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AKA

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Ex

07:12 / 29.03.06

I was thinking changing my name at my last significant birthday, or at least adopting a stylish nickname. But I don't really have the energy to organise it or make it stick. I fear I'd be like the goth of my acquaintance, who asked everyone to call him 'Dream', and was referred to mainly as 'Dream On'.

So, in idle moments, have you thought of changing your name, and what to? Maybe just for day, with a magic wand. (I'd also ask about people who have changed their names, but that would mean discussing people's real, current names, and I'd look as though I were phishing, scamming or very naive.)

I was considering Edward. You?

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

07:18 / 29.03.06

"Archibald Fenster"

or

"Gentlelady Organa"

Ex

07:38 / 29.03.06

Go for the hybrid! D'you not think 'Gentlelady Fenster' sounds a bit Damon Runyon gangster-ish (see Nicely Nicely Johnson)?
You'd would have to be a combined lockpick and handler of stolen goods.

07:43 / 29.03.06

Hannibal Syllabus Scallywag

07:44 / 29.03.06

I have changed my name as I wasn't too keen on the one my parents gave me. I use my middle name at work and all my friends / colleagues and most of my family call me that.

At work I have a few aliases for various reasons which come in handy when you need to get through to people.

Lastly, my close mates all call me Jub, as that too is my nickname IRL.

07:50 / 29.03.06

When i was 5 I wanted to change my middle name to 'Chewbacca'... kind of glad i didn't now. I have a friend whose parents were hippies. Most people think her real name is Caroline, but actually it is Sky...

08:07 / 29.03.06

Oh, sleaze, go on - you would make such a fabulous Chewbacca.

Ninjas make great pets

08:56 / 29.03.06

a fake name is a very usefull thing to have. I use a fake name with people I don't know. If someone asks me my name in a bar I automatically give the fake name. It's similar enough to my real name to be easily corrected at a later date if I meet them again. It also is very usefull for weeding out drunken jerks. "Hi *other name* remember me? how are you?".. Humm I gave you my other name. I don't know you or I thought you were a jerk.. "grand thanks".
It's so effective for replying to drunk fools in bars without having to give information that my female friends have started using it. No harm, no foul - as they say.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:59 / 29.03.06

Can we call you Chewbacca at least?

I've been trying in vain to get one of my work colleagues to change his name to a variety of things- most recently Grimsby Telegraph. (He got really pissed off with me when I tried to get him to change it to Tabitha Tickletooth- you may have noticed the name is now being used by a poster- indeed a poster who was my ally in trying to get him to do it).

Funnily enough, his real name (which I won't say on the board) is quite possibly the coolest name I've ever known anyone to have. I think I may just be jealous.

09:26 / 29.03.06

I concur with ninja on the fake name thing. Enormously useful (mail or phonecalls to one of my aliases can be safely ignored, people you want to escape from have a job asking after you, etc). Offering ridiculous names is also great fun. And you sometimes get a good table in a restaurant because people think you’re a critic or Elton John.

I’ve thought about changing my given name because it’s so common that I routinely have to add my surname to differentiate myself. I envy people who can just go by their first name in day-to-day life (irritatingly, all my siblings have names unusual enough to permit that), but I’m just too old to change it now. A friend of mine decided in his mid-twenties that he wanted to start going by his middle name, but it just felt weird calling him something different. And it must have been even weirder asking people to.

Oh, and I do know someone who changed her surname to a number, which I’m almost ashamed to say I thought was really cool.

09:39 / 29.03.06

I've always liked the name Alphonse. It means "ready for battle". I could also live quite happily with "Blucher Thirds" eventhough it alludes to third-rate boots. Fun to be had with calling yourself Washington Irving/Irving Washington, I'd imagine. Catch-22 being one of my favourite novels.

Ninjas make great pets

09:40 / 29.03.06

There is a danger of losing your name though. 2 chaps I know have gone by nick names so long no one knew their real names. Gonzo has been known as Gonzo so long that no one knew his real name including the family he'd lived with for 15 years!
Another friend thought her name was Justine. She had been called it since age 3 but it was an in-family joke and she found out her name was Christine at age 19 when applying for a passport. She really didn't know how to feel about it.

09:40 / 29.03.06

A translation of my own name means "impure son" which I've never really been happy with.

09:40 / 29.03.06

When I changed my name I purposefully did it when I went to Uni - new people and that - and it all went from there. I actually think in different modes, the pre-18 me (when I'm called by my original first name) and my name now. I still have all my official documents in my real name since I can't be arsed to change it all and no one ever uses them except on letters. That's why it bugs me when call centre people from the bank or whatever use my first name as I don't use it anymore!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:51 / 29.03.06

I have a couple of friends (one of whom recently joined the board so I shan't name names, as it were) who insist on being referred to by the names they've chosen rather than the ones they were given. One of them (the 'lither), the first couple of times I called him by his real name, took it on the chin as a genuine "not being up to speed" thing on my part, so I have no qualms about calling him by, referring to him as or whatever, the new name. The other one got really pissy. And does to this day. Once he said to me "You're about the only person who still calls me *****. Why is that?"
"Because it really pisses you off" was the only answer available, really. Which, to be fair, he took as a reasonable motive, and admitted he'd do the same were the roles reversed. But they're not. SO I WIN!!!

14:04 / 29.03.06

So do people you know from here call you "Stoatie" IRL?

