Yesterday, I signed up for Dreamwidth’s closed beta. I know the people behind it, and they’re good people. Besides, I’ve always liked the LiveJournal base.
Normally, when I sign up for a service like this, I use the screen name I’ve had for the past seven years when someone I didn’t know asked me what I wanted my LiveJournal to be called. I really didn’t think about it; I just blurted out the name of the first NPC I created for a friend. That name has stuck with me across countless sites ever since.
It’s only been in the last six months or so that I’ve really focused on being Rebecca online. There are still places where I am and always will be the other name, but I’m trying to find my feet professionally now and need to focus on claiming my rather common name across the sites I prefer to use.
Claiming one’s name, and one’s identity, across the web has come up a lot as people try to build their online presence. They claim their name everywhere they can in an attempt to protect their reputation from being harmed by someone pretending to be them.
I’m not terribly worried about my reputation. At last count, there were right around 2,000 women named Rebecca Thomas living in the United States, and an amazing number of us are online. Good luck claiming my name anywhere, and good luck trashing a specific Rebecca Thomas. (We all appear to have a lot in common. It’s kind of creepy, actually.)
In the end, the name you choose to represent yourself really doesn’t matter. You can call yourself whatever you want online, but you’re still going to be you. Be who you are. Be where you want to be. Do what you’re going to do. That’s the way people really identify you anyway.
