor what it my own fetch he was sending). But anyway...

As noted on my user page, Glas is the name by which I've been known best over the last several decades. It was a RenFaire/SCA name that grew to be my name at SF cons and on FIDONet BBSs and later the 'net, and by which my Lady K and friends call me. And when I went through RCIA and was confirmed as I neared thirty, I asked that I use Gelasius after St. Gelasius I - a Latinization sometimes used for the Irish Glas - as a confirmation name (adults going through RCIA do not usually pick up such these days, of course).

Martin Hesselius is taken from a character mentioned in two stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a ghost story called "Green Tea" and a pre-Dracula vampire story called "Carmilla." I was going to try to keep my LJ anonymous - but that didn't last long! ::Smile::

Re: Self Identification

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Carmilla! Yes! I *knew* I'd heard your LJ name before... I loved that story.

[fiddledragon]

Thank you for reposting...(since I'm one of the ones that didn't get to read it the first time around)...

I've also had many names over the years - more since getting online, though. But I've thought of the concept too...

For a while I tried to flip my first and middle names, but I'm DEFINITELY not a Marie...My parents nicknamed me one name, but that didn't fit either - I chose another when I started 6th grade...When I went through Confirmation, naming became a big issue - because we had to name ourselves after a Saint...and I could NOT find a female saint I wanted to model my life after....then I heard about St. Justin....knew that was it, and modified it to Justine (I posted on that a while back, will need to dig it up). When I went online, my first nick was a character in an Andre Norton book...the next few were made up and reflected my emotions at the moment, Darksong, Garland, etc...then I started using Kethry....and for a while I had more people calling me Keth or Kethry than by my real name - including my then fiance (now husband) and his family. That changed when we named our elder daughter Kethry. I still use Kethry for the most part...But when I got to LJ, something didn't feel right - at least not in this forum. There are still people call call me Keth, and I like it that way - don't wnat it to change...But here it was different. *shrug* FiddleDragon was already taken so MNFiddleDragon was born :).

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I've been a Kethry, too! :)

[azurelunatic]

My parents had intended to name me Laurel Ann. When I emerged, I most definitely wasn't that name.

So I became Joan Laurel instead.

I use my last name for primarily administrative purposes. I would like people who know me IRL to be able to find me on the web, especially my polished writings, but there are more than a few people who would be able to find me on the web who I would not be thrilled with finding me IRL.

I began the use of my middle name on a daily basis at one point during my relationship with That Idiot Shawn. Shawn could hurt Joanie. He could not hurt Joanie Laurel.

Continued using the long version of my name because it's more distinctive.

[azurelunatic]

I've cycled through several 'net names: shadow_rose, originally, based on the visual that is my truename; silenceshadow, from a depressed phase; starrose, again from the truename.

Azure Lunatic is the name of a Malkavian, one of my former quartet of personae. (Others were Shanna, Mona, and Joan(prime).)

Currently, I'm called Azz, Joanie, 'Ni (short for Joanie, enforcing the familial nickname rather than the legal name which is only mine when writing or Very Serious), Garnet, and Dagger.

The last two are recent developments: I evidently have another self that doesn't get out often, who calls herself Dagger, and refers to me as Garnet. (FF IX reference, for non-gamers.)

[mightywombat.livejournal.com]

Okay. Let's see if I can pull a coherent thought together.

I never liked my birth names. Not a single solitary one of them. Edward Atwood Hickcox. Edward I've kinda gotten used to. It means "warrior of god" or somesuch, but I was named after my grandfather, so that's okay. The middle name is my father's grandmother's maiden name. I've never really liked my last name because it gives so many people fits trying to pronounce. I remember once in high school holding a little impromptu lecture on sounding things out, accompanied by a lesson in how to pronounce my name. It's not like it's Welsh... but nobody seems capable of getting it right on the first read. HICK-cox. Just like that. Sound it out. Sheesh!

Anyway. I spent a little time in elementary school wishing I'd been named Scott. I just always liked the way it sounded. I'm not sure where this came from. I've been called Edward, Ed, and Eddie. I can live with the first two, but I cringe at being called Eddie. Strangely enough, it always seems to be people I barely kknow taking that liberty with me... Talk about getting off on the wrong foot! I usually don't bother to correct them, though. I just quietly hate them...

My online name came about after a laughable attempt at playing Sonic the Hedgehog with vidicon. He was playing Sonic, and I was playing Tails, the sidekick. He knew the levels quite well, and I just ended up going screaming off a ledge when he would stop on a dime. I started calling myself "Walks off Mountains" (my indian name, jokingly, at least). That got shortened to WoM, which inevitably got shirtened to Wombat. Unfortunately, there was already a Wombat on LiveJournal, so I ended up becoming Mighty... Note that you don't hear me complaining.

I've played so many RPG characters, I can't single a solitary one out to use as an online name. I guess I never really became that strongly attached to them...
There are other names I use, mostly for my own purposes. Magical names, mostly, which I'll probably never use online, not wanting to dilute them like that.

Re: wishing I'd been named Scott

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Anyway. I spent a little time in elementary school wishing I'd been named Scott.

