Several decades ago, I dropped the "R" in my name: "R. Barry Young". It just made things harder, forms couldn't handle it, clerks kept identifying my as "Barry R. Young" and government officials kept insisting that I give them my real first name. So I just dropped it, never to be used again. This was possible before 9-11 and pre-digital IDs by the simple expedient of never using it again.

Then came the internet, especially Google, and I noticed an annoying thing: despite having worked my entire adult life in computers, and despite having been on the internet almost as long as it has existed, I couldn't find me. "Barry Young" is neither common nor rare, but there are at least 5 Barry Young's on the internet easier to find than me (way easier). I didn't show up until around page 12, if then.

And if I couldn't find me, then I knew that no one else could either. And this had other effects: Like that question to a difficult problem that I posted in some obscure forum and got that great answer to about 5 years ago? I couldn't find it or any of my other posts & replies.

Then there's the username problem: Unlike many, I think that adults should use their real names on the internet (or something close to it), and I have never liked names like BYoung573. I would never be able to remember what it was later on (I have registered on hundreds, maybe thousands of sites) and unlike a forgotten password, a forgotten username is usually a much bigger problem.

And by the mid to late-90's I began notice something really annoying: I couldn't get BarryYoung as my username when I registered for new sites anymore, it was always taken. Grrrr...

So I resurrected the "R" and I always use it. In 10 years I have only ever been denied this username once (and that may have been an earlier registration by myself). Even better, whenever I want to see any of my posts, blog replies, rants against Ezines articles, etc. all I had to do was Google RBarryYoung: 100% hit efficiency!

Of course now everyone else can do it too, but that's never really bothered me too much. 😀