names... and do they help form impressions?

I love to see great witty names. Crude or suggestive names I can do without, and yes they do give me a certain impression about the person. Like they have no class at all.

I like solid imaginative names.
It cracks me up to see newbs, AOless, still defaulted, w/ these fearsome twisted tormented, supposedly intimidating names wandering around.

I quite like my name. Sometimes, when my reputation has gone before me, people are surprised to discover I'm female as they'd assumed that someone called Conifer would be a man. But I've never heard of anyone called Conifer in RL!

The alt I created is deliberately intended to be boring as it's only there as a safety net for my groups etc. Therefore it's as simple black ball and it's called X7 Mubble.

I took my previous name because I didn't understand how the SL system created unique names by swizzling the last names frequently. My big mistake. I ultimately ended up mothballing that av and creating Jackie Version 2, the sweet little thing you see here . There should be some sort of tutorial or warning when you first sign up, perhaps? Anyway, I have an unintended alt, at least! Jackie

3R - Your name has always been one of my favorites Jackie

I think in my case, the name is the first impression. I am going to take someone named Bobby a lot more seriously than I'd take xxsexxygurlxx or roxxorzboxxorz.

When I see someone who has named themselves after genitalia, I assume they are a griefer or a forum troll, depending on the venue. I certainly don't take them seriously.

AOL-style names can be a bit annoying to look at, but I generally assume that they use that name elsewhere and want people in their other online communities to be able to find them easily in SL.

In case people cannot find a free name, just be creative and think in expressions, like a 5-10 year old would.

if e.g. (very simplistic example) the surname wave is free

use a first name like:

dothe (wave)

big (wave)

huge (wave)

lets (wave)

lookatme (wave)

love (wave)

splashy (wave)

you get the idea...

Creativity is something that is always handy, it makes you standout from the boring AOL-givememorenumers-1234567890-itized crowd.
Everything better than being just a number, right?
(like you are a clone: "this is baby123" she's the 123st cloned one!"

If they are named after female genitalia, I always assume they are men. Don't know why.

My first name is one i have had for a long time and yes it is long but most call me Wind. My last name i selected because it was close to Wombat which at the time was not available.

Now names that bug me are the ones who title themselves like Master ...... Mistress......... or Sir, If a person has these ill address them by their last name or ignore them

<--<< 'nuff said. (^_^)y

Yes. And i agree.

Pussy Galore was a man?!?!?!?!?

James Bond is gonna be pretty upset.

Of course not! Names aren't like a first impression or anything. *blink*

Of course...I have *no* idea what impression the name I chose makes on people.

yeah ... what she said - I agree!!!

Your name makes me imagine a big hairy biker guy that likes to go online and dress up in womens clothing.

Ya, that, or wearing a cowboy hat and chewing on a bite of straw in his mouth. I kept seeing Haystack as Hayseed. And wearing overalls. With patches. And saying "ye-hah" a lot.

I hate people that have numbers in their names.

Actually... That's a pretty good example. She's a female character designed by a man to fulfill some sort of fantasy. The actress (avatar) being female, like in SL, is quite immaterial. (^_^)y

I have always really liked your name. Do folks call you Immy inworld?

Totally. It started as a way for me to ID people who read my RP limits. But, now, it's pretty much my common nickname. (^_^)

Though... Voicers have called me "Eye-Mee" more often than is funny. Think, "Timmy" without the "T". (^_^)y

Picked my name to rhyme as in 10+ years of playing on line games I have always found that people with short easy to remember names always have more friends than someone with random letters as a name.

I find it very hard to interact normally in-world with someone who has a strange and unreal name. They do tend to give me a bad impression of the individual, unless it is a particularly clever combination when paired with their surname.

When I meet someone in-world with an unpronouncable mish-mash of letters and numbers for a name, I often won't talk to them at all, or at least won't bother to address them by name.

If they are introduced to me by that unpronouncable name, I usually will pause, and ask "Excuse me, but how do you prefer to be addressed? I can't seem to pronounce your name."

Sometimes they have a simple solution, like when "Imnotgoing Sideways" is more commonly addressed as "Immy". I can acept that the same way I might accept that some poor kid in real life whose parents named her "Ima Hogg" might greatly prefer to be called "Irma" or even "Celeste" by her friends.

I chose my first name for reasons that are too complicated to go into, but that involved David Bowie, Todd Rundgren and the Damned. I'm mostly happy with my name, in that it's short and easy to type, and even though it's not instantly evocative for most people, it sticks with them once they meet me. I've gotten several questions from Turkish and Iranian men about it, since evidently Naz is an actual female given name in Farsi. And I actually met a woman in real life a week or so ago whose name is Nazarane, and she goes by Naz.

Other peoples' names...yes, of course the names they pick for themselves make an impression, just like their avatars. Fart-joke names, AOL-style number/names and names with awkwardly unorthodox capitalization (or lack thereof) tend to put me off, but a good pun in a name (or something else clever about it) will get a chuckle of approval from me. A good friend of mine has a palindromic name.

As a club manager and DJ I have to interact with a LOT of new (to me) people, often from a standing start, and I usually try to type their entire name out the very first time I address them (or copy and paste if at all possible), and then find a non-condescending nickname version of it as soon as I can after that. Many people will feed me one if they realize they have chosen poorly. And a few people actually have flip titles that say "Call me ____".

To some extent, yes.

Obviously if someone has a supercharged overtly sexual first name, I assume they want to be thought of primarily in that way. I wonder if it's a joke or if perhaps they are overcompensating in some way. Or of course they may have chosen it in order to appeal to certain persons if the person piloting the av intends to use the av in a certain way. I don't know, since I do not find such names appealing myself - more eye-rolling.

If someone has tons of numbers added to the front or back of their name, I wonder why. It isn't that hard to come up with an original name (check baby name websites if stumped for ideas, or make one up). And there are so many surnames if the combo is already taken and one likes a first name above all other considerations. Since a numeric name is so hard to address in typed greeting - I wonder why some choose it. I assume they are likely script kiddies, or ex AOLers, or something like that, but who knows. I do notice no one on my 'friends list' has a name like 108595786joe. Maybe because they seem to talk exclusively in 'netspeak' which gives me a bit of a headache after a few minutes.

But that's my problem, not theirs; maybe again their name appeals to who they prefer to hang out with anyway.

I like names which are either mellifluous, clever (but not gross, please) puns, or unusual.

As with most things though I *try* to keep the jury out until I've spent at least some amount of time around the person, if possible. In other words until they act like a total donkey's behind I assume they are okay people. I also try not to judge by what is in their picks page.

However I admit if the person has a gross name and then lives up to it - bye-bye. I assume they are an antisocial personality/griefer.