Blog naming

Thanks to everyone who participated in the blog stopping discussion:

Citizen of the Month, Jew Eat Yet?, Through the Attic Window, Funny the World, Listics: A Sandhill-Joint, This Too, A Breath of Air, Time Goes By, Shorty PJs, The Boomer Chronicles, Dandelion Days, Simply Wait, Richard Lawrence Cohen, Blaugustine, Older, but No Wiser, YBLOG ZA, nobody asked ... BUT, INSITEVIEW -- tom shugart's weblog

It was good to have such an intellectual, emotional, and real taste of the blogging community. The last time I experienced such a discussion was when I wrote about being an atheist.

Yesterday I participated for a short while (as a shy, mostly silent bystander) in a phonecon thanks to Allied by Jeneane Sessum. There were names there I could not recognize although one or two I knew, like Kalilily Time. Hearing bloggers' real names was interesting for me. It was almost as if each time I would feel as if I was coming out of a safe, private, intimate cocoon of fantastical, virtual names, and into the cold, world of reality.

It led me to think about how we name our blogs. For example, when I first started blogging, I titled my first site, In and Out of Confidence: Fear the Final Frontier, and as time went by I changed it according to how I was feeling about myself. It then became Tamarika, because that was a term of endearment my father used for me. I saw it as a sign that I was allowing myself to remember him with great love. It was a side that was hidden while I was a child and through blogging about that I came to terms with different pieces of myself. In fact, that name has a deep and complex meaning for me. Later, when I felt like I needed to create a different blog, Mining Nuggets: Writing it Down, I used a name that Jean of This Too had used in one of her comments to me, where she seemed to have gotten a lot out of a post I had written. I would love to link to that piece where she made her comment, but I deleted it in my panic to please angry family members. Out of confidence prevailed in those dark days, I regret to say!

Sometimes I am curious to know why people have chosen their blog site names. Therein lies a great little book of vignettes, or short tales of how each person came to choose titles (This is not new for me. I have thought about what is in a name before). After all, I feel as though I have almost become the name of my blog. Becoming Tamarika was a big deal for me. Each time I would see the name as representing me, I felt closer to the Sephardic side that had been mocked and shunned for so long as I grew up. I became whole and acceptable to myself, over and over again. Now, as I become Mining Nuggets, I sense the writer in me. It becomes a way for me to acknowledge the expressive and creative side of me, and realize that all my life, in fact, I have been writing things down: through journals, short stories when I was sixteen, as a child, newsletter columns, articles, a book, blogs ... it strengthens my confidence as a writer.

But more than that.

I realize that I probably could not have survived without using writing as an expressive outlet.

All that ... just in the name of my blog!

A year ago at Tamarika: Life in the Fast Lane

Comments

[tamarika]

Winston, thank you for telling your blog-name story here.

"That sign over the door says something about how we think of ourselves and how we want to advertise ourselves and our wares to others."

Yes indeed!

[Winston]

Interesting commentary, Tamar... I do believe that what we name our blog has significance on some level, whether we choose it carefully or in haste. That sign over the door says something about how we think of ourselves and how we want to advertise ourselves and our wares to others.

The name "nobody asked ...BUT I'm gonna tell you anyway" was chosen from a long list I developed over a period of several weeks and several bottles of wine. I suppose the moniker in some way reflects my developing style of light-hearted and humorous, tongue-in-cheek, smart-ass commentary.

It is my intention to never offend, but to occasionally make a reader uncomfortable, enough so that they think for a moment about something that has never before dared the treacherous journey across the vast expanse of their mind.

Just in case I want to shift gears or start another blog, I've already got some names picked out. A couple of them probably reveal just how truly ill I am...

[tamarika]

Danny,
I see that I need to copyright "In and Out of Confidence," eh? I love that name too. In fact, it was the title of one of my newsletter columns for our local AEYC organization in Buffalo for a number of years and a chapter in my book. So, in a sense, it's mine, mine, mine ... (spoken like a true toddler!)... but, for *you* ... well ... maybe I'll lend it ...

Neil,
I love the idea of you giving "serious thought" to the naming of your blog. I sense a(n) hilarious post a-coming. Keep me posted!

Shorty PJs,
No change in name for me yet. Am still getting used to this one. Looking forward to the book. Hurrah!

Tom and Mark,
Yeah! I love hearing your stories of why you chose your names. In fact, I wish someone would give me a huge grant to travel the world interviewing bloggers about the reasons for their titles so that I could write a best-selling-beloved-blogger-book and retire to Hawaii so that I might blog-on into the sunset.

[Danny]

Oy, don't get me started. I changed the name of my blog after a year but I have very mixed feelings about my current title. I like seeing it there but when asked to say it out loud, I am always embarrassed and want to give a 10-minute explanation. But I won't change it again, it is what it is. However, if I were to change it, I'd ask if I could steal your original title, In and Out of Confidence, which I love (but I understand your reasons for switching!).

[Tom Shugart]

Back in 1995, during the very infancy of the Web, one of my agency's clients thought it would be a good idea to create a site that would be a meta-review of various sites across the Web--a tiny universe compared to the present.

We concurred with him that the idea had potential since people were by and large clueless about what was availble on the Web and would welcome some assistance in finding their way.

I was charged with suggesting names--one of which met with the client's approval. You guessed it--Insiteview.

By the time we were ready to get the site developed, the client had over-extended himself in the go-go dot-com frenzy and disappeared into the bankruptcy courts.

I squirreled away the name and decided to ressurect it when I started the blog.

The ex-client is now a real-estate multi-millionaire. Ah, capitalism.