On naming

[yendi]

I so empathize with this.

I never really gave a damn about having a consistent name around the 'net until I started on LJ, but since then, I've tried to use "Yendi" as my name wherever I go. Alas, it's gotten nabbed on most services (and is too short to be allowable on gmail). That's the case even for non-social networks, if only to make me have to memorize fewer login IDs. That said, I've never gotten booted for using that name on any service, at least.

For the record, the only places in which you're likely to see me in which I'll show up as "Yendi" are here, Flickr, and Kingdom of Loathing. I'm most certainly not the "Yendi" at myspace (*shudder*) or del.icio.us.

Comments

[zevhonith.livejournal.com]

My online name is an intentional spelling of a word (name) that nobody's ever heard anyway. I am the *only* zevhonith on the internet, and I like it that way. I've been using it for about 6 years - before that, I had other, much less distinctive names. It's the only name I use.

Nicks

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

I've been Muse of Fire for at least 10 years, but it's a fairly popular name, so when I haven't been able to nab it (or "museoffire"), I've just used slight variations like Muse_of_Fire or muse0fire (my AIM nick as well).

Biggest pain I have now is just keeping track of which one I am where. You know what I mean.

[jeff-morris.livejournal.com]

I started using "Mister Terrific" as a sort of joke (and tribute to the JSA Defender of Fair Play), but I've grown to like it more and more. It's my Journalfen ID and I considered switching it here (if I could), but decided it was too much trouble.

JSM

Re: Nicks

[yendi]

You were one of the people I was thinking of. I can never remember what combination of shortened letters/zeroes/etc you have on any given site. :-)

[amokk]

I've been amokk for over a decade now. It wasn't an original idea for me (only a few people have finally tracked down where I got it from), but I was the only one for a very long time.

Then some stupid swedish death metal band named themselves AMOKK and it all went downhill.

I was the only amokk on ICQ for years. Then, a search for amokk turned up hundreds and thousands. Yahoo searches first used to go to my webpage on AOL, then it went elsewhere.

[yendi]

That's basically the same evolution for me. In both cases, we can't, technically, claim any proprietary rights to the name, but it's still frustrating to see johnny-come-lately snag it. As Krusty said, "If this is anybody but Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit!"

[yendi]

At least Jamie Kennedy's character in The Specials spelled it differently.

[mooseloon.livejournal.com]

As far as I know i'm the only mooseloon kicking around. Before i settled on it i kept trying to find something to use in the old prodigy books & writing rooms. I went on a canoe trip in canada and tried out mooseloon, and just sort of kept it. For a while i started switching to something else, but then mooseloon started fitting again.

The only places i'm not mooseloon are my school e-mail, my website (ironically- this was while i was going through the not so mooseloonish stage) and on msn, where i got an account *ages* ago, and the forgot my pword, and the contact e-mail address is a no longer fucntional one.

[texmorgan.livejournal.com]

Similar thing happened to me with Half Life. I was for months and months TheRapist which is a play on the Celebrity Jeopardy SNL sketch featuring Sean Connery. I used the tag for months and would issue various quotes from different Celebrity Jeopardy sketches when I killed someone. Then I saw that some asshat had hijacked that name and had been using it so I changed to Kakarot, a DBZ ref there. I ended up quitting the game because it was almost impossible to get a unique tag and keep it. I don't play many games online now and as far as I know not many people go by Tex Morgan so I feel safe with using that for what I need.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I tend to nab "shadesong" wherever I can just so I *have* it - so I *am* Shadesong at MySpace, even though I don't actually use the account.

Then again, I've been Shadesong online for nigh on ten years now. There are very few Shadesongs that aren't me.

[whitecrow0.livejournal.com]

I found another whitecrow0 recently and it pissed me the hell off. :/

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

I think I am the only shellefly.
Way back in the early days of internet, I was the first Shelle at my college and I had shelle@udel.edu as my e-mail address. Gone, gone, gone.

[amokk]

Not from that, but right genre.

[dydan.livejournal.com]

I totally understand. 9 years ago when I got online I was the only Dydan around. I've kept that name all this time and every once in a while when I google it I find a whole slew of people who arent me!

Who knew I was such a trend-setter?

[amokk]

I started doing that with a few services when things started up. Geocities I didn't have a problem with, but I got to yahoo! too late. Then they bought Geocities and merged and the yahoo one took precedence, so I'm amokk.geo there, which sucks.

ICQ is numeric, but AOL IM I still have the same account from when I first started using amokk (well, it was transfered to IM and yada yada).

I'm not amokk.com or amokk.net though, those were gone before I could get them, but I am amokk.org and I like it.

[dark-blade.livejournal.com]

Try being DarkBlade.

~_~


Hell, one time I even found that DarkBladeArts was swiped. I think someone did it to piss me off, as it's the name of my studio/company.

... yes, I -am- the only employee. What of it?

[averyslave.livejournal.com]

I'm going through a strange issue with mine. I chose "Averyslave" in my first five minutes on the internet, as an impulse. I was a brand new dad, my daughter's name was Avery, and she was quite demanding. Avery's slave. Off the cuff.

Flash forward 9 years and it's my name for everything. I'm attached. But how long am I going to continue to call myself this? Until my daughter is married? I'm finding now that I need to evolve and pick a new name, but it's a jungle out there and, to quote Critters, "nothing likes me." I feel kinda lost in the name game.

And then there is the issue of people reading the name as "A Very Slave", which has the distinction of not making much sense, but still sending an incorrect message to the right people.

[sainthuck.livejournal.com]

From when I was a teenager, I used the handle 'Cyric' on anything and everything. But as the intarweb got bigger, i found it harder to stake claim to that name without adding some numbers or dashes or whatevers to it, so it all got very very confusing.

When LJ came along, I decided to carve a new net identity, and this was it (named after a Nick Cave song). But whenever I find places where I can be the first guy with 'Cyric', I grab it, even if I'll never go back. My little corner of the web, yo.

[yendi]

Heh. Yeah, I'm not surprised that you've run into others using your name and variations. :-(

... yes, I -am- the only employee. What of it?

Nothing wrong with it -- I know plenty of folks who do that.