What’s in a www.nickname?

Twenty-seven-year-old Soumy-adip Choudhury, moderator of a popular blog on the net, Cutting the Chai, christened himself as the Albi-nobee a few years back. Even his mail ID carried that “handle”. Why Albinobee? “I read, as a kid, that the famous singer Sting would call him-self the Bee, as he would often wear a yellowjersey with black lines on it, that made him resemble a bumble-bee. I had a similar jersey, but the stripes were black on white. There-fore, I became the albinobee,” beams Soumyadip.

And why the albinobee and not the zebra or the tiger? “Well, that’s just not me. I’m more like the bee. My name has to convey what I am. A bee gathers nectar from many places, puts it into one pocket and turns it into honey. I do the same. I assimilate from everywhere and en-rich my persona,” buzzes Soumyadip. “Besides, an albino al-ways stands out, no matter what the species is.”

Nineteen-year-old Sulabh Puri from Delhi calls himself Megadeth on the gaming forums that he par-ticipates in. But why has the other-wise well-mannered teenager cho-sen such an intimidating name for himself? “I am a hard core gamer who’s into the toughest strategy games one can ever play on the net. And when I play games like The Age of Empire, Counterstrike and Rag-narok, I have to psyche out my op-ponents. A nic like Megadeth packs tonnes of attitude, killer instinct and sounds powerful too. Do you think I would ever be able to drain the adrenalin out of my opponents if I had a nic that said Sober-boy2006?” reasons Sulabh.

But do crazy nics truly reflect an alternate persona of a man? “We are all trained in a specific manner to behave in society. A man has to conduct himself the way so-ciety approves of. But, many a times, he wants to do something the norms of society prevents him from doing. Therefore, a self-con-ferred nickname provides him the opportunity to create a quasi-iden-tity and gain a sense of accomplish-ment.” says psychologist Samir Parekh. According to him, it is the physical anonymity on the net that enables him to create a different im-pression of the self amongst others.

That explains weird internet nics and email handles like Himalayan-Hercules, machoMustang and mysti-calforever. In a research report on nick-names, From Bonehead to Lone-head, Haya Bechar Israeli from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, writes: “At times, people choose nicknames for frightening or unfa-miliar objects in order to neutralise their negative connotations. Thus, the Loch Ness monster is nick-named“ Nessy”, as if she were a cute kitten and hurricanes are regularly given soft names of people. Simi-larly, people adopt nicknames that defy reality. Hence you have nics of atheists that read as God’s own and Cereal killer for anti-dieting freaks.”

Adds Bechar Israeli: “In the case of certain inanimate objects, a nick-name denotes unnatural glory, for instance, ships are named after queens. Likewise, people adopt nicknamesthatcarrystronganddis-tinctive connotations, for example, nics such as Makiaveli and Judas Priest mightjust describe theschool of thoughttheuserbelongsto.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Acciden-tal Fame Junkie from Chennai, moderator of the blog South of the Border, West of the Sun, describes herself as I, Me and Mine on her blog. It is the accidental fame bit that makes her nic unique. The name flashes traces of serendipity, a sudden or chance discovery. The analogy being Columbus discov-ered Americas unintentionally and hit fame. This lassie from Chennai hopes to do the same someday. Her real name? Well, she’d want us to re-member her by her nic.

It isn’t very different for 23-year-old Monica Virmani, an internet café manager in Delhi. Throughout the gaming community, she is known as Codename Cynthia. “I chose that nic for myself as it de-scribed me the best,” she says. “Co-dename Cynthia was actually an American lady spy during World War II, ferreting out enemy secrets. I like to do the same with gaming cheat codes and hacking info on all the different levels of the strategy game The Age of Empire.”

The coding scheme for nick-names can be classified into cate-gories such as: age related: 42still-hot; famous people: the_real_Elvis; flora and fauna: Wildtigerdude; characters from films, plays and television: MrBean, Scoobydude; typography: whathehell, myTboy, BeaMeup et al. Says Parekh: “Nick-names on the net often denote an individual’s whims, fancies, aspira-tions, tendencies, abilities, cravings and more often than not, confer upon him or her the ability to create that impression of the self which he or she desires to have.” But is there a deeper strain of wisdom behind the nicknames that one grants to the self?

“These days, we are no longer re-stricted to close-knit communities of a family, neighbourhood or work-place,” says Professor Tiplut Nong-bri, sociologist at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. “The reach of a man is as widespread as the worldwide web itself. If a parental name fails to evoke passion or the zeal to excel, a handle or a nick-name is just a thought away.” He adds that a nickname recognises no linguistic and class barrier.

While nicknames or eke-names shall always be there and shall fol-low a man to his grave, the one that the self recognises itself as, shall al-ways be the best ‘nic’.