The aesthetics of names

[firecat]

This is a post by Mike Elgan on G+ titled "The trouble with Google's names policies: Real unconventional names = Bad. Fake 'normal' names = OK."

https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/XtkGjGsBA3V

The post itself is not what I want to talk about though. It's a comment in that thread by Robert Scoble, a big Google+ booster who has recently been going back and forth about what he thinks of Google's name policy.

...some people have "non common" names and I do have empathy for those who really have weird names, like M3 (if that's really his legal name).

But that said I am totally groking the AESTHETIC that Google is going for. They are trying to look different than Twitter is and I really really like seeing names that look common here. IE, most everyone I've met in the real world has a first and last name.

I can scarcely put into words the rage I feel about the notion that people's names are an "aesthetic" issue reasonably subject to control. It's racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic, and just about every other -ist and -phobic I can think of.

If Scoble were to say "I want to use my name, and I don't want to feel pressured to come up with a handle," I would understand it. He says he doesn't like Second Life because he wanted to use his name there, and I also don't like Second Life's policy of requiring you to use a name they pick for you (you get to enter your own "first name" but you have to choose from their list of "last names"). But to think that "I really like seeing names that look common" is a good basis for a policy? Or to even think that it's worth uttering in public? I don't get it.

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

See my ct above to epi_LJ: I can see grounds for how I interpreted it, grounds for how you did. The "aesthetics" would be the feeling that one is surrounded by real people--of various ethnicities and classes but real--not pseudonyms.

If you have seen other statements by the same person, your interpretation has support that mine doesn't! For instance, I gather that "in a single language" is a part of the policy that you read elsewhere. That qualification does seem to me to be bizarre and pointless as well as offensively restrictive to some & not others.

Now, personally, I find absurd the idea that a fake real-sounding name is better than something like, say, Nellorat. I'm 100% with you on that. However, it does sound like this person just does want to be surrounded online by real-sounding names. If I did share that preference, I'd just say, fine, a woman can call herself Louise Demian Frost* but not Nellorat. Are women more likely to change to a single name but not make it legal? I can't really see why that would be so, but you'd know better than I do.


* A pseudonym I actually used for poetry in high school--isn't that a kick?

[firecat]

Here's the policy that Scoble is discussing:

http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271

The policy isn't clear, the enforcement doesn't match the policy, and the enforcement is applied inconsistently. Google has banned a number of names simply because the name sounded like a pseudonym (this includes people whose names are exactly two words in a single language).

If you want to know more about the policy and people's viewpoints on it, and what names have been banned, type "nymwars" into a search engine.

Louise Demian Frost would not be allowed.

this person just does want to be surrounded online by real-sounding names.

Nothing about that statement makes sense to me. First, it posits a difference between real-sounding names and fake-sounding names. I don't accept that there is a difference between them that can be articulated in a way that doesn't leave out some names that people actually use (e.g., your saying "Louise Demian Frost" is real-sounding and "Nellorat" isn't leaves out mononyms, which as you pointed out earlier are used by Indonesians).

If whatever criteria you use to draw that distinction leave out some names that people actually use, you're expressing a preference for discriminating against certain people. I think that's wrong and offensive.

(Of course people are allowed to say offensive things, yada yada. I am also allowed to say their statements are wrong and offensive when they do.)

I react to it the same way I would react to "For aesthetic reasons, I want to be surrounded online by only fat people" or "...only men" or "...only people between the ages of 25 and 60." I can see reasons for having small groups that meet those criteria, but I can't see reasons for having the biggest social network in the world be that way.