I would like to discuss baby names with you guys, but I realize there is a big problem: I have been using pseudonyms for my children on this blog. Part of what makes a name a “good name” is whether it goes well with the names of the other children in the family, and that’s not something you’d be able to look at. Who could blame you for suggesting that the next baby be Anne or James, when you are staring at a Robert, a William, an Elizabeth, and an Edward?
Clearly I have made a misstep on the blogging path, and now what do I do? Change all the names to be the real ones? Choose better pseudonyms?
I suppose what I am really wondering is how much personal information is appropriate to use online. Plenty of moms use their children’s real names, and plenty of moms go for code names, and I went with code names to be on the safe side, but now I’m feeling more like maybe it doesn’t matter.
If you blog, how did you decide whether or not to use real names for yourself and for members of your family?
It never occurred to me to use a pseudonym for Riley. It’s just not something I felt was/is necessary, although I understand why other people choose to do so.
I personally find the cutesy pseudonyms really distracting (“Captain BoogerPants”, etc) so I like that your fake names could be real names. : )
I’m beginning to feel, too, that it isn’t necessary. Also, I was thinking specifically of your blog, and how exciting it was when Riley was born and we all got to find out his name. It would be much less interesting to hear that “Baby Boy” or “Cutie Cabbage” had been born.
I didn’t use a pseudonym for Adelay either (partly because I think her name is beautiful and would have hated to call her anything else!) But I have been cautious about posting pictures, for some reason- I have done a grand total of one in six months of blogging. I guess we all have our paranoias!
That makes sense to me, and now I’m a little nervous about photos, too!
Hope this isn’t coming in too late. :)
I use code names (A1 & A2, which are actually based on their initials and birth order) because of the possibility of hate crimes. We are Muslim and live in a very small town (another name I’m coy about!) and our local mosque has had three separate attempts to burn it down since July 2005. I am somewhat wary about pictures for the same reason, although I do occasionally post them. I worry that it would take only one local wacko to find my blog and figure out who I am and where I live. I would love to live in a bigger city or even overseas where I wouldn’t have to be so coy — maybe some day. Just not today.
I worry about anything that makes it easier to figure out who I really am. Almost no one would CARE who I really was–but I’m worried about that one wacko who would fixate on something (who knows what?) and then do research.
I don’t THINK using my kids’ real names would help the wacko. But I do tend to be a worrier, and it’s the kind of thing I worry about.
Oh, no! Swistle!!! Soooo upset that those aren’t the kids’ names!!!!!!
Everybody knows that I’m having an Isabella so…?
When I started the blog it was for family to keep up with us but, it’s totally different now!
I have wondered for years now what your kids’ names really are… yet I think it would feel super weird to find out. I just “know” them as you have named them. To find out that Robert was actually, whatever, Ethan, or Connor, would completely change who he IS in my mind. (And I loved loved loved your recent posts about Rob–his infuriating qualities made me shudder, and then his good qualities made me all misty and want him for my own son!)
But it occurs to me for the first time ever: do you ever slip and call them by their pseudonyms? *gasp* Do they KNOW their pseudonyms?! Do you actively type using the pseudonyms, or do you do a replace-all before posting??
And I never gave a second of thought to using my kids’ real names, but probably because I knew no one would ever actually read my blog. I made it for myself when first pregnant, and dreamed of how I could write my personal thoughts and sort of journal the pregnancy, sharing it with my husband…
And within 20 minutes of its creation, my husband told his MOTHER about it.
GAH.
Sabrina- Yes, they know their blog names, and…er, yes, I do sometimes slip and call them the blog names! Which is an unintentional upside to using their middle names as blog names: I can cover up a slip by saying, “Oh, that’s his/her middle name.” It’s still weird, but not AS weird.
Their middle names!!!
I didn’t pick up on this.
I like it.
So I have a Henry, Catherine, David, Douglas, and Beatrice.
Too bad that lovely sibling set would have the parents with code names Lynn and Patrick, that seems so old fashioned.