What is in a name?

Earlier this week I wrote a post about how well my name and username perform on search engines like Google. As a result I’ve been thinking a lot about names this week, and have come up with a few fun facts about my name.

1. Girl Name

Everyone has a name they would have been given if they were born the opposite gender. If I had been born a girl, my name would have been “Mary”. I wonder what affect this would have had on my life. I have a unique name, and I often have a unique perspective. Had I a normal name, would I be a little more subdued? It’s extra ironic since there are lots of girls named Arley in the world.

2. Moving Name

When we moved to North Bay from Edmonton I was four years old. Inexplicably when we got here I would tell the neighbourhood kids I was playing with that my name was “Chris”. My parents think it was the logic of “new town = new name”. I wonder if I resented having an unusual name that early. Who knows! “That Chris is a nice boy” “Who?”

3. Username

I came up with ArleyM in late grade 11. I had taken a job at the local A&P, and I would always find my name on the schedule as “Arley M”. This would be presumably to differentiate me from the other Arley’s (of which there were none). I thought it was hilarious, and I adopted it. I was also a huge KMFDM (a German heavy metal / industrial band) fan at the time, and thought “Sacha K” was such a cool name.

I love my name. It has family roots; after my Great Grandfather Arley Laidman. As a kid I didn’t like it so much, and often wanted to change it …or go by my middle name “Steven”.

Categorized in: Personal

This post was written by ArleyM