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  • Ask Papabear

Furry Wants to Change His Name

12/30/2012

9 Comments

 
Dear Papabear,

Before continuing, know that this problem is neither urgent nor very serious, so there may be other letters you'll want to tend to before this one.

My problem is quite personal and some may even call it petty. In a nutshell: I don't like that name I've chosen to make myself known with around the net. My username, "daelmacro" has become what I call myself in various places in the internet cloud and for the longest time, I've been living with it, trying to make myself known here.

But so far, I've been just another user, and honestly, I think my name has a lot to do with it. It's neither original nor catchy. It's probably not even that memorable. There are a lot of furs with the "macro" suffix in their name, and I unknowingly attached this to my username without knowing what it implied. Second, my name is easily, and very commonly misspelled...which deeply annoys me. A lot of people make it "dale" or "marco" instead of the real "daelmacro." Third, my username is also my fursona character's name...which makes it confusing to some people, who don't know if I'm speaking in-character as my fursona, or as an artist.

If I could go back to myself three years ago, I would tell him to pick a more unique name, such as the one I'm using now for gaming, "daltaidan." It has a much better ring. I've seen a lot of people move or transfer accounts just to get a better username...

Papabear, am I making too big a deal of this? And if I want to change my name on the net, what should I do? Where do I even start?

Sincerely,

Dael

* * *

Hi, Dael,

Oh, Papabear can sure sympathize with name issues. On FurAffinity, I foolishly picked the username “zoobear.” At the time, I did so because I like bears and I like zoos. I soon found out that many people mistakenly thought I was a zoophile. Embarrassing. But it was too late to change my name. FA doesn’t let you; you have to delete your account and start over with a new one, which is a pain in the butt.

So, I kept the username, but whenever I wrote a comment or whatever on FA I made sure to sign it Grubbs Grizzly. Doing that often enough, most people who knew me got the point. Then, when I joined other sites like Facebook, I used my fursona name as my username.

Assuming you use “daelmacro” on ALL the sites you are on, including any chat services like YIM, Skype, etc., that becomes more of an issue. (BTW, I don’t think that’s such a bad name; worse are the hundreds of furries, for example, who call themselves some variation of Alphawolf or Omegawolf after the movie “Alpha and Omega” came out a while back.... Unimaginative, to say the least). “Daltaidan” really isn’t any more memorable than “Daelmacro.” People will likely misspell it just as much as your current name because that’s what people do. 

Changing your name is kinda like changing a mailing address—it can be a big bother, but it is doable. For chat services like Yahoo, it is rather simple, and it can be an opportunity for weeding out the chaff—those people you wouldn’t mind dropping from your contact list for one reason or another. All you do is send out a mass email to those you want to stay in touch with and tell them you have a new account and will soon be dropping the old one. (Of course, set up a new account FIRST). Give them some time to add your new account (say, a week or two) and then delete the old account after archiving any information you wish to keep.

You can do something similar with other sites. On FB, it’s easy to change your name. Just click on the little cog icon at the top right of the page, go to Account Settings, and key in a new name. You can post a journal (put IMPORTANT in the subject line) that all your watchers will see, telling them what you’re about to do and what your new fursona is and such. I’ve seen quite a few people do this on Facebook. 

FurAffinity, SoFurry, and others, I believe, require you to actually delete the account and open a new one (readers, any input from you on this may be helpful, so please comment).

If you have friends who follow you on several sites, you can save yourself some trouble and just email them at one time, telling them all the sites and services you use and what your new account will be. Your close friends and family will have your phone and email anyway, so you will not lose any of them. Any acquaintances and watchers who drop off your contacts are not a huge loss and, if they are really interested in you, they will find you one way or another.

More time consuming is saving all your “likes,” bookmarks, and archived pictures and such that you may have on your social sites. Depending on how important this stuff is to you and how much you have, it could take you hours to save it all.

In the meantime, and ASAP s’il vous plait, start referring to yourself by your new name. Use it all the time. Tell people this is your name now and to forget about the old one. The more you use your name the more familiar people will become with it and the easier the transition will be.

Changing one’s name is not the easiest thing, but with a little work it is doable.

Hope that helps.

Bear Hugs,

Papabear
9 Comments
Dumarsi
12/30/2012 01:15:54 am

Grubbs-
Couldn't agree with you more on this. I, too, used to be known as another name back when I first started in the Fandom. Changing ones' name can provide a fresh and clean start which can allow new friendships to be forged with the new fursona. However, if the change is to circumvent being blocked on FA or FaceBook or others sites, then its to the point of just harassing a person or persons. I still wonder what could have happened if I did decide to re-emerge from my hiatus in 2011 with my original name. But my own creativity wasn't reflected in the old name, which is mostly why I went this route. Like most good things, name changes can be both good and bad.. my added advice is not to do constant name changes, as it can confuse your friends and make it look like you're trying to hide something from another person to another.

~Dumarsi Du La Quay

Reply
Papabear
12/30/2012 02:58:36 am

Oh, quite agree, Dumarsi. Changing your name frequently is confusing and frustrating. My "zoobear" fiasco was just a username, not a fursona name. That can be part of the complication,too, when a username appears on a site instead of a fursona name. I am Grubbs Grizzly, and I will ALWAYS be Grubbs Grizzly because, quite sincerely, that is who I am as a furry. Just as I would not change my human name.

