A conversation with a white, married-to-a-woman, technical man in the 35-45 age bracket, about names

[azurelunatic]

So I'd been having a great time talking to this guy's wife, who looks like the Bloggess (short, perky, cute), and then he comes over and joins the conversation.

Him: "What's your name?"
Me: *indicates name badge that all party attendees are wearing* "Azz."
Him: "What's that short for?"
Me: *indicates username on name badge* "Azure Lunatic."
Him: "But what's your real name?"
Me: "Azz."

(slightly awkward pause, in which I am smiling, sociably and toothily)

Me: "It's not the name I was born with; my parents gave me a perfectly serviceable name that saw me through school and stuff. And now I'm an adult, and I've got my own name."

The conversation moved on to other topics. I was deeply glad that I had gone over the things-I-might-say-in-the-event, because in the actual event, it just fell out of my mouth.

Comments

[mathsnerd]

Good on you for handling that so well. I distinguish quite sharply between $legalname and mathsie, to the point of not really responding to $legalname when it's used by someone who should be addressing me by mathsie. The brain really does separate out the two names.

And to imply that mathsie is any less a "real" name, just because it's not on my passport is, at best, ignorant and condescending. To say that I am being deceitful and trying to cheat people just because I choose to segment my online personality from my legal name, well, those people clearly never listened to any of the safety advice given to users of social networking sites back when the internet was started or the abbreviated version given out to youth today. Partly it's a security issue, partly it's just WHO THE FUCK I AM, tyvm.

[azurelunatic]

The flip side of the "of course you use a name that isn't your wallet name online" thing is, for those who don't believe it's a real name, they don't tend to believe that online interaction/an online personality is real either.

[mathsnerd]

Oh god, yes, this. So many people respond to hearing that I spend a huge portion of my time/friends-contact online with "So.... you read a lot of email?". *headdesk*

[alexwlchan]

Well done for handling it well; if I were you there would probably have been more sparks.

The policy “of course you use a name that isn’t your wallet name online” can, on some occasions, backfire to fun effect. I have had at least one conversation with somebody who assumed that my online handle is not my birth name (except it is), and proceeded to insist, despite my protests, that it wasn’t.

Hilarity ensues as they attempt to extract my already-known birth name and the enigmatic “wl”. (Admittedly that’s something that’s more prominent in my online identity than my birth name, but it still appears in both.)

And a separate question: do you yield a non-response in the other direction; that is, will you not respond to $onlinename when used by somebody who should be using $realname?

[amberfox]

My main in World of Warcraft has been Virtue for about 5 years. Back when I played EverQuest, it was Viviane. EQ didn't have voice chat, but I spend a fair amount of time on Vent for WoW, and I've gotten really good at answering to "V', which became entertaining when I got transferred to a store where there was someone working in my department named Vi. It took me weeks to stop turning around when people called her.

[azurelunatic]

When a stranger walks in the door, the cat hides.