Name Ressurection?

Yeah, Yamamoto has it bad enough with Baba... Don't hurt us anymore!


You pissed in my sink! NO VOTES FOR YOU

I'm with you on that Lance.

of course it's elitist. i'm an elitist pig that occassionally wants to be known for having something other people don't have. sorry i can't be the holy enlightened type that believes everything ought to be freely available to everybody all the time. maybe you'll volunteer your time to shock my brain until i'm sufficiently reprogrammed.

I kinda like being one of only a few players left with the name LeFay but I'm not really on enough to give it a resounding no to the reopening of names. If I were asked to make take the vote though, it would be a "no".

I vote for keeping the names retired, and I cast my proxy to vote pro retirement on behalf of my evil, banished, black sheep brother, Grimmy.

Right on sis! I completely agree. I like the mystique that grows up around retired names. I wouldn't want to see that change. I like being able to say I have the best relatives in SL.

I vote for not limiting surnames at all - I mean, it's just silly. In a world where we can create what we want, do what we want, be what we want, we have to pick our surname from a predefined list?!!? It's slightly crazy if you ask me.

For all those with retired names, I suppose they could put a stop on allowing you to use that surname but, why on earth do we have to stick to the surnames predefined for us? I've always found it a strange quirk of a system with so much freedom to be creative, that we can't be creative and set our own surnames even.

Weber isn't exactly an ancient name, so I don't know that my vote really counts as elitism. But I vote for keeping the names retired, pretty much for the reasons mentioned by Torrid.

I vote keeping the names retired. Its not that the Lightclouds want to be elite, or aristocratic (HA HA), it is the only original memento from LL that we have to cling onto that depicts our beginning.

Not to always be dragging up other online games stuff, but in TSO you got a cat/dog statute or a Simmie statue that indicated you were a year or two years old. It wasnt much but it was the status quo to display these on your property like a badge of honor. In SL, the only badge of honor we have are our retired names. Sorry, but once in awhile I do like to feel special.

Is there a place we can look to see which names have been retired?

Now THAT is something I would love to see... a complete list of surnames with their release and retired dates.

me too

status/respect is earned. not accidental.
names are an accidental thing. (even sl last names because the choices for last name are limited).
ranks are not accidental things.
using names to indicate rank is silly.

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names are a personal thing.
and people get used to the way things are.

people are sensitive about personal things and their expectations for the world.

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people like being unique. and in sl names have been one of the things that make people unique.

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people are often conflicted about elitism.
is it a good thing or a bad thing?

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in the status arena people generally don't like being reminded of their status if they are lower status.

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i like closed names because the gives a kind of chronology.
i like the closing of names because that way you don't get a million avs with the same names.
i like the closing of names because it is a reason to create new last names.

i like opening closed names if there is space in them (< 150 av) because i like the variety in names.

I hope they stay retired. I like the convenience of knowing roughly how long someone has been in SL by their last name, and being able to roughly gauge what experiences they have been through. It does sort of also lend a bit of a reward to those who invested their faith in SL early on and stuck with it and helped make it grow.

I would be in support of an optional last name change in the case of partnerships where either partner can choose to take on the last name of the other. However, if the partnership dissolves, the last name should revert.

I think inviting/voting someone into a last name will create unnecessary conflict and drama when there is a disagreement among those who have the power to vote/invite.

*remembers what Kex told her about Chaos and smiles*



I wanna be Torley Lily!

Keep the old names closed.

I mean, people talk about wanting to have a sense of history in SL, preserving old builds, etc., right? And our surnames are one way of establishing that history. As a Tabla I know I'm a ring sorta deep in the tree...not as deep as some, but I associate my name with the time I joined. The Mac beta had just become available, there was a giant statue of the Thinker on a toilet overlooking my first plot of land, I made my first SL friend (Jade Lily), Club Elite was lagging the hell out of Federal where I bought my second plot (which was at the time right on the very corner of the world)....

It's a bit silly and sentimental, but my name evokes a certain time period, and that is valuable to me. Sort of like having an alma mater in real life. Second Life, class of 2003-2004. And these surnames will only become more important as time passes.

Well, Taco, I'll skew your average join date figures a bit. Yup, I'm opposed to this too for most of the reasons cited above, but most of all, because I don't think it matters that much. To a certain extent, it's true, seniority is thought of as meaning something, but you certainly aren't accorded much in the way of special status or fame by having a less common name. You'll see when it happens to you.

It takes a while for the number of active users with a given surname to die down -- for a few months in 2003, it seemed like everyone I met was a Midnight or an Omega. Yes, users starting today are likely going to be active far longer than the average user two years ago, but there WILL come a time when the number of active Rubios or Torgensons is much lower. Already, it looks like the majority of accounts with those names are inactive. For better or worse, if you stick around long enough, your name becomes pretty rare. It's as true today as it was when we only had a dozen or so names to choose from.

Popular names fill up fast and empty fast. Unpopular names take much, much longer. Guillaume and Groshomme were both available when I started, and Groshomme STILL hasn't filled up. Still, I think it's interesting that the number of active accounts for both names is evidently comparable to names that have come and gone since then. Someone should do a study.

The "invite-only" system seems worth discussing in more detail, Robin. (Heh, at least in as much detail as one could conceivably go into with such an idea.) How would you see it working?