Reply
KGH
12/30/2012 12:34:24 pm

I've noticed some of my friends move accounts in the past because of some negative issues associated with their account name. More often than not, they just didn't like the name they'd originally picked so long ago, and wanted to use the name they'd really prefer. It was a bit of a hassle for them, but everyone they cared about made sure to follow them to the new account, and thus things were great. If it's important enough to you to change your username, then I'm sure you'll find it worthwhile to take the steps Papabear mentioned towards your new account. I noticed most people who do this title the journal "Moving accounts" or something, so be sure to say something like that in the title so people know to pay attention to it. :3

Reply
Unknown Will Not Say Name
12/30/2012 03:47:26 pm

K this reply message bothered me a lot. In fact, it caused a personal attack, to this one point.

As I have a name called Alpha_and_Omega on there. The movie isn't really bad, even if it had some lack of scripts.. -_-

If that movie was just randomly brought up like that, then it must be looked down big time from the closed fandom. (Please don't say it's open, it's been proven false in current time) It's just a place that is way too strict on "quality" and other stuff.

And some people on here are probably Zoos, hoping they don't get offended, etc.

I'm done with this. Or at least I will be for so long now. Not talking about comments section, something else.

If this sounded mean, I'm sorry if it did, but you have no idea how anxiety I just got when I read that. It was like a hammer pounding right down my chest and struck it. In fact, twice.

If your planning to reply this, I'm not looking forward to it. Sorry

Reply
Papabear
12/31/2012 12:50:09 am

Hello, Anonymous,

I know you won't read this, so I will post for the benefit of my readers. Two things: 1) about my name zoobear being mistaken for zoophilia. It was not a crack at zoophiles, but merely to point out that I am not one and was embarrassed by the confusion. 2) I'm sorry you were offended by my comment about Alpha and Omega. If you will read my post, there was actually no judgment call made about the movie. My point was that the writer's concern about his name not being original was not as warranted as he thought. I stand by my remark that after the movie came out, this bear literally saw dozens and dozens of furries take on a name that was some variant of Alpha or Omega or both. That is the definition of "unoriginal."

Thank you for your comments. I always welcome them from my readers. I want you ALL to know that I am NEVER offended by honest feedback and opinions. What you will read on my column every time are my HONEST and STRAIGHTFORWARD opinions. I will never never LIE to my readers. The point of the "Ask Papabear" column is that you have a venue to go to where you will be listened to by someone who knows furries and is a furry and will give you his honest feedback.

Thank you!
Papabear

Reply
Unknown Will Not Say Name
1/1/2013 02:11:14 pm

Well I read it, plus was so afraid too but I keep getting bothered, and wanted to get it over with. But I did survived one day.

2:

It's not bad to use a name inspired by the movie.
Plus there is no such thing as a pure originality. Like the old way of saying "Alpha Wolf" or just "Alpha and Omega" Beginning and End, is in some way from another thing behind. And using these from the movie is >not< anything different, but may cause some sort of confused of what the guy meant, if that's what your saying.

I don't think it's fair to say "unoriginal" (But think non-movie one was), and not creative if you wanted to make your own "Alpha Wolf or Omega, that was based on the movie. Or some what inspired from it.

I think that is another way of being creative because to be creative, you get inspired, combine, >fan names<, etc Or even remix, know what I mean?

Got 4 words on the definition of unoriginal: "Our Culture and Creative" for that one thing I talked about. Otherwise, I think it's a little mean to think people using names like Alpha_Wolf from movie is "uncreative" and unoriginal but not the non-movie again...

I'm sorry if I was addressing something of what you did not mean again in this reply. Hope you read this I guess

Papabear
1/2/2013 02:11:10 am

Hi. I agree that there are few things truly original in the world. Everything is pretty much a variant. I think what you are talking about is, for example, fan fiction. Fan fiction, which is inspired by other works, can be quite original. For instance, you can write a new story about Baloo and his friends from TaleSpin, and that can be original So, you are correct that there is a difference between unoriginal and uncreative. I agree.

Again, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings and am sorry I did so. My opinion on the matter is just that, an opinion. Nothing is written in stone and open debate about such things helps us to learn about other people's points of views and sometimes to change our own.

So, again, I hope there are no hard feelings.

Reply
Unknown Will Not Say Name
1/5/2013 02:26:09 pm

Yeah, sorry too if I acted a little too far by replying..

One main thing I was saying is that using some names from the movie is not any different then using it from the bible like stories or something.

Not sure if you "hurt my feelings", it just made me think mainly about stuff outside and maybe from you a little, but in case, I forgive, like I often do. /:)

Reply
Papabear
1/6/2013 01:09:11 am

Hi, again,

Okay, I think the problem here is that you are taking the word "unoriginal" as an insult. It is not. It is a statement of fact. You are, again, correct that many people's names come from the Bible. And I would be just as correct to say that the names "John" or "Mary", which come from the Bible, are not original names any more than Alpha Wolf is. There are literally millions of Johns and Marys on the planet; therefore, they are not original names. This is not an insult to all the Johns and Marys out there; merely a statement of fact about the commonality of the names.

So, "Unknown Will Not Say His Name" is a pretty original name LOL. Can you imagine at a party? "Hello, my name is Unknown Will Not Say His Name; the K is silent, of course" LOL.

Try not to be so serious about things, hon. You'll have a better time in life.

Hugs.




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