>
> It has also seriously got me thinking about
how much of *you* is tied up in your
name...How much of your identity is in what
everyone calls you...whether it be your real
name or not...
> Liz"Xena?"zie

I am glad that you have brought this up. I have
often pondered the different ways that people
identify themselves with their nick name. I
wonder why some people choose their own
names, or come up with something different.

For me, Tess is just a shortened pet name for
Theressa, my birth name. I have been Tess
the entirity of my life. No one has ever
suceeded in giving me a nick that stuck
beyond the first few tries. The only nicks that
have been mildy sucessful have involved
"Tess" in one way or another.

I view Tess as a description of my personality,
and to have something else would make me
uncomfortable. Not a ton of people have my
name, I've only every heard of other Tess's
second or third hand, so it's not often that I
would run into someone with the same name
(TOT?;-) Using it as a nick makes me feel
more comfortable for some reason. If I chose
another name, it would feel like I was role
playing. I also know that when I am an older
person, I won't have grown out of
"sexyprincessqueen" or "winnethepoofreak",
or even "Gwendolyn". I don't think that Tess is
something I will outgrow, it's a part of me.

My nick doesn't represent a facet of my life, or
a particular hobby or pastime-it represents
who I am, and that is something that I need to
feel. I have this need to be me wherever I am.
I am not saying that people with
nicknames different from their given names
aren't themselves-just saying that's how it
works for me. When I've tried to interact with
people under another name, I've had to build
personality from the ground up, and have
difficulty acting like myself. I don't feel like
Tess, when I have another name. I end up
lurking in chat, just observing.

Curious, does anyone else indentify so
strongly with their name/nick?

Tess