Snowflake Challenge 2025: #3

[greerwatson]

Challenge #3: In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.

When I first went on line and subscribed to the Forever Knight mailing list, I should say that most of the members—certainly well over half—used their own names. As I did: it never occurred to me to dub myself anything else. It was not until three years later, when I first joined a LiveJournal community, that I found myself in the midst of usernames. When prompted to pick one for myself, I boggled. I also had no trouble deciding that my "username" would simply be my real name, albeit glommed together as a single word.

To appreciate my disinclination towards pseuds, I should go back a fair few decades to the days of my extreme youth. Back then, people were far less familiar with the broad variety of personal names that are the norm in any big city in Canada in this century. Immigration from myriad international sources had had the effect that, if one hears even a slightly unfamiliar sounding name, one takes it in stride: asks to have it repeated, perhaps, or how it is spelled. Back when I was a kid, though, this was not so.

Now my personal name is short, and spelled according to regular English rules. So teachers at school all addressed me accurately. Strange adults who heard me say my name were another matter. If I said my name was "Greer", they almost invariably heard something else. This is more or less how the conversation would go:

"What's your name, dear?"
"Greer."
"Oh, Leah! That's a pretty name."
"No, my name isn't 'Leah'. It's Greer."
"Oh, Rhea! That's a pretty name too."
No, my name is Greer: G R E E R."
      (astonished silence)
"Oh! Um … were you named after Greer Garson?"
"No."
"Oh, I'm sure you were."

(And no, I wasn't: it's a family name.)

Now, some people after the umpteenth go-through of this sort of thing wind up hating their own name; and, quite possibly, when they grow up they change it. My reaction was different: it's my name, dammit!!!! (Granted, at that age, I wouldn't have said "dammit".)

So, as I say, I had little appreciation for the reasons why other people would want to be known by any of the weird and wonderful usernames that I've seen over the years. However, in that time, I have heard quite a few people defend the practice, especially those who live in less enlightened parts of the world and fear consequences from family, employers, and state security should their fannish interests become public. I think one of the things that brought that home to me was the realization that the maryrenaultfics community had members from such countries as Russia and China.

And, of course, even leaving that sort of peril out of it, there's the simple fact that, if I feel strongly about my own name, so do you about yours. It is, after all, your name.