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

[sophie]

I haven't been following what Scoble's said about these things, but I do know he posted a blog entry not that long ago which pretty much seems to show that he thinks it's less "authentic" when people use pseudonyms: http://scobleizer.com/2011/03/07/the-real-authenticity-killer-and-an-aside-about-how-bad-the-yahoo-brand-has-gotten/

[libskrat]

I know I'm not the first to utter a hearty FUCK YOU, SCOBLE, but I certainly hope I am not the last.

Signed,
[Greek given name] [Slavic maiden name] [Finnish surname]

[nanila]

Dude, what. I can't even...His argument is, "I like the way the policy makes the names look because it is familiar to me, and because I like it, it must be good." I might as well argue, "He uses the word 'grok' in his comment. I do not like this word, and therefore his point of view is stupid."

[julian]

I actually think it's a perfectly good basis for a policy; just not a policy for a site I can support or utilize.

(And dude, think about your adjectives a bit. What /makes/ a name "weird," anyway? Are you aiming for a my-niche-of-the-US-only site? AIM HIGHER!)

[apis_mellifera]

Second Life is different now, actually. New users are assigned the last name of Resident and there's a display name option that you can make pretty much anything you want.

Scoble is such an ass. It's all about him and his comfort, apparently.

[meloukhia]

What.

What. I don't even. I just. What. Can we TALK about how much imperialism is bound up in his conception of 'normal' names?

[amadi]

Scoble has always been about what made him feel good in his white, middle class, male techie world. If it rubbed up against his "ooh, unfamiliar" spot, it was by definition a bad thing. I have near as can be to zero need for Scoble's observations on just about anything.

[pipisafoat]

I might as well argue, "He uses the word 'grok' in his comment. I do not like this word, and therefore his point of view is stupid."
♥♥♥

[lilacsigil]

Well, he hasn't met all that many people different from himself, has he? Off the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen people (all Indonesian) who only have and use one name.

[submarine_bells]

With the caveat that I'd never even heard of Scoble before G+ started up, I'd say that my assessment of him, based on his writings on this topic that I've seen, is that he's either trolling or stupid-and-provincial. Oh, or possibly that he's a voice-for-hire and someone's paying him to say this stuff, maybe? Dunno how likely that last one is, though.

He certainly seems to be getting more attention than his current writing seems to warrant. Did he used to be better, but has been Got by the Brain Eater?

[merielle]

Wow. WOW. What a privilege-drenched asshat. I'm just ever so sorry that other people's identities are sometimes inconvenient for him. Is it okay that my last name has a hyphen or should I have run that by him first if I want to use it anywhere online? Jerk.

[emceeaich]

Um, Scoble, display names have been available in SL since last fall. But he does like to us SL as his whipping boy.

[azurelunatic]

Oh wow Scoble, way to improve my opinion from the Valley gossip. Well done.

Also, consistent much? "I don't like Second Life because I can't have the name I want", and "I like Google+ because you can't have the name you want." Fuck you, sir, fuck you.

[zeborah]

He's a Social Media Guru. I know of him from Friendfeed, which he was all over until he decided it was dying and moved onto the Next Big Thing.

[firecat]

I need brain bleach now.

[firecat]

Good to know about SL.

[firecat]

I have near as can be to zero need for Scoble's observations on just about anything.

After seeing about three of his posts, I'm pretty much there. It frustrates me that so many people on G+ are taking his posts seriously.

[firecat]

I live with one. (Who is not Indonesian.)

[firecat]

He certainly seems to be getting more attention than his current writing seems to warrant.

Yeah, I'm afraid so. I won't be contributing to that from now on.

[firecat]

But it's perfectly consistent: It's all about what he wants.

[oursin]

There are also people who have more than first name/last name
Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncreiffe of that Ilk (also quondam Unicorn Pursuivant)
Okay, I do not think G+ is aiming at the British Peerage and Baronetage, with its complex naming practices (and let's not go into the even more complex European practices).
But there are, at least here in UK, perfectly real people with hyphenated names on their governmet-issued documentation (did I see that G+ is counting hyphens as a symbol and thus no-no?)
And the not inconsiderable number of people with three names? (including a significant number of authors). What happens to them?
This guy has lived in a really small bubble and doesn't get out much, obviously.

[shanaqui]

I really wish I was Nikki ferch Vince (traditional and not much used patronymic system from Wales) now. Just to go piss him off.

Also, in Wales, "the name you are commonly known by" would probably be [your nickname] + [your profession]. So Dafydd Evans who is a baker would be Dai the Bread, Evan Evans who teaches in the primary school would be Evan the Schoolin', Dafydd Jones who is an undertaker would be Dai the Death. (My dad really did know a Dai the Death. And Dai really is pronounced 'die'.) That naming system is still in force in the valleys now: I'd love to see a site that accommodates that, I really would! But honestly, given our surnames are arbitrarily assigned first names that may not even reflect our ancestry, picked from a very small pool of English names, it's the only way to tell which Dafydd Evans you're talking about, because I guarantee you there's more than one.

[lilacsigil]

One of our local doctors is in fact a Baron and has several names! My girlfriend has an apostrophe in her surname, which her bank won't accept but Visa will, which caused issues. I wonder what Google+ is planning to do with Spanish-speaking people and their naming traditions?

[twisted_times]

On the subject of names, here's an articles on Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, which Google really should read all about (I seen to recall G+ rules stating that all parts of the same user name must use the same language, amongst other dumbfuuckery).

[twisted_times]

*sends you a big bumper=sized bag of hyphens*