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I read a thing on falsehoods programmers believe about names, linked to from a thing by ![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
denise on "Real Name" policies, which mentioned anonymity, pseudonymity, and the use of self-chosen names (I've seen some people moving to call that state "autonymity", which I like a lot). I looked up autonym and it's a word that means the same as endonym. An autonym "is a name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups. For example, Deutsche is the autonym of a people known in English as Germans." The opposite is exonym, a name given by outsiders or from a different language.
New words :-)
Things I have learned about names this year simply from trying to name my future people so it looks like the whole world went: so many systems ZOMG.
( Read more... )
The thing that bugs me is discussions about 'weird names'. Dear internets: whatever your name is, your name is weird. You just have to change countries, continents, sometimes even counties, and your name is weird. So what the hell use is this phrase? I see it most often said in English by Americans talking about people who aren't John A Smith. But try putting John A Smith into a Chinese name form that wants it in hanzi. There's quite a lot of China to be weird in.
And that loops right back to discussions about 'real names'. Because how the heck do you think you can tell?
Even if you ignore 'other' cultures? There is no name so weird that people can't make it up for their kids, after which point it becomes real.
Stable psuedonyms at least have the virtue of being what we wanted to be called. As opposed to whatever the form made of our names. I get junk mail for Miss Becca, presumably because some system somewhere read beccaelizabeth and chewed it. Like that makes more sense. I'd be happier getting mail for beccaelizabeth. That's actually been me since the mid 90s.
... is time a factor in making a name 'real'? Number of people who call you by it? ( Read more... )
Names is interesting. And they get that way because they're very not simple.
denise on "Real Name" policies, which mentioned anonymity, pseudonymity, and the use of self-chosen names (I've seen some people moving to call that state "autonymity", which I like a lot). I looked up autonym and it's a word that means the same as endonym. An autonym "is a name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups. For example, Deutsche is the autonym of a people known in English as Germans." The opposite is exonym, a name given by outsiders or from a different language.New words :-)
Things I have learned about names this year simply from trying to name my future people so it looks like the whole world went: so many systems ZOMG.
( Read more... )
The thing that bugs me is discussions about 'weird names'. Dear internets: whatever your name is, your name is weird. You just have to change countries, continents, sometimes even counties, and your name is weird. So what the hell use is this phrase? I see it most often said in English by Americans talking about people who aren't John A Smith. But try putting John A Smith into a Chinese name form that wants it in hanzi. There's quite a lot of China to be weird in.
And that loops right back to discussions about 'real names'. Because how the heck do you think you can tell?
Even if you ignore 'other' cultures? There is no name so weird that people can't make it up for their kids, after which point it becomes real.
Stable psuedonyms at least have the virtue of being what we wanted to be called. As opposed to whatever the form made of our names. I get junk mail for Miss Becca, presumably because some system somewhere read beccaelizabeth and chewed it. Like that makes more sense. I'd be happier getting mail for beccaelizabeth. That's actually been me since the mid 90s.
... is time a factor in making a name 'real'? Number of people who call you by it? ( Read more... )
Names is interesting. And they get that way because they're very not simple.