The funny thing is that while, legally, my middle name is Scott; I rarely ever use it. It's just not me. I don't even sign legal documents with it.

[amberfox.livejournal.com]

My mother named me Amber Nicole. I've tried for *years* to get a different name to stick, but the only place people don't call me Amber is on EQ: there they call me Vivi, for my druid Viviane. Some of my friends call me Chibi when I'm being cute, but none of them think it's my Name.

*pout* I don't wanna be Amber! There are too many Ambers in the pagan community already! I seem to be stuck with it, though.

The naming of names

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

And it makes me curious - where did you get yours? Do you use it in everyday life? Do you have different names for different places?

I'm a lot like you in my views toward names. I've also always been fascinated by them and I've even written (a long time ago on a net-mush far far away) a nice little spiel about why I chose my name there and the masks that people wear on the net.. If I still have the text around I'll probably dig it out and post it here to LJ. [and as a complete aside, you're now on my friend's list as well since I've been reading pointers from your stuff in Jenkitties and technoshaman's posts for a while and been meaning to add you :)]

To answer your questions above, my legal name (Joseph) is something that I rarely use any more, except in signing legally binding documents. Most commonly I go by JT which is a name I chose for myself in my freshman year of college. The necessity of choosing a name was that there were 5 folks on the same dorm floor with variants of Joe and we needed ways to distinguish each other. I was also engaging in a bit of psychic surgery at that point and wanted a name that expressed the attitudes I was aiming for. Joseph always struck me as 'formal and stiff'. Joe was your 'avergage guy who couldn't do anything outstanding'. Neither of those fit how I saw myself. JT (which comes from my initials) had a certain punch to it and was unusual and thus noone had any preconcieved notions about it ;)

During my online career I have held many names, including my current one of Kendaer (pronounce d as Can Dare and chosen for much that reason). I took that name at one con when my previous names weren't feeling quite right. Other names I have used online are Raucus (which I use for a few of my war games/competitive games :), Moonchilde (which was my original online name, and has a certain amount of magical/mystical signifigance for me), and Amythyst (which has different magical/mystical signifigance). All of them express different aspects of my personality.

I tend to use some of them somewhat interchangeably, though I usually have a very specific reason for choosing one over another in various places. I tend to use Kendaer where I am likely to be sharing or expressing the more 'core' pieces of myself, for those places where I take risks and 'can dare'. Moonchilde and Amythyst likewise have different places where I will use them. JT is what I use in everyday life and what most people know me as now.

Re: The naming of names

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Well met! :) And I'd love to see the spiel if you can find it...

[gallowglass.livejournal.com]

Given name: Simon. There doesn't appear to be a reason for this beyond the fact that my mother liked it, which is a good enough reason in anyone's book.

Middle name: James. My maternal grandfather's given name. There was some suggestion that it be Harold after my late paternal grandfather, no doubt prompted by my grandmother who enshrined his memory after he was killed in WW2 but they decided to go with the name of the living grandfather, which has always worked better for me. Ironically, my father has another son called James but for different reasons...

I changed my surname at 19, largely because my father's surname was a deeply embarassing one and partly because I was trying to distance myself from my father after the betrayals and my parents' divorce and so on. I went with my mother's family name and that's been fine since.

Every so often though, I reflect on the positive things I got from changing my surname and toy with the idea of going a step further and changing my whole name, to see if I'd get another new start out of it. I suppose, if I were going to do it, it would have to be in the next year or so but I think I'll give it some more thought first.

Nicknames: Having been an overweight child with glasses and a surname liable to amusing insults, most of my school nicknames were unsurprisingly insulting. The only one which wasn't was 'Book', a descriptive nickname deriving from the fact that none of the people who clled me that ever saw me without one or more books about my person (except at sports, of course and once I blagged my way into the technical side of fencing and didn't actually have to fence or dress up in the outfit any more, I could carry books there too. School blazers were very useful for that with deep, vertical pockets well-shaped for books. I really need to think about getting some more book-friendly jackets...). They were the sort of kids who didn't read a single book beyond what they absolutely had to for school and most of them were proud of that.

On the internet, I've been MacAndrew or just Mac longest, taken from another of those family names.

I also go by Coriakin, a C. S. Lewis reference. Please don't ask me why I picked that name in particular because I'm not clear exactly why myself. It just seems to have happened, so it was probably one of those things that are meant to be.

I do have several other nicknames/noms, for various discussion groups mostly but they're not vastly important, though 'King of Shadows' has a nice ring to it and 'three silver threads among the gold.' is good for producing a confused reaction. ;-)

and here I go by gallowglass, a name I nabbed from one of my own writing projects. One I ought to be putting some time into, come to think of it. Maybe I'll do that this weekend, given that my comics are still stuck in the courier company's delivery system.

