What?s in a name?

What’s in a name?

Most of us here at Ephotozine are masquerading under a false name – a screen alias, and I sometimes wonder why. Is it a desire to hide? Harking back to the age of CB radio and having a ‘handle’ for the airwaves? Or just because it’s a bit unwieldy to us a long name? Maybe, very simply, that everyone else was doing the same when we joined?

For three years in the Seventies, I received a student grant cheque every term made out to someone called ‘Dudler’ (my surname is actually Duder – no ‘L’!) and I had to send it back for alteration before I could bank it. Friends gleefully picked it up as a nickname which some of them still use, so I have used it ever since when I’ve needed a screen name.

Oddly, when I joined modelling websites, I used my real name, out of a sense of not wanting to hide who I am from models: if my name isn’t trustworthy, why should a model think that I am?
Models, on the other hand, tend to use a pseudonym, and almost never their full name, and wisely so. Nobody wants a stalker, and making your full legal name public is an invitation to excess Facebook friends.

Occasionally, though, it’s a real mire – because models change their names at a whim. I know several who have made considered alterations, swapping a youthful nickname for something that is more descriptive of their work and persona, or which is just less embarrassing. Just have a skim through names on any model-photographer website to find that there are plenty of current examples…

The laurels, though, go to a model I’ve known for several years, and who changes name as often as her wardrobe (the latter’s a professional necessity for models, by the way). Allex when I first met her, she was,(until a few days ago) A_New_Me, returning to modelling after her first baby. In between, she’s used several other names, including the very descriptive Long Legs. At least she was a new her: looking today, she’s changed again. But then, she does describe herself as being ‘Still as mad as a box of very creative frogs.’

It’s nice to have assistance with Silly Sunday…