I'd change my name to Steve.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:09 / 29.03.06

Most of them... when it comes to meeting Barbelith people I tend to stick with the ficsuit name anyway as I really can't be arsed memorising twice as many names as normal... (which is indeed why I called myself Stoatie on here- many years ago I decided I couldn't be bothered learning any more names so from that point on I was just gonna call everyone at work Stoatie. Unfortunately, it kind of caught on and everyone was referring to each other as Stoatie for a while, which didn't really make things any easier. Some of them still call me Stoatie when I see them now).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:12 / 29.03.06

Rereading my posts in this thread, it would appear I have serious issues regarding other people's names, and a strong wish that they should be called whatever I deem appropriate. This is clearly wrong, and I must have a think about it.

14:12 / 29.03.06

Another friend thought her name was Justine. She had been called it since age 3 but it was an in-family joke and she found out her name was Christine at age 19 when applying for a passport. She really didn't know how to feel about it.

That's very weird. In an evil monkey Mum kind of way.

Sometimes I'd like to change my name to Cecily. Or Ottoline. But I'm one of those people with a fairly unusual name and I really like it.

14:15 / 29.03.06

Re: Christine/Justine

Two old ladies in my family have had simialr experiences. As the story goes: Great-Aunt Phyllis was brought home from the hospital and introduced to her older sister Velda. Velda couldn't manage to pronounce the new baby's name, and so today, Phyllis is known by nearly everyone in town as Fluff. Everyone seems to know her real name, but she's Aunt Fluff.

My father's mother was called Elaine her whole life. She had driving licenses, written documents etc all in that name until recently, when some paperwork came back regarding her will and trusts. Seems her birth certificate was written incorrectly, and Elaine was in fact her legal middle name. What turned out to be her legal first name is something seeming entirely too flavoured and regional: Estelle.

14:21 / 29.03.06

I´m very happy with my name, and wouldn´t change it. It sounds nice, it´s easy to memorize, to spell and to pronounce.

When I was eleven, I was urged to take on my father´s last name. But when I was asked, I said no. The name is Cieslik, which is easy to pronounce [cease lick], but I never once saw anybody getting the name right on paper after hearing it, which bothered my father a lot.

So now my last name is not my father´s and not my mother´s name, and only about a dozen people in my town share it with me, and I´m not related to anyone of them.

14:23 / 29.03.06

No one got my Steve joke.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:25 / 29.03.06

Steve jokes are mauve, and I've evolved to crimson jokes.

14:27 / 29.03.06

Ha

14:29 / 29.03.06

Sorry, Cass, most jokes here fly right past me. Call me Ultraviolet.

14:43 / 29.03.06

My SO's name is lovely. She too didn't find out the proper way of pronouncing it until she was in her teens. It is very similar to another more common name but there's an accent in there someone and that changes how you say it. To this day her family occilate between the two ways of saying it. I find it all very bizarre.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

15:28 / 29.03.06

I'd like to change my name something with the word "occilate" in it. And I'd add on some sort of military title too.

15:31 / 29.03.06

I quite like my name (which is right there next to this post). I also have a stable of pen names. A bull pen of fictional writers. Currently, I'm writing a story that should be by Alan Burgroft, which is an anagram of my first and last names, because he does the paranormal, but he's already appeared in this issue far too often, so it may be up to Greg Warwick, the sensationalist. He's hereditary -- my father was Jan Warwick and his father was Hugh Warwick, when need arose.

I have a friend who when I met him was called Brad, but has since reverted to his actual first name, which is Beowulf. His brother's name is Gil. Short for Gilgamesh.

I have another friend who discovered, when he was applying for his first passport at the age of 19 or 20, that he had no legal name. His birth certificate was blank. I have no idea how he got a driver's license, but he did. Unfortunately, he didn't take advantage of the situation to give himself a whole new identity. Wimp.

15:37 / 29.03.06

I'm sure I've posted all that on Barbelith before.

If I was to change my name, I'd do it to something else that means something.

Velocity. March. Summit. Driven Closely. Tumbled Reflexive.

15:54 / 29.03.06

I have a friend who when I met him was called Brad, but has since reverted to his actual first name, which is Beowulf. His brother's name is Gil. Short for Gilgamesh.

Hahaha, that reminds me of my cousin. She named her two sons Amun and Indra. Imagine it, having that as your first name and a typical german name as your last name. Oh well, they should be out of school by now.

17:06 / 29.03.06

I only narrowly avoided the paternal name (my father was called it, and his father, and his father before him etc etc) which I am quite grateful for, though it is my middle name, which makes it kind of like the russian patronymic, which far cooler.
I like my first name but my surname is the most common in the UK, which makes me look like I'm using a false name whenever I make hotel bookings, which kind of sucks, but at least everyone knows how to spell it. I've therefore always fancied a ridiculous over the top surname, perhaps one of those Spanish ones with about 8 parts.

17:55 / 29.03.06

My great gtrandfather was called Napoleon. Sadly, I was called after a great grandfather on the other side: Xoc Thomson. Damn.

18:16 / 29.03.06

Xoc, that reminds me of Belle And Sebastian´s song Family Tree:

If my family tree goes back to the Romans
Then I will change my name to Jones
If my family tree goes back to Napoleon
Then I will change my name to Smith

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:16 / 29.03.06

Full disclosure- my entire family are called Stoatie. I'm not entirely sure which one I was named after.

And YOU'RE all called Stoatie too.

Ahh. *sits back* Life is so easy now.

18:21 / 29.03.06

"Or you could call me El Stoaterino, if you´re not into that whole brevity thing."

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