Johnny1243

Written 12 January, 2009

Johnny1243

I find Second Life first names interesting and amusing. Many show a considerable amount of thought, playing the voluntary first name against the mandatory last name in clever ways. Others show almost no thought. Mark6912 White and alice Blazer (not real name, I hope) come to mind.

Mark, I’m sure, found his preferred name unavailable for every last name on the list. Used to systems like Yahoo with hundreds of millions of users, he tacked four digits onto his name. alice was simply too lazy or forgot to hold the shift key when typing in her first name and was forever cursed with a non-capitalized moniker.

Here’s what I find interesting—although you can’t walk ten meters through a welcome area without stumbling over one or more avatars with numbers tacked onto their names, you rarely come across an experienced and established Second Lifer with such a name—and among people more than year old, avies with uncapitalized first names are rare.

Which begs the question—what’s going on? Are people with LetterLetterLetterNumberNumberNumber and uncapitalized first names getting discouraged and dropping out of Second Life? Are they at some point saying “The hell with this name!” and making new primary avatars, letting the old ones gather dust? Or is there a secret Linden name court where avatars petition Linden for a change of name?

I can just see it…