Unname Me

Believe it or not, I don't like to whinge (I can hear you laughing!). But this phenomena seems almost too funny - to me, at least, with my probably pathetic sense of humour - not to comment on. I have been in Second Life now for what I consider to be a fairly long time, so this isn't something that has only happened to me once. And I am not, really, complaining, so keep your hair on. 

Naming my avatar 'Kitti' was asking for it a little bit. I really didn't think that one through. I have now heard probably every cat-related joke in the book, from the crude to the yawningly boring. Most recently, I've been told that my SL name sounds like that of a burlesque dancer, and I kind of like that idea, in a romantic kind of way. But that isn't the phenomena I'm talking about. Out of all of those jokes, the people making them have probably only spelled my name correctly once - and that is probably an exaggeration. Once is probably one too many.

Here's the punchline. In SL, your avatar's name floats above your head. Even if you have the floating usernames turned off (which I do usually), your name accompanies everything you type in any chat field, MSN/Skype/Facebook style. It's written right there. 

The Owl and the Pussycat

Genuinely, it doesn't bother me too much. I think it has more to do with that fact that "kitty" is an accepted, well-worn word, and typing it becomes a habit, than ignorance. I have even made that mistake myself a couple of times. But I cannot help laughing, just a little bit. It's that final sneaky 'i', complicating things and tripping people up.

To make it worse, this is also a problem I suffer in the real world. My real name isn't difficult to spell, and it certainly is not uncommon, but there are a number of different ways to spell it and, despite the fact that I could have it written on my forehead, people spell it wrong. It's only got three damned letters in it! "Kitti" only has five.

Some of my SL friends have eliminated the problem by calling me 'Kits', the filthy cheats (I love you guys really), which is kind of ironic because they're usually the only ones that know that it ends with an 'i'.

Do people get your name wrong?