there are some things i find truly bizarre about the entities that wander this world. one such thing is the strange questions they ask me, like "is that your real name?".

a name is a label, used from time to time when pointing at objects we affectionately denote 'people'. an object does not have any intrinsic label (it isn't even intrinsically a separate object[1]), so what is an object's 'real' label? lets for a moment pretend 'real label' makes some sort of sense as a concept. why must we then assume an object only has one 'real label'? i may point to an object and say 'that is my camera' or say 'that is a nikon' or 'that is a device for recording directional electromagnetic radiation on a thin film such that the data can be reviewed at a later date'. all three are 'real' descriptions of the object i was pointing at. can a label change? does changing the label make the label any less real?[2]

the only sensible meaning i can give to the phrase 'is that your real name' is 'is that a label you use to refer to yourself'. given that such questions come after a statement of my name, the answer should be obvious.

some people seem to mean by 'real name', the name with which you were born, or when pushed, the name that is on your passport: the label nosy[3] officials use for you. i've yet to fathom how some group of presumptuous individuals using a particular label for you makes that label your one and only 'real' label, or even why anyone would care what these individuals call you. i should also point out that many of the people who define 'real' name as 'what officials think' seem to be singularly unaware what officialdom says it thinks! uk name law says something along the lines of "your name is whatever you say it is, unless you are trying to defraud". magic bits of paper like 'deed poll' and the cheaper 'statutory declaration'[4] are not necessary according to the law, although they can make life less stressful when dealing with ignorant bureaucrats.

another 'meaning' for a name (other than a label) is as something akin to clothing or jewellery. a name is something you decorate yourself with[5], and like other decorations you can choose different ones for different occasions. most wardrobes or jewellery boxes contain many different items; i see no reason why people shouldn't collect names in a similar way.

it's also interesting to note that the 'western' outlook on names is not the only one!! in part of africa it is common for members of the same family to choose different 'surnames' for themselves. also amongst north american indians, names are given as 'coming of age' presents and honours for great feats (cf the romans). i've no doubt there are further differences in mores, both within and without these groups.

so, now i've said what i think of names in general; next i'll try to explain the various names i use, how they came about, and when and where i use them.

many 'officials' know me as 'fennel zaaron kingfisher teacher aurora', although they have a bizarre penchant for capitalising the initial letter of each word (this could well be due to the strange conventions build into programs like microsoft word :) - a explanation of my thoughts on capital letters is coming as separate document, promise :)).

my family decide on the first four names whenever family does that sort of thing. i like those names so haven't changed or removed any of them. somewhat later, my mother added another name after those four, and at the time i didn't object. after a while i noticed that i found the new name annoyingly out of place, and so went looking for another label to replace it.

my first priority was for a name that started with either 'a' or 'b', as i'd noticed those with surnames starting with letters near the beginning of the alphabet often gained queue jumping privileges :).

one of the places i looked for a name was amongst the vast reams of greek mythology that i was reading at the time. i also searched through other books i read, in particular science fiction. at the time i was rereading a few of azimov's longer robot stories.

'aurora' reached the shortlist by fitting all three criteria... 'aurora' begins with 'a', is a name for the goddess of dawn and the name of the main planet in 'robots of dawn'.

human brains have this weird ability to fixate on a particular pattern, and then see it everywhere. this sort of happened to me with 'aurora'... among the many other places i saw 'aurora' were photos of 'aurora borealis' i found online, the code name for the probable replacement for my favourite aeroplane (blackbird), and numerous towns across america.

like most 'western' human beans i tend use the first of my 'official' names for 'normal' interaction.

recently i've started to spend a lot of time on irc[6] channels around oxford. as a result i've collected a few new labels. the best of which is 'nympho'. 'nympho' is derived from the mythology surrounding aurora.

apparently aurora managed to run off with aphrodite's bloke (aphrodite being the goddess of love/passion). aphrodite wasn't best pleased by this and so turned aurora into a nymphomaniac! as far as i can tell aurora became the canonical nymphomaniac: i wonder how aphrodite knew it was a nymphomaniac into which she was turning aurora, or even that it would be a suitable vengeance.

there are two good reasons for finding 'nympho' appealing as a name: irc tends to abound with innuendo and the like, and so such a nick keeps with the spirit. the name also appeals to my sense of the absurd - there are few less accurate descriptions of myself.

nymphette is a diminutive or female version which i use mainly to refer to my debian[7] machine or myself when ircing from it.

keeping with the greek mythology, i also often use 'tithonus' as a label, although 'nympho' is starting to supplant it.

tithonus was aurora's husband. he was a mortal that she abducted from ethiopia and dragged off to olympus. she asked zeus to make tithonus immortal, but forgot to ask zeus to give tithonus eternal youth. thus tithonus started to age more and more, and yet could not die. eventually aurora got fed up and turned him into a grasshopper (the myths never explain why she decided on this action over others :)). this name has no real significance other than an alternative to 'aurora' in places where others use that label.

when i first started messing around online, i decided that it would be a good idea to keep some degree of separation between my online persona and my offline persona. pure paranoia :). the new label i chose was a variant of my surname, using a bad pun on aurora's job as bringer of dawn: 'the auroran sunset'. some people shorten this to 'tas'; i don't often object.[8]

some time before the aurora search, i first started to 'need' a signature: bank accounts or something similar. after going through a few, and at the same sort of time thinking up new names for myself, i settled on 'z.zaaron'. it's a shortening of the 'name of the week', zerpt zaaron... 'z' is my favourite letter :).

