h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A293834 ... it appears that the act of choosing a nickname is harder than you might think...

hmmm ... so it seems! Thanks for the link MyRedDice -- how did you find it? I'm not sure I am in complete agreement with the opinions expressed in that article -- having had relatively little difficulty choosing names so far -- but I suppose there are those who DO have trouble! I must say, I never resort to using my real name unless I need to (for instance, the e-mail addresses which I use for official purposes pretty much needs to be recognizable -- I think it's boring, but I use it). I do adore the option of being different people. I get the feeling that you do too?

I was searching for something entirely unrelated... (you don't want to know what... ) and happened across it...

My sisters are big fans of those online email sites which give you about a hundred aliases for free...me, I just regged my own domain name and use the redirects at that :- [email protected] , whyisthisemailaddresssostupilylongfornoapparentreason@myreddice.co.uk - that kinda thing...

I'm sure you could get your employers to call you Magnolia Lotus, or whatever, should you so wish...

-- on the contrary, I am now DYING to know what you were looking for when you stumbled across the entry on the hardships along the path of User Names Selection!

I don't have employers ... but I like that about registering your own domain -- was it difficult? I think that's something I'd like to do.

not telling...

pretty easy - they normally give you (some amount of) email redirection and (some amount of) web redirection for some price per year. Wander around the various sites - see what looks cheap. Mine was uk2.net, which is 2 quid for a .co.uk domain.

Usernames:
jrn, jrnieder(, JRNieder), jrnandco, erat0sthenes, Croesus, wirttwo(, Wirt Two), ",,LP,,", Moj

Passwords/fragments thereof that I'm willing to tell:
jrn, 638, b009561281!, kev536, [my real name]

My first impression -- of jrn -- is of someone reserved, economical and a frequent visitor to the web -- just three letters, all lowercase. Such a name is quick and easy to type in, takes up very little space and suggests that -- for all these reasons -- the user is well aware of the tedium of having to type in a long name repeatedly at different web-sites. The name offers very little information about the user, neither nationality or sex, though the letters certainly suggest the initials of a Western name, following the three name format. The other names in the series confirm that idea -- actually, my first impression included a sense that this user is perhaps North European. Despite the obvious Greek references (erat0sthenes and Croesus) I cannot help being distracted by "nieder" and "wirt". But I don't have my dictionaries close at hand so I cannot confirm whether the suggestion of German or Dutch is well-founded or not. North European is as close as I can get.

The Greek references offer interesting dimensions: this is a young person, I think, interested in astronomy and history. Eratosthenes was the first person to make an accurate assessment of the earth's circumference -- is that the reason for the "0" in the middle of this user's nick? Nice touch if so! -- and the name of Croesus is associated with great wealth. These are historical references, not mythological. They are names that a high school student might encounter quite routinely in the course of study and using them suggests a willingness to be impressed by the achievements of the past -- a bit unusual in today's world.

So this user is not the type to worry about seeming studious and perhaps a little serious. She/he is most probably a confident person, disinterested in flamboyance, but with a certain cautious sense of fun, which shows in ",,LP,," -- I say "cautious", because even here, in a mildly zany name, the double quotes and double commas are neatly balanced. There is symmetry even when other conventions have been discarded. I don't know whether it's reasonable in these days of cassettes and CDs to identify those letters as a reference to Long Playing records!! Goodness know, they may be someone's initials, or a reference to some private joke. But if they are in reference to LPs, then I would naturally believe that this user enjoys music in some form or another.

My attention is drawn to letters which have high Scrabble values, which merely exposes my own interests and fixations -- so that initial "j" is interesting, but since it appears in more than one of the names, I would incline towards the belief that it is part of the User's name, rather than chosen for its Scrabble value. "Moj" doesn't raise any obvious associations or thoughts in me ... jrnandco suggests to me "JRN & Co" so perhaps a reference to a gang of friends who regularly log on together? But that's the kind of thing one can't ever really know.

And thanks for the passwords, jrn, but I find that my abilities stop at usernames! I have no instincts for passwords, perhaps because one doesn't normally see someone else's. Hmmm. There's certainly something to think about there ... But not for me and not just now ...

My response is at A388497 to avoid spoiling the fun for anyone who doesn't want to know. BTW, how does one make a fish smilie?