[galateadia.livejournal.com]

My parents named me Jessica Fawn. They agonized over what to call me, and I have seen the choice they had picked out for me in the eventuallity that I turned out to be a boy.
Sometimes I wished they had named me by my brothers "girl" name, Victoria Lee. I have always thought that was a beautiful name.
But anyway, my parents named me thus and had decided they were going to use my middle name as most common address. My mom called me Fawn for a week or so when my dad came home one day and announced that he was not going to call me Fawn anymore beacuse I 'looked like a Jessica'.
So Jessica it has been. I disliked my name in high school and dreamed of switching to Fawn in college where fewer people knew me and I could do so. But alas my then recently exed boyfriend followed me to college and kept calling me Jessica so that didn't work so well. Besides everytime I tried to get someone to call me Fawn they never would, they all said it didn't feel right to call me that.
eh.
So I have grown to love my name. So much so that when I got married back in may I didn't change it at all. I still have the same name I did before I got married and you wouldn't believe how many people are completely dumbfounded by it. I have no idea why that should be so confusing to them, I have even had some people ask me if I am really married or not, since I didn't change my name. I just reply "yes, you can get married and not have to change your name, its not a law you know".

So my online name (contrary to my user name on here which is just my journal's name) is Galatea. I started using it about seven or eight years ago. There is a story in Bullfinches Mythology about Galatea, a river nymph. I liked it so much I took it as my own name.
I also have a couple of screen names I use for roleplaying my vampire character, her name is Livia DuCroix.

I also have a craft name that I let very few people know. In fact I think there are all of two people that know it, and they probably don't remember it (guys, they never remember anything). So basically that is my private name.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

My birth-name was Erin Lynn Smith. If I'd been a boy, I would have been Eric Lawrence Smith, Jr.; since I was a girl, they gave me initials to match my father's. As I got older, and my relationship with my father deteriorated, I became far less happy with this arrangement. I also detested having the last name of "Smith". I liked Erin (which I translate to mean "of the land"), and I also liked Lynn (which I understand to mean "of the waterfall"), and I'd wanted to change my last name to Lynn for years - but I couldn't figure out what to use as a middle name.

And then, I got married, and changed my name to Erin Stewart Lynn. Many people assume that "Stewart-Lynn" is hyphenated. This aggravates me. Dammit, my *middle name* is Stewart!

Elynne was the first username I was given when I signed up for an email account many years ago. Adding my first initial to my last name makes sense, but I didn't know why they'd added a final "e" until I discovered that "Elynne" is an actual first name (and several people online have it, in fact). I now identify myself offline as Erin Lynn, and online as Elynne.

There are other stories of other names, but I'll save them for later. ;)

Man of many names

[seanchaibear.livejournal.com]

The name my biological parents gave me when I was born was Jeremy Donald Ireland. I was given up for adoption to my biological parents' financial and emotional inability to take care of me with all my major problems. My adopted Mom originally just changed my name to Jeremy Donald Ireland Fowler when she first adopted me. At that point she was in touch with my biological parents, and was letting them visit me and such. She started having some problems with them so she cut off contact with them and renamed me Matthew James Fowler. When I was 17, I was doing a lot of research into my Native American heritage (I'm 1/4 Maliseet) and my biological paternal Grandmother, who was full blood Maliseet, had the maiden name of Bear. And I was starting to become quite close with my adopted Grandfather at the time, whose name is Thomas. So I had my name legally changed to Matthew Thomas Bear-Fowler. The hyphen is important to me. For me it's a bridge bringing together, in my person and name, my biological family and my adopted one. Last November, my adopted Grandma died, who was one of my favorite people in the world. Her maiden name was Lord. My two sisters both have Lord as their legal "second middle" names. Apparently my Mom didn't think to do that with me, but I asked her about it and she said she would be more than happy for me to use my Grandma's maiden name if I wanted to. So now when I write my return address, or sign things like video rental receipts, or write my name anywhere that doesn't involve a binding legal agreement, I write Matthew Thomas Lord Bear-Fowler, or just M.T.L. Bear-Fowler.

My primary nickname, the one most casual friends and acquaintes call me, is Matt. When I was young, I HATED being called Matt, by ANYONE. I would get really angry with people if they called me that. Finally, I let everyone but my family call me that. I don't like friends and acquaintances to call me Matthew. I HATE if anyone in my family calls me Matt. I have allowed girlfriends and some older friends to call me Matthew on occasion, but I prefer Matt.

My BEST friends call me Yoda. My friend Rob called me that one day in high school after seeing my crawling around under my desk looking for something. It supposedly has to do with my spiritual path and my willingness to share it, too. But whatever it's from, I love it, and it's stuck.

Some people call me Bear, which I used to hate but now I'm starting to like it. A few call me Sparky because of my red hair. A lot of people call me Wheels, which I really don't like because it's uncreative, but I answer to it.

My primary online name is Dream Of Endless, which of course was borrowed from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I've tried to change it several times but most people call me Dream online, no matter what other name I try to start using. And I HATE when people abbreviate it to DOE. Some folks online call me Piper or Piper At The Gates, which was a name I used for quite a while in chatrooms but now has some negative connotations for me. Only certain people can get away with calling me that. I also sometimes go by Seanchai, which just means storyteller in Irish Gaelic.

My public Pagan community name is WolfBear, though because I'm basically back in the broom closet at this point, I don't use it much.

I have a name that only I know, also, which I was given during a meditation a few Halloweens ago.

I think that covers all the major ones.