(Try to be objective and not just put your own first name at the top! You wouldn’t want to tell your name to strangers on the internet, would you?)
(Try to be objective and not just put your own first name at the top! You wouldn’t want to tell your name to strangers on the internet, would you?)
The real question is, why do people pick the names they pick. Probably some positive experiences with those names.
When I was a baby punk I was an insecure try-hard and got dogged on for it by the older punks. I was bequeathed a nickname that while not a total insult, was not the best and sort of an inside joke about my desperation to be “punk”. A lot of those older punks left the scene in their early 20s, but I kept on and discovered that people I didn’t know knew me by that name even if they didn’t know it was originally an insult. It’s still with me 30 years later, simultaneously cringe because it’s so, so “nehhh, PUNK ROCK!” sounding, but at the same time, punk as fuck and kinda badass. Overall it’s been a positive experience, but knowing its origin helps keep my ego in check when I lean too hard into “punker than thou”.
Yes, and I actually have a mental list of names (for my hypothetical children) that I wouldn’t touch with a flagpole because of bad experiences with people of those names. Just feels tainted for me. Can be fixed by meeting a good person with that name. There’s one name where everyone I’ve met with it - like five different people - has been an asshole.