dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (08/25/83)
I would like to hear from other people who have had the name
by which they're commonly called changed as a result of their
login name.
Before 1976, my name to everyone was David. When I got my first
UNIX account at CSRG (U of Toronto), however, the name "david"
was being used by David Tilbrook, so I became "dave". As a
result, people around the lab *called* me Dave. I got used to
it, and now my name on computers (both login and supposedly
real name) is always "dave".
The result is a kind of split personality. No-one who knows me
from certain environments (family, social, law school, work at the
Law Society) would ever call me anything but David. And no-one
who knows me from CSRG or from the net would ever call me anything
but Dave.
Any other experiences out there?
Dave (see?) Sherman
Toronto
--
{allegra,cornell,floyd,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver,watmath}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davelarry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/26/83)
At MIT, there are lots of people who are only known by their login
names, whatever they happen to be. One notable instance is RMS
(Richard Stallman), the father of emacs. I hear him refered to much
more frequently as RMS than as Richard Stallman. He prefers it that
way too.
--
Larry Kolodney (The Devil's Advocate)
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry (until Sept. 8)
(ARPA) lkk@mit-mcasente@decwrl.UUCP (Paul Asente) (08/26/83)
The Stanford AI Lab machine (SAIL) has long had three letter login names. Most people used their initials, and many people became known more by their initials than by their names. If the initials were pronouncable, they were often used that way. One of my good friends' nickname is "drf" (pronounced "derf"). -paul asente
davel@dciem.UUCP (Dave Legg) (08/26/83)
Yes, mine anyway. When I joined DCIEM the login "dave" was already in use, so I became "davel", (added the first letter of my last name). Now I am quite often refered to in regular (vocal) conversation as "davel". I don't mind, as it is less confusing than "dave" because there are a number of "dave"'s in the lab, quite often in the same group. I have also noticed other people being refered to by their login names as oposed to the real names. Dave Legg. ...!dciem!davel
cdash@druxv.UUCP (08/26/83)
my login name on tops-20 at university of vermont was c-shub
my login name here is cdash
I am referred to as c dash rather than charlie, but then there is another
charlie here but no other cdash. The cdash originated with two graduate
students at vermont Mdash and mddash (yes, m d dash because (s)he liked his/her
middle/maiden name)
...!druxv!cdash {charlie shub ATTIS Denver (303) 538-3922}moss@eosp1.UUCP (08/28/83)
On the last system I was on, logins were all three character initials.
That worked well for everyone but me. I have no middle name. I decided
to use "wmm". "wm" from William, and the last "m" from Moss.
Soon I started getting memos addressed to "William W. Moss". I guess
my login gave me a middle name.
Here at EOSC most logins are the last name of the person.
I will agree that this makes it easy to look and see who is on the system,
but I have noticed that people here call each other mainly by there last name.
It somehow does not seem as friendly as it could.
----
Bill (M.) Moss
Exxon Office Systems(Princeton, N.J.)
{decvax!ittvax, allegra, princeton}!eosp1!mossspaf@gatech.UUCP (08/29/83)
I think the choice of computer account names and nicknames is related
to Zipf's Least Effort principle -- short names and single syllables
will win out over long names every time.
My second computer account was "spaf" (the first was Y200 on an HP 2000)
and I have had that as a nickname ever since. Many of my students over
the past few years felt uncomfortable calling me "Gene" and I threatened
them with disembowelment if they called me "Professor" (I'm a grad
student here); they picked up my account name and used that. In
fact, there are at least 3 or 4 former students who probably don't know my
regular nickname (Gene), and most don't know my real first name
(Eugene). In fact, some of the faculty and staff call me "Spaf"
instead of "Gene." Better than some of the other things they've
called me....
I've seen a number of cases where people have been tagged with new
nicknames based on their computer account names -- especially the
ones whose initials happened to form some kind of pronouncable
syllable. System managers take note!
--
The padded cell of Gene Spafford
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay
uucp: ...!{sb1,allegra,ut-ngp}!gatech!spaf ...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!spafturner@randvax.ARPA (08/29/83)
Funny that dave should mention getting his name changed by his account name. My first account name was S001X, and everyone who knows me from that period of my life calls me that (or S0 for short). Weird, huh? S001X
smb@ulysses.UUCP (08/29/83)
Better yet -- I've seen people change what they called someone else when that person changed logins. There's definitely an effect!
lynnef@teklabs.UUCP (08/30/83)
When my husband got his login, he was assigned (Tek semi-standard) bobf.
His nickname forever and ever has been Fitz, and some person in his area
went to the person in charge of assigning logins and made a big deal about
it, and anyway, after some discussion with higher-ups, he (my husband) was
given the login fitz. This seems to me to be the net changing instead of
the person's nickname!
--
Lynne Fitzsimmons
USENET: {aat, cbosg, decvax, harpo, ihnss, orstcs
pur-ee, ssc-vax, ucbvax, unc, zehntel,
ogcvax, reed} !teklabs!lynnef
CSNet: lynnef@tek
ARPAnet: lynnef.tek@rand-relaygrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (09/01/83)
A somewhat similar experience, I suppose:
When I moved from Claremont to Santa Cruz (i.e. southern to
northern California), I picked up the nickname "Glendon" (the
circumstances relating to this are not relevant). A number of
people in Santa Cruz actually think my real name is Glendon.
My parents got VERY confused when they came up to visit me.
-Glenngrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (09/01/83)
In my clique in high school, we had two people name Chris.
Soon one became known as CJ, and later just Seige, leading to
some very bad puns aimed at his girlfriend, which would probably
have to be rot13ed. When another Chris (Chris Payne) joined
the group, he quickly became known as Chris P., which then
became Chrispy. I believe he now spells his name Crispe'.
-Glenn