Pseudonyms

A few weeks back I recieved a "Friend" request from someone on Facebook using a pseudonym which was used by an acquaintance over 40 years ago. To that point, I was using that particular name as part of "The Great American Novel" which I am busily writing on one of the other files on my computer. After politely declining the invitation, the writer made the request again, this time providing me with information which told me that I really did know this person. We had a couple of rounds of correspondence before I figured out who the person was. He was always a private sort of chap in the first place and I have no doubt as to the reasons he used a pseudonym to cover up his identity in such a public venue.

A similar situation broke earlier today. The name was unfamiliar, the face on the internet vaguely familiar. She went public with the name by which many of us knew her back in the day. Okay, mystery solved. We had a conversation via instant messaging after she broke the news... one of those typical "Hey, howya doin'just thought I'd rattle your cage" types of conversations you have with people you have not seen in 40 years. We never got into the "Why the change of name?" questions. Marriage, divorce, perhaps a whim, or perhaps a desire to break from the past.

Having been in radio for a number of years, I am familiar with people who use pseudonyms for one reason or another. Memory flashes back to the old TV show WKRP in Cincinatti where Venus Flytrap told the story of Gordon Sims who disappeared from the radar after going AWOL from the Army. I worked for a while for a fellow who called himself Randy Jay, who was in fact named Calvin Dailey Jr. For quite some time I called myself either Bruco in the Night-time or Uncle Bruco (see the title for this set of blogs), reverting to my real name only in the last several years of my overstay in radio.

Pseudonyms are used in other situations, as well. I recall being part of the CB craze back in the late sixties into the early seventies when I had a "handle" in order to avoid (like so many others) having to have a license to run my mouth off on my walkie-talkie. More lately I've taken to Geocaching which, like in those days of CB radio, most of us take on a "handle" when we are out using multimillion dollar satellites to hunt for Tupperware in the woods. (For my current pseudonym, see the signature line I use on most of these blogs.)

Then there are the people who use pseudonyms either because they had always been called something other than their real names. My Uncle Mike was one of them. He was always Uncle Mike. Nothing else, that is until it came time when we would see mail addressed to someone named Fay. For some time, I wondered as to who this person Fay was, until it was explained to me that Fay Ritz Vincent was nicknamed Mike from a very early age in honor of another of his relatives. No one used the name Fay Vincent at the time he was alive... it wasn't until after Uncle Mike died that Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent became known to the public at large. There was at the time of Mr. Vincent's tenure as Baseball Commissioner sniggers from people who who would ask "What kind of a name for a man is Fay?"

I now know of two.

Be Seeing You! (BCingU)