Sun, Mashamisha, Terminator… Behind each network nickname stands a person with his own personality, which can be better understood if you decipher the meaning of his pseudonym.
The Internet is not nearly as anonymous as it is commonly believed. In virtual travels, a fictitious name sometimes not only hides, but exposes our deepest essence. Choosing a nickname for ourselves (from the English nick-name — “nickname”), we correlate it with our real name, with the place where we live, with gender, age, family and emotional ties …
“On the forum where I communicate, they know me as Anila — this is my real name, only backwards.” “My girlfriend and I decided to start one blog for two and came up with a common name for it — Tannik, from Tanya and Nikita.”
name yourself
When choosing a nickname, we may suddenly find that it is much easier for us to use the name that belongs to someone close to us, or to call ourselves what we are called at home or in a friendly circle. «Mashamisha is a pseudonym made up of the names of my husband and daughter», «Kitty — my wife so affectionately calls me.»
According to psychotherapist Alexander Badchen, the desire to define yourself through relationships with others allows you to express your attachments. “Choosing a name that is somehow connected with someone from our loved ones, we unconsciously emphasize that it is these connections that play a special role in our life.”
A nickname is also a unique opportunity to recreate oneself anew, to start living (at least virtually) from scratch. “I freed myself from the faded name that my parents gave me, and decided to call myself Lulu online,” says 25-year-old Irina. “It’s exotic, sensual and suits me much better.”
“Unlike the name that we are given at birth, a nickname is something that we can choose ourselves, taking into account today’s characteristics, needs, interests,” explains Alexander Badkhen. “Just as children give themselves nicknames that are associated with a sense of well-being when they play, adults also choose names that allow them to express themselves more fully, as well as feel inner comfort and self-confidence.”
The new name becomes a way to make fun of yourself, a chance to look at your own life from the outside.
Choosing a pseudonym is an excellent opportunity to ask yourself about yourself, trying to characterize your personality in one word.
“I called myself Boomerang after my wife left me. After all, no matter how much you throw it, it still comes back. «My name is WhiteRaven (eng. «white raven»), because, in my opinion, everything is not like people, I always feel like an outsider in any pack.»
So the new name becomes a way to make fun of yourself, a chance to look at your own life from the outside and verbally outline your version of what is happening. “I called myself Scarlett because I feel that, like the heroine of Gone with the Wind, I can cope with all the difficulties.” “My nickname Bigsmile reflects what I miss the most right now…”
Nick as a secret sign
Moving from one site to another, we often change our nicknames: the same woman can call herself Cinderella on a forum for young mothers, and on a site dedicated to horror films, she will change her pseudonym to Lady Vamp.
Sometimes we specifically choose nicknames designed to puzzle and intrigue a potential interlocutor — this is especially noticeable on dating sites. The most popular are words in exotic languages, mythological characters, names of literary heroes.
Mafoutou is the Vietnamese word for magician. Calliope in Greek mythology was the muse of eloquence. Valmont is the name of the hero of Dangerous Liaisons, a fatal seducer… “A username is like a password, a test for common interests and internal kinship,” says Alexander Badkhen. “We offer the interlocutor this kind of test, and only after he copes with it, are we ready to allow him to the next level of intimacy.”
Choosing a name on the network, we become a little daffodils, we feel our value and exclusivity. “Indeed, there is nothing worse in the virtual world than being isolated,” says psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron. “But we are not always ready to fully open ourselves, giving up anonymity.”
Nick is both a personal and a public name. Should it attract attention and arouse interest? Undoubtedly! But at the same time, it serves as a kind of bait: it gives us the opportunity to lure another person into a trap, to interest him, without actually revealing anything significant about himself.
Opportunity to show the shadow side
In deciding how much anonymity we would like to maintain at the moment—whether we are willing to give up disguise altogether, whether we want to hide completely, or whether we are trying to camouflage only certain aspects of the personality—we expect to remain the master of the situation. But any chosen network name becomes a mirror … looking into which we sometimes hardly recognize our own reflection.
“Remembering all the nicknames that I have ever used, I realized that for some reason, over and over again, I choose names that are overtly sexual — in the style of porn actresses,” 28-year-old Evgenia admits embarrassedly. Can it be said that in this way it reveals its true essence? Hardly.
“Virtual space gives everyone a chance to free themselves from clamps and prohibitions,” says Alexander Badkhen. “At the same time, it is not always about something reprehensible and unworthy.”
Terminator, Zorro or Superman…. “Sometimes nicknames talk about who we dream of being like, whose image excites and attracts us,” says Alexander Badkhen. We project an ideal vision of ourselves onto this image, and after a while we can return to our present self again.