If you're not playing with friends and someone calls you by your full real name in a game of randomly selected players, that would be pretty scary.
I play a lot of OS RuneScape and I unintentionally know a lot of dudes irl names because their wives or whatever start calling for them. We’re all like 40 now so after a few hours our wives come check if we’re still breathing
I actually prefer my in game name, enough to use it at coffee shops when they call my name. I also meet up with my online friends often enough that it's not too weird.
My gamer names are all based on an old nickname I got in the service. I'd just assume it was one of my navy buddies.
My screen name is a meth joke. When I hear it irl I just assume they're talking about a meth head.
Imagine how it would be for lemmy legend SatansMaggotyCumFart to be called by that name :o
I'm trans and the name I chose is based off an old username of mine because I got more used to people calling me that.
Come to think of it a lot of my trans friends did something similar.
That's pretty cool! I've wondered more than once what prompts trans people to choose the names they choose but I've never felt it was really a polite thing to ask. That is one possibility for choosing a name that makes a lot of sense to me, especially when you can be completely genderfluid in a game. You could be biologically XY but have played games as a woman named Miranda for 20 years, so when you finally transition, you call yourself Miranda. I like that.
I actually go by a different name now that has a different reason to it, but that's the logic a lot of other friends stuck with, a username or game character they connect with. One of my best friends is named Ikora because of the Destiny character for instance.
Gonna do my best to avoid doxxing myself, but the name I go by now I chose for a few reasons:
- It's a traditional Irish name, I've learned in the last couple years that I'm almost completely ethnically Irish.
- It's fairly gender neutral at least by American standards, so it doesn't necessarily out me as trans while I'm still pretty early in transitioning.
- I took it from an old folk song I grew up with, so there's also personal history and ties to my family with it.
Ultimately everyone is gonna have their own reasons for the name they choose, but I've tried a couple names over the years to see which ones fit. Sometimes I've had ones that I felt a real connection to, but it felt all wrong to get called it. It's one of those things that can be a journey while you transition.
Also speaking from personal experience, the trans folks I know are delighted to explain why they chose the name the did. It's not impolite at all to ask, just so long as it's not the very first thing you ask lol.
I can see that. You're trying out new ways to express yourself and you'll feel like you got it wrong sometimes, so you revise it. That could be your voice or the way your walk or the style you wear or your name. You're living as your true gender for the first time in your life, so there's bound to be plenty of trial and error.
I feel like it's probably pretty common for trans folks who spend a lot of time online. The internet was where we got to explore ourselves.
When I used to play with back stabbing bitches friends back in the day, we'd almost exclusively use our usernames over voice even though we knew each other irl.
I'm fine, I swear. No resentments at all.
This is gonna sound weird but when I game I don't want to think about myself the in the corporeal sense.
Friends calling me by my name doesn't bother me but I never tell online people my name and it feels weird if they find out and start using it.
Some friends do use my tag when they could use my name and it doesn't bother me since we're gaming, I guess it would be weird in a social context outside of the game
I play with a guy online games for over 10 years. I never met him, he lives on the other side of the planet. He knows my real name, my online name changes constantly. He still always calls me by the name i had when he met me. It's pretty funny.
I've been to a convention before where someone has called out my online handle/gaming username. It was really funny.
The only time I was horrified was when I was requesting payment via P×ypal and someone mentioned my legal name. Felt like I was going to pass out for a second. I fucking hate P×ypal..
It depends. If my friends call me by my name, I immediately feel like something serious has happened to them and they need my help.
If my coworkers, parents, or acquaintances call me by my alias, it's because I'm either dreaming, living in a simulation, or something has gone very very wrong. That'd put me in fight/flight/freeze for sure.
I generally really don't like when people call me by my username in voice chat. Text is fine, but the moment I'm on a call with someone I'm telling em my first name because "hey flash" sounds really awkward
I’ve been called Seal Since the 90s, it seems natural to me.
The odd thing was back when my brother used my computer to play and everyone was calling him Seal. I’d hear that and it felt so strange. If the two of us were in a lobby right now and someone were to say, “yo seal!” we’d probably both reply.
I’d often hear, “who playin? Is it big Seal or little Seal?” “Umm, big Seal I guess.”
That's pretty cool, had a friend have a similar situation where he used to play on his brother's account (which had his brother's real name) and he got pretty attached to it
I use a different name for every game / platform / whatever I'm on so I don't get too attached to any particular one. I used to do the single online persona thing, even cross-linked them all back to my personal homepage lol. But the modern web is so commercial, that's not fun anymore.
While my names evolved over time I tend to use the same ones online at the same time, except on that one character on that one game which became my main game and now the entire guild knows me by a different name than what I'm used to, felt a bit weird haha
This is amusing to me because I'm super old school and was using local dialup BBSes in high school. We all used each others' BBS handles when we got together for local meetups. I'm still friends with some of them and they still call me by that name even though I haven't used it since the 90s. I've been called by my handle(s) for literal decades.
I went to a really lovely meetup recently of people I've been talking to on a small forum for years who I never met before. One of the hosts had the same first name as me. People just called me Squid. I was fine with it.
None of my IRL friends know my gamertags, none of my gamer friends know me IRL.
It's really the best balance.
I'm like the exact opposite - I never tell online-only friends my real name, but all my RL gamer friends know my gamertag and occasionally even use it. Hell, I like it enough that I used it here when I made the leap to Lemmy!
My name is one syllable, so hearing "noobmaster" or whatever to address me instead of my actual name is cringe. I prefer people just call me by my first name