What's In A Name?

 My mother signed us up for AOL’s first dial-up service when I was fifteen. When it came to technology, my family was always years behind. Most of my friends got their first cell phones and computers when they were eleven or twelve, but for me, communication was still as primitive as ringing doorbells and biking around the block to see who was home.  So the first thing I did when we finally got our computer was think long and hard about a screen name. Who was I, in 16 characters or less? Or better yet, who might I be? Most of my friends identified themselves with song lyrics, movie quotes and favorite foods. I still remember some of them: xxdeadendconvoxx, ScreaminTamale, EvanescenceGIRLY. I chose MarshIACT87 (a horrible and disturbing mix of Eminem’s and Shia Labeouf’s first names fused with my theatrical aspirations and the year in which I was born).

High school pressed on. We dropped the X’s and the angst. We were falling in love all over the place, breaking hearts and getting ours broken in turn. Our screen names described our love, our tears, and our general appreciation for celestial bodies. I changed mine to starrlit71, and that’s who I was for a long time, long after everyone ditched their Dells for Macs and made the switch from AOL to IChat. I was starrlit71 when I met my first love and when I left him two years later; I was starrlit71 when my parents divorced; I was starrlit71 when I started college and moved two hundred miles away to a different state with a different name. 

I wish I could remember why I’d chosen that name in the first place, but I don’t. Like everything, it had its time and place. Now I’ve settled for GChat, where my name is just my name, but I miss it sometimes, the invention.

Amy Bernhard is a Defunct staff reader and contributor to Ye Olde Blogge.