What a Choice!

I don't know anyone who got to choose their own name. Indeed, at birth, I imagine most of us would have named ourselves some variation of "WAAAAH" or "Eh Eh Eh." I know that Cadence would have named herself "Ack Ack Ack" - which is my best approximation of the noise a dolphin makes - because that's what her cries sounded like fresh out of the womb.

We do get to choose other ways of verbally representing ourselves, and sometimes those choices really give me pause. I mean, when I worked at the RCC, my stage name was "Jamie." It was easy enough to remember, and that was my primary concern. My e-mail addresses have all been either some variation of Jamie or my old stand-by "Sliced Bread." Here, I go by ParkHopper because it's a little more fun than a plain-old name, and because a good portion of my entries are about… you guessed it… park hopping!

Why do you suppose someone would give themselves an e-mail address that started with "bighead?" Charlie Brown fan? Person with a large cranium? Screen name from an illicit website?

On my way to work this morning, I passed a car whose license plate read "NUTLVR." I personally translated that as "nut lover." Was "MRPNUT" already taken? Is this someone who runs a boiled p-nut (because they never write out the whole word) stand? Someone passionate about almonds? Gay man? Straight woman? Maybe the person was born with a tiny liver (one the size of a nut?). I wanted to ask:

Really, why did you choose THAT to represent yourself to thousands of others?

Growing up, the woman who lived at the corner of Carlton & Greenbrook had a tag proclaiming herself "SIZE 3." Well that's just fan-freaking-tastic. Thank you for sharing. Now we know if a fatty is driving your car we should call the cops!

I love that we get to pick our names in so many different ways. I just wish I could get inside the heads of the NUTLVRs and the BigHeads of the world and find out their motivation.