after i'd been playing with making myself bad websites for a while, i decided i should get myself a more permanent url, and one, which bore more relation to me. at the time i was doing a lot of japanesey things, including learning parts of their alphabets, and some of their language.

i've often been referred to as 'blue boy' or by similarly inaccurate or certainly highly incomplete descriptions. thus 'aoiko' was conceived. 'aoiko' is none too literal translations of blue boy into japanese. the particular translation was in part to get the name to look pretty when written with the japanese characters.

another of my occasional pastimes is role-play gaming (rpg). my introduction was not gentle - call of cathulu - a game where there is no chance of you doing anything but die horribly and perhaps go very mad along the way. in the usual manner of rpg i had to think up a character along with a name for it. in an unusually inspired moment i tripped upon 'crimson lauskin'. if it weren't for the fact i had such a cool name to start with, i would have changed my name then and there.

at school everyone had nicknames, and not being one to be left out of such things, i decided to make one up... i think with the help of my parents and some very strange films i decided upon 'herbie'. however this name saw little use, because it always seemed rather plain and boring to me.

for me, there is a fundamental problem with online communications, and that is the loss of the expressiveness that comes as a result of lacking access to tones of voice and to facial expressions.

this seems particularly problematic for me because i am, at least in part, joking most of the time. i find the world and everything in it entirely ridiculous and hilariously funny. as one of my sisters put it, 'he thinks life's one big joke'.

this attitude is hard to put across to people because it is so universal to the way i think. for example whenever i talk, my mind is racing with other completely absurd ways of interpreting the words and ideas used, and often i deliberately state things using word forms that make them sound ridiculous, at least to me ;). i tend to use particular types of smiles to try to highlight that what i'm saying shouldn't be taken too seriously :)... i also tend to be highly sarcastic towards myself, and the things i do, and more rarely towards the world outside me. i try to point out such sarcasm using changes in my voice. i sometimes wonder if people actually notice either of these indicators, or if they do notice, whether they put a meaning on them close to what i intend.

however in an online world i don't have these luxuries, so i try to find other ways to warn people that i might just be being a teensy bit unserious. i mostly do this using smileys, but that is not ideal as smileys are used for so many things that the meaning is often very unclear. as a solution, i tried to indicate my tone by changing my nick to suit the mood. this was only a partial success, and turned out to be not worth the effort. anyway some of the labels to come out of that experiment were 'subtle', 'sarcygit', 'drnkskunk', 'yogsothos', 'hmmm', 'innuendo', 'fskedoff' and 'illeagle'. notice they don't all refer to humour type moods :).

i've still yet to find an adequate way of expressing my zany outlook in an online form, although with some thought and effort i could perhaps adapt ideas from the xml[9] world.

many thanks to rhoda and jon for many helpful comments and ideas; without them this document would be considerably worse. and i suppose i should thank those people who ask me such strange questions, as they, in their way, spurred me to this :).

2454 words.

© 19/1/2001 the auroran sunset
last modified: thursday 31st august 2006 11:25:10. (gmt -0400)

footnotes

1. for a better understanding of what i mean by these statements i'd suggest reading 'why aristotelian logic doesn't work' and some of the other 'logic' papers found at http://www.abelard.org/
2. obviously changing a label makes no difference to 'the' object to which it supposedly 'refers'. i use 'it refers' with such caution because a word in itself has no reference, it can only be by someone choosing what it indicates that a word gains meaning. that choice is in no way inherent... despite what those who religiously cling to dictionaries might say.
3. i do not regard it as anyone's business to know your name, unless you specifically tell that person. i regard the current habit of government agencies forcing you to 'register' with them (whether for birth, death, passport, id card, or whatever other excuse they form) as an entirely unwelcome and unwarranted intrusion, even voyeuristic. that they believe they have the 'right' to intrude in this way (or any of the myriad other ways they find), i find utterly presumptuous and much akin to stalking.
4. a statutory declaration can be drawn up easily from readily available templates (i got mine from my local citizen's advise bureau). the only cost was finding a 'justice of the peace' to sign it: a fiver at a local solicitor's office. deed polls are significantly more complicated and usually require solicitor's time (and so fees) to draw up and sign. i believe the cost is usually over fifty pounds.
5. i remember one of the few 'chat-up lines' i was taught in japan went along the lines of: what's your name.. response... kawaii namae desu ne?.. isn't that a pretty/cute name?... i've little doubt there are similar rituals in other cultures.
6. irc or 'internet relay chat' is easy way to talk with a group of people in real-time. the basic idea is the world is split into 'servers' and they are further split into rooms or channels. people tend to frequent only a small number of rooms, and tend to get to know the other people who appear on them. while on irc your speech is labelled with your 'nick' or nickname. you can change your nick very easily at any time (servers usually don't let you do loads of changes very quickly). it is from this sort of arena that the bizarre question above usually comes, as many people use a different name on irc to the one they use elsewhere. and for some reason, some people seem to object to calling people by their nick outside of irc.
7. it's a linux distribution... for some reason i've always considered debian to be female, whereas other operating system distributions, like the ones from microsoft and redhat linux, are definitely male :).
8. objecting to a label could seem strange when considering that labels are just that, and have no 'real' meaning or impact on 'the' object (me). the parallel of clothes perhaps explains this: clothes don't actually change who the wearer 'is', but i certainly choose my clothes, and wouldn't like to wear ones that i find ugly.
9. xml is a programming mark-up language that is very useful for structuring data into 'tags' that can be treated separately.