What Is A Name?
Everyone is given a name when they are born and typically they would carry this along with them for the rest of their life.
“Most know me as Kyle Green, but there are also a number of people that refer to me as TheFIXIR.”
As an adult who enjoys playing online games, I’ve built many relationships with people from around the world who I only know by their usernames. Literally, hours are spent throughout the week conversing, strategizing and joking around while engaging in virtual combat. Eventually, these friendships start to jump borders into other social media platforms and even on the odd occasion end up leading to a face-to-face encounter.
It’s come to a point where my wife and kids refer to my friends by their Gamertags. “How’s BaldingButcher been doing lately?”. Progression has even made it as far as our wives become friends through socials. I’m not sure if this is because of common grounds or possibly just to make fun of their significant others but either way, valuable relationships are being made.
So back to the original question, what is a name? To be honest, I feel a person’s name holds little value anymore. We currently live in a world where our online presence is more active than in person. We can decide how we want to be represented and change it however often as we want.
A name doesn’t define who you are. At its core, a name is a given set of words assigned to a person so that you can address them.
Does it make a difference to me if I find out the real name of my online friends? Not really. People have gone by nicknames since the dawn of time, the only difference is the latter offers more freedom of expression or could possibly end with a random set of numbers.
One thing I can say with confidence is that as the world keeps evolving, it won’t be long before my students start requesting name changes within the classroom. Sure I’ve come across some pretty outrageous usernames while gaming but if we remain open to new possibilities and encourage our students to be respectful, we can help our students worry less about what’s in a name and more about the benefits of building strong relationships.
