Say my name, Sun shines through the rain

[pne]

My name is Philip Newton. It says so on my userinfo page. It says so in the emails I send. It says so on the tooltip that pops up on some browsers when you mouse-over my userpic on comment pages.

I wonder why that is?

Or rather, consider this. A fair number of people I've met prefer not to have their name known, or reveal only their given name, or their middle name or nickname. Some will only tell their given name to friends; some try to conceal their real name from everyone on the Internet. I wonder why I don't mind it if people know my name?

Is it because I'm a guy? (Girls seem to be more reticent, in general, than guys to expose their identity; perhaps because they're sick of getting hit on by guys if they have an obviously female name.)

Is it because I'm older and am not as afraid of being stalked or something?

Or maybe because the Internet was simply different when I was younger? I have an idea that may play a fairly large part, mostly due to two things:

1. When I first started on the Internet, it was "smaller" and the people on it tended to be more tech-savvy and less like your "average Joe". This also meant that people's image of it was probably less threatening than it is today; fewer stalkers and similar "evil guys", simply because that sort of person probably wouldn't have been interested in the Internet back then.
2. When I was young, the Internet was not widely available. I had my first e-mail address reachable from the Internet (gated through a CompuServe service called "MHS"; our company's one "Internet-connected" computer dialled into a CompuServe machine every hour or so to pick up and send email) when I was 18. Nowadays, kids grow up with the Internet and so they're probably drilled on not giving out personal information (e.g. in chats) just as kids were told not to accept candy from strangers "in my day". When I was younger, that simply was not an issue since there was hardly no Internet in Germany when I was a young teenager (and the first Internet connectivity was e-mail only; FTP/WWW came later and chats/instant messenging quite a bit later). So maybe I never went through that phase.

(Incidentally, that may also be why I'm not a big user of instant messenging—it wasn't part of my Internet experience when I started out, so I never got "into it" much. I use AIM occasionally but forget to launch it more often than not. I have ICQ but my client has expired and I only used it twice or so anyway. I have no idea what my UIN is but it may be in my userinfo on LJ if I'm lucky. I also don't use a mobile phone and have rarely sent a text message to one.)

I don't know. I suppose everyone has reasons for keeping their name out of the public eye. But I think it never really occurred to me to hide my name—though occasionally I now wonder why this is.

I wonder which is the "natural" thing: having one's name open, or hiding it? Am I being weird, or they? Or neither? Or put a different way: did they make a conscious decision to hid their name? Or did I make a conscious decision to display mine? (It doesn't feel like that to me.) Or neither? Is the default for "new" Internet users "hide the name" and for old people "display the name"?

Hm... musing some more: people who've been on the Internet a long time also tend to use spamtrapped addresses a lot less, or so it seems to me. Instead, they filter aggressively, but they don't post their addresses as joeNOSPAM@example.com or joe@SPAMMERS-DIE.example.com or whatever. Perhaps this is part of the same thing? That "older" people are more open with their information, perhaps because the Internet used to be a friendlier place back then and that's the culture they grew up with?

Comments

[bitterlight.livejournal.com]

In my case, the unwillingness to reveal my full name is twofold. First, that I'm cautious when it comes to the Internet; anyone could read my posts and have my information, which is why sometimes I'll protect a post for a passing mention of where I live, and suchlike. I suppose I am part of the "younger" generation of which you speak, though not the youngest batch of Net users, and was warned; and also, my last name is terribly uncommon, so if you try to track me down via it, you will find me easily.

Second, that I don't like my given name. It does not roll off the tongue. My first name consists of two syllables and has the emphasis on the second syllable, so it brings you up short rather than rolling into the next syllable. My middle name, should you care to use it (and I whap anyone who does), is my mother's birth name--I'd say maiden name, but she's still got it. It ends in -ing, so it brings you up short before the last name too. My name is not in the least melodious; it sounds like a sonata played by someone who's been taking violin lessons for about two days. My parents didn't bother to consider that by giving me a middle name that was a last name and a first name that had no logical nicknames, they were quite possibly saddling me with six letters and two syllables that I would be stuck with forever, like it or not. Predictably enough, I don't like it. I've never had the initiative or the opportunity to straight-up change my name; the right transition in life has never arisen and at this point probably will not. However, on the Internet, I have had the opportunity to try on names and images and discard the ones I don't like. If I can be anyone I want, why choose a name that I know isn't me? I'm bitterlight or Meredith online now, and only use my first name sporadically or when needing to send e-mail. I wouldn't have used my first name on LJ at all if not for the presence of RL friends. On the Internet, I can be more myself and less the person I'm legally named.

[bitterlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I have uploaded pictures of myself to my school webspace, which I don't use for any other purposes as far as LJ-ers are aware, and I've only linked to them in protected entries. I don't think I'll be using my own picture as a userpic anytime soon; I kind of use my userpics as projections rather than representations of myself anyway.

Meredith

[pne.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting.

Hmm... Meredith. I haven't heard you referred to by that name before, but it's a name I've found pretty for quite a while.

I believe it's originally a male name, but I've only heard it used for females. It's a name I might like to give my daughter, when we have children (though it probably won't happen unless we move somewhere English-speaking; I don't feel that name works very well in Germany).

Re: Meredith

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

> I believe it's originally a male name

If I recall, it's of Welsh (or more likely Celtic) origin, and can be given to children of either sex, though definitely more common as a female name. It can also be used as a surname - one of my teachers in high school was called Mrs. Meredith.