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[John Sandoval]

Discuss.

Personally, I feel that as far as internet communities go, TIGsource is pretty cool. Our asshole/decent-human-being ratio is really very low. Folks are pretty friendly for the most part. So when I post here, I feel fairly comfortable as myself, and I want people to know my real name- I just feel that it's more personal than posting as Ink Inc or Sexbot 3421 or what have you.

[sereneworx]

Force of habit.

[phubans]

I voted other since phubans is my online moniker but it's actually my first initial + last name.

phubans = Paul Hubans

So, it's kinda obscured and wouldn't be recognized as my real name to most people unless they knew me (and even those who do know me don't make the connection right away)

For ego's sake, I have no problem with people knowing my real name... Though it seems that "phubans" is a more popular character than me, Paul Hubans, and a lot of people IRL have even started calling me phubans (I never liked nicknames, but I guess it fits)

I'm pretty glad that my online name and personality has become pretty well known in the places I go online. I wouldn't think of using it in places like 4chan, though (the whole point is to be anonymous, besides, I have my own pseudonym for that place that's equally popular )

Although, I go by phubans on Youtube and Steam, and I've said some pretty horrible things to people in those places sometimes and it doesn't take much work to connect phubans with Paul Hubans and then track me down if you really wanted to   I mean, chances are, that's not going to happen, but I did notice a "phubans fan club" with about 20 members on Steam. I think it was some kind of hate group for all the people I pissed off in L4D2  

tl;dr - I believe I was born to exist on this place called the Internet.

[supershigi]

My username is pretty much my real life nickname, so I got really used to just using it everywhere.  "shigi" is short for "shigihara" which is my last name.  I put the super in front because I had a deal with my floormates in college that we wouldn't go to dinner until I could get a headshot in Counterstrike... I couldn't get a headshot as "shigi" but when I added "super" to it for some reason I was getting headshots all over the place...  

I wouldn't really mind posting as myself though, which is why it's still pretty easy to figure out who I am if someone needed to find out.

[John Sandoval]

Another reason I feel it's important to use your real name here is that (especially in the devlog and art sections) we're a community that gives each other huge ammounts of feedback. Maybe it's just me, but I feel more able to connect with/talk to/remember, for example, 'Paul Eres' as opposed to his other screen name 'Rinkuhero'.

[sereneworx]

Hey look! I'm a last name now!

We'll see for how long this sticks.

[phubans]

What? How'd you do that?

Nevermind, I figured it out... Didn't know it was so simple!

[sereneworx]

An option in your profile.

[Rm88~]

I don't know, I've never used my real name online (except for my work in Nintendojo.com which is pretty recent). I'm not a big fan of 'Rm88' anymore, but I've been using it for almost a decade and have lots of website accounts and email addresses with it, so I guess I'll stick to it.

[Seth]

That's cool and all but please if you do that put your old alias under your avatar or something for a while or else people might not recognize you!

[lansing]

Hey look! I'm a last name now!

We'll see for how long this sticks.

Peoples names here are no less real than any other name.
You've just committed identity suicide.

[sereneworx]

Didn't seem to stick for very long. Maybe I should have used better glue.

[Hinchy]

For whatever reason, in my early adolescence I went through a phase where I thought screen names were "passe", though that was likely because at that age all my friends' names were lame stuff like "urstoopid411414" or "britneespeers4evar" or "Xx69Joe420xX" or etc. Anyway, I just started going by my real name, Zachary Hinchliffe (even though I had already known it was hard to remember and pronounce for most people, this factors in later). Anyway, because of my relatively uncommon last name, people started just calling me "Hinchliffe", then "Hinch" and "Hinchy" from that. Eventually the nickname stuck, and it was a lot easier for most people to remember, so Hinchy became my internet name of choice.

Incidentally, now that my name is starting to get out there just a teeny tiny little bit (for example, through The Geek Bowl) and I'm just sick and tired of years of people not remembering how to spell or pronounce my name (most people spell and pronounce it "Hinchcliffe" or "Hinchcliff", but it's really "Hinchliffe", pronounced "hinch-liff" -- note the lack of hard K sound) so I've actually started to adopt "Zach Hinchy" as what I use as my "real name". Kinda amusing how the name's come around full circle now.

[Xion]

I like pseudonyms. I like to imagine if I published a book I'd publish it under a pseudonym, just for the sake of doing so - just so I can have fun coming up with a clever name or something. I think it's a shame that we only get one name irl, unless you're lucky enough to have a nickname (that you approve of). I would love it if people called me Xion irl, because it sounds fucking cool. When I went to gdc and people kept forgetting my name and calling me Xion it was rad. People tell me Tyriq is a cool name too but the coolness is kind of lost on me since I've been called that daily for my entire life. Maybe if I went by Xion for a few years and got tired of it Tyriq would sound rad again. Someone would be like "are you...Tyriq?" and I'd be like "...No one's called me that in a long time" or "who are you? How do you know my name?" or something like that. And then they'd be like "You're a hard man to find" (I hope they don't say that because that means they want to kill me) or "I need your help" (I wouldn't mind that, I like helping people. With my Mad Wizard Powers.) I would of course then either be killed after a great struggle or reluctantly pledge my allegiance to the stranger.

...

Also I've had this name for a while and I feel like changing it would just confuse people. (and myself.) I have no problem with people knowing my real name, though. I use it for serious times. I also like to think of my names as different aspects of myself: Tyriq, pixel artist and writer. Xion, (yet unsuccessful) game creator. It's like the game is made by Xion but the art is made by Tyriq. I'd totally have that in the credits, too. Not that there's any actual division between the two, I just think it's fun shit.

Also I feel uncomfortable calling people by their names, even people I know reasonably well, so I tend to make up awkward nicknames regardless, if they haven't got one already. The exception is if people already have badass names, like Dante. I had a friend, Dante. Dante is a rad name. Zach is a cool name too, I'll call people that.

So there you have it. A number of reasons.

[Saint]

Put simply, no-one calls me by my real name but my immediate family. My friends call me Saint, more formally inclined people refer to me by my last name.

my real name is Anders, a very common name in Sweden. When I was in highschool, there were three others in my class by that name. Army, two others in the platoon (although they used last names so it doesn't really matter). At the university there was only one or two I think, but seeing how zany and individualistic we all were no-one went by their real name there anyway.

So it's more of a convenience thing, I hardly even pick up on people calling me Anders anymore, except for my family.