What's in a name?

I'm one of those people who wandered into SL just cause I tripped over it on the net - I was looking for info about a potential Mac client for CoH and found this cool game that does run on a Mac and well here I am now. But that means I didn't have a friend giving me advice on how to get set up for the game, and I ended up choosing a name that is totally generic, rather than something that has some personality to it. In addition, I'm overshadowed by Cory Linden being "the" Cory around here.

Now I find I'm regretting my name choice, but I don't know what to do about it. I have started to build a reputation in SL - I'm no Oneironaut or Starax, but a good number of people recognize me and my works. I could open an alt account to get a new name, but I'd hate to give all that up. Not to mention the rates I've gotten, and the builds out there with my name on them, and the hassle of moving all my inventory over (what about the no trans objects?). But then, if I'm going to build a decent rep in SL, I think I need a name that is more recognizable, and not live under the shadow of a Linden besides.

Have other people gone through this dilemma? Any advice? Can a Linden fix my name for me and avoid all the logistical hassle?

The Lindens can't change names, unfortunately. They tried it once, with one of their own, and it had some rather annoying side effects.

Who? Why? What side effects?

It resulted in the fiend we all know now as Echo Omega. Surely you remember that, Eggy!

Lindens *can* indeed change names, most certainly they can. I know at least one person who has had their name changed because they regretted doing the l33t thing and putting some numbers in their name in place of letters, and everything still works fine for them, including stuff they sell and have sold.

It's generaly their policy not to, however, to avoid people being able to run from their rep.

I am quite certain that the avatar's first name is simply a varchar column in the SL users database. The user key (that long string of numbers) is the primary key associated to your account -- that's the permanent identifier. I can understand why SL would want to restrict name changes whenever possible, but you bring up a good point. For instance, a lot of newbies select AOL-like first names (e.g., foobar12345) without realizing it's un-necessary. So, perhaps you could try to submit a support request with a strong case justifying your reasons for wanting a name change. No guarantees, but worth a shot.

Now, if you want to change both your first AND last names, that may be a trickier proposition. Last names are generated by SL, and have a one-to-many relationship to avatars. That means that your last name quite possibly has a foreign key relationship to the SL last name table (in other words, linked to a central list of last names). There's probably much more complexity to the SL datamodel than I am aware of, but there's my two cents as a pseudo DB admin. Best of luck!

i have the impression that our av key is a hash of our entire name. that's the only reason i can imagine that our first name would be technically not changeable.

i can imagine a dozen people a day contacting every linden they can find wanting their name changed time and again for whatever reason they have that week. frankly, that's as good a reason as any for them to just say no to everybody all the time.

one more thing. we must maintain our trust with ll. they will occasionally bend a rule or two for what they perceive to be reasonable circumstances or wishes. they rely completely on our discression, even with our closest friends. stating factual rumours that we know to be true only puts them in a position of having to say no to the next person that asks.

It is changeable. It very, very much *is* changeable. I know people who have had it changed.

But they only seem willing to change it very rarely, and then only in cases of fixing stupidity in naming... People using leetspeek in their name or something.

I know the one time they changed it in the Linden's case, different values started appearing in different places. For example, online notifications of the Linden remained his old name, despite the new one floating above his head. I don't remember what other side effects existed, but I do believe there were a few more.

This is something I found strange about SL, the fixed name, made me feel I had to be someone else, when I absolute did not want to be someone else, as a result I always hate my name, its not me, Mike Parks, Parks because it was the most generic one I could suffer with at the time, Mike because its my darn name, and wouldent have anything less

Cory,

If your reputation increases that will give a certain sheen to your name, whatever it is.