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

[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.