Monday, October 19, 2009

What's In A Name?

I often wonder how or why people chose their email addresses. It's obvious when you're no-nonsense and choose something like Hilary.Jones or thechimneysweep. It's clear that these are just as they read; either your name or business. They're obvious. As are some others, like:

SteelerFan1
KimandRob2005
NJSteelFabricators
NanaOfFour
3teensmom
SexyBarmaid5

TexasEd29

But what happens when you come across ones like this:


NoDecaf
PhantomPhetish
ladysparks
psychocollegemom
BirdCandy
Wig_Flipper
Pookalotsi

it seems many people chose their email address (or even domain name) to reflect who they are. They are trying to send a message by a phrase, words, or a letter and number combination. Or maybe, like my boyfriend, they just use whatever popped into their mind at the moment.

But what does it say about you, if anything? I have always agonized over my email address. Do I want to use my real name? Should I use a combination of my initals and my birth year? Do I want to sound sexy? Professional? Smart?

My email address is bellavenere@aol.com. I have others, but I've been using this one for years. And I didn't even really choose it myself; a guy I was dating at the time did.

He was Italian and spoke Italian, so I begged him to cone up with something in Italian that he thought suited me. So he chose BellaVenere. Which means, Beautiful Venus. Bella, of course, means beautiful and Venere, well that means Venus. And Venus (the planet) is the ruler of my astrological sign, Libra.

At first, I was flatterd. He thought I was beautiful! And he remembered my sign. Awwww. Now, I'm saddled with an email address that not only is hard to spell when giving it out, but also as I've been told on many occassions, sounds like an STD. Do I want to be represented by a planet, who although is beautiful, also sounds like a disease? Not really. But I've been reluctant to change it.

I'm torn because I've had it for so long (over ten years) and I'm hesitant to start the whole process over. That daunting task of creating a cool, edgy, unique name or phrase that will be my calling card. My online presence. My persona.

I've toyed with LadyTrucker and DazzlingDriver and HighwayHoney and all those trucking related monikers. I've also considered ones that encapsulate what I love, such as PhotoFiend and LadyBookWorm (although I don't read all that much!) or KitchenTemptress and EddiesGal. Or how about ones that relate to my size; MoreToLove and PlusWhereItMatters and DoubleDeeDamsel.

I suppose I can just go with my given name. Nothing is a secret anymore. And I was recently told that when my name is Googled, several pages come up. So in addition to those pages leading people here to my blog, you'll also be led other places, all of which I have no problem being associated with. Well, except for that nine month stint working at LMR; a placed ruled by pure evil and if it weren't for the four minute commute from my house, I would have left on the second day. I truly can't believe people still work there, but whatever; that has nothing to do with my email address.

So, people....do you have any suggestions? If you do, fling 'em my way. And also, if you have an unusual email address or domain name, let me know how you came up with it. I already know how some of my friends and family members came up with theirs, and even some of my blogging friends like The Hags and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso came up with theirs.

Tell me about you and yours.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 YEAR AGO:
Farming The Wind
2 YEARS AGO:
Eddie In The Big Little City Friday
3 YEARS AGO:
Photograph It If You Think You May Never See It Again
4 YEARS AGO:
Why???

3 comments:

Leigh Hutchens Burch said...

My email address is stellabelle3281@aol.com. I chose it my freshman year of college, because I really like Tennessee Williams (think, "Stellllla!" from a Street Car Named Desire, if you don't know who I'm talking about, which I'm sure you probably did.)

Anywho. I was attending a college in Springfield, Missouri that year, and though I don't really have a huge southern accent or anything, I liked the idea of being seen as a southern belle.

Thus, stellabelle! The 3281 is my dob. :)

p.s. I hardly use that email address anymore, sadly, because it is innundated with spam and junk mail. My new, professional email address is the predictable ambertiddmurphy@gmail.com.

all things bradbury said...

my main email addy is pretty simple...june2254@aol.com.....it's my birthday, june 22, 1954....i think it's simple, but over the years i've still had to explain it a few times, even to people who know when my birthday is....lol...i have a couple of others, hrdwayfrms@aol.com....kind of a business addy....we own a little farm which was originally owened by the hardway family....so when we bought it everyone in town said oh, you live in the old hardway house....well, every month when we made the mortgage payment, we felt we were gettin it the hardway, lol...so the name stuck....my other email is wvbsktmkr@aol.com....because way back in my pre-truckdriver days i used to make, sell and teach basketweaving...go figure!...lol....oh, and my cb handle is dreamweaver.....brad's in animal.....

Stace said...

Apart from the speaks for itself addy from our blog, I've used a number of different names over the years, but one old standard is amiciprism at somesite dot com. I say "some site" because I've used it at lots of different places -- it is ALWAYS available.

It's funny, Selena, that your e-mail name comes from Italian. So does amiciprism, in a way. When I first signed up for AOL a million years ago, I had a hard time finding a screen name that I liked. Finally, I broke out the dictionary and flipped through the pages. And that's where I found the Amici Prism.

Apparently, some Italian fellow named Amici discovered a prism way back when which, when an image passed through the prism, it would show on a screen flipped upside down and backwards.

I liked it because I felt that the expectations and values my community had tried to impress on me, rather than accepting, I had taken in something of the opposite direction. I.E.-- I turned their lifestyle and values upside down and backwards.

Deep huh? LOL. Well, I was a young pup. My only excuse.

It had its drawbacks, that screen name. For one thing, lots of people thought that with the "prism" part I must be some sort of crystal worshipping new-ager. Others, who knew Italian, told me that amici means friend in Italian, a male friend, so I was often assumed to be a man -- apparently a man who thinks of prisms as his friend. I drew heavy suspicion whenever I posted on the atheist boards at AOL. Ha.

Anyway, it's been a long time since I was on AOL, but I still use it occasionally elsewhere. It's just old and comfortable.