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People with real l337 speak names? 1441

An anonymous reader writes "I'm considering naming my first-born child either Br4d or J4n37, depending on gender. My wife isn't too keen on the idea but there's plenty of time left to persuade her. Anyway, it had me wondering whether there are any people out there with real l337 speak given names (or even just a digit in their name). Do you know of any? Other than people saying your dad is a l4m3r, What are the possible pitfalls of having a digit in your name? Is it legal to have a digit in a name? Am I guaranteeing my child becomes a misfit? Am I the misfit?" Ask Jennifer 8. Lee.
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People with real l337 speak names?

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  • by dcocos ( 128532 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:36PM (#8738312)
    My first CS TA in college's first name was 'H' he said that it had caused him a lot of problems. In fact I just searched for him on Google and http://www.cs.pitt.edu/%7Ehcl/me/name.html this page explains it.
  • by Chief Technovelgist ( 759322 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:36PM (#8738314)
    In 1974, sf author Alfred Bester wrote The Computer Connection. One of the characters was Fee-5 Grauman's Chinese. The "5" was because she was born in the fifth row.

    Any earlier reference to a number in a name in fiction? Not just the idea that your name could be replaced with a number, but a number in a name.

  • You can call me: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mateito ( 746185 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:36PM (#8738320) Homepage
    Feel free to call me HotLuv4U.

    But serisously f0lks:

    There was a US couple who decided to version number their children. [theregister.co.uk] I'm suprised that his wife actually agreed to it.

  • Don't (Score:3, Interesting)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:37PM (#8738344) Homepage
    People judge you on your name.

    I know from personal experience.I have a strange name..Aram, Simple but different. . I've had a few people tell me what they were expecting from name someone "with a turban". Or my last name Com jean which some people think as french "you don't speak french???". I'm just a caucasion with some armenian mixed in.

    My name I like, but I'm often pre judged on it. I can't imagine what Dweezle Zappa would go through if his father wasn't so famous.
  • My Grandpa is 1337! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:45PM (#8738481) Homepage Journal
    The search on "Jennifer 8. Lee" brought back an interesting blog comment [norlos.com]: If it's simply the number eight, why does it have a period after it?

    My grandfather's name is A C (let's call him Jonesmith for privacy). When he married my grandmother (first grandpa died before I was born), I thought his name was "Acee", like the local milk company [cgi.ebay.ca]. But his first name is "A", and his middle name is "C". And his full name is A C Jonesmith, not A. C. Jonesmith.

    So the blogger is right -- if her middle name is "8", it should be "Jennifer 8 Lee", no period.

    And my grandpa was 1337 before 1337 was invented.
  • Re:Ry4an (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zsazsa ( 141679 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:53PM (#8738630) Homepage
    I remember a Ry4an Brase on St. Louis BBSes (like the BS Box). There can't be more than one Ry4an out there... is that you?
  • by Qeygh ( 463357 ) * <craiga@eudAAAyptes.com minus threevowels> on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:54PM (#8738666) Homepage Journal
    I fight a continuing problem with name pattern nazis. I go by my second of four names so (with initials) my name would be written "R. Craig T. Altenburg". Way too many forms and computer programs tend to expect only names in the "First Name -- Middle Initial -- Last Name" pattern. I get somewhat upset when others try to mangle my name to fit.

    My rule is that others can use my full name without any initials; they can use the form shown above; or they can use simply "Craig Altenburg". I tend to use the latter.

    I had given (passing) thought to giving one of my kids "7" as a middle initial. If you say it as part of a full name it does not sound too obnoxious but, it would cause grief with some (in may opinion) brain damaged programs.

    When I code programs that require users to enter a name, I prefer asking for "Family Name" and "Given Names". Where either field can contain whatever characters the users wish to enter.
  • Must clarify... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:57PM (#8738698)
    Okay, I just want to set the record straight on this story since it's actually on-topic for once. I know Jenny Lee. We went to the same college, she was class of '99 and I was class of '00 (yes, you can easily figure out where that is if you want).


    She uses the number "8" in her byline, a clever device she came up with to differentiate herself from the hordes of other Asian girls named "Jennifer Lee". In fact, I believe there was actually another Jennifer Lee at her high school (Stuyvesant, in NYC, if I remember correctly) that wrote for the paper and she wanted to differentiate herself.


    Lots of people have made up stories about the origins of "that wacky NY Times writer's middle initial", that her parents gave her the middle intial "8" because it's a lucky number in China or some such thing. These stories were either made up by silly people or things she once told at a party after a few beers just to see if people would actually believe them, and they have propagated over the Internet (because when you are a Circuits writer, you get geek-fans). The 8 is a creation of her own. Why 8 rather than 9 or 10? I believe because she thought it sounded cool, though the number may have some other personal significance.


    So these days she may actually tell people her name is Jennifer 8. Lee because that's her byline and it's become associated with her. But it certainly wasn't her given name by her parents, and to the best of my knowledge she has never gone and changed her legal name or anything of that sort.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @01:57PM (#8738702) Homepage
    This guy [slashdot.org] changed his name to Tronster in homage to the movie Tron [imdb.com] and so that it would match his old BBS handle. Yes, his name is actually now Tronster [tronster.com]. Okay, maybe it isn't as l337 as 7r0n513r, but still.

    Oh, and it doesn't matter because the US doesn't allow numbers in names [soyouwanna.com]

  • Re:sending e-mail (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JohnGrahamCumming ( 684871 ) * <slashdot@jgc.oERDOSrg minus math_god> on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:03PM (#8738792) Homepage Journal
    Who knows, but I can't get a Hotmail account using my real name, but I did manage to register one in the name Ivana Watch-Teens-Give-Head (story [usethesource.com]).

    John.
  • Max Barry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:09PM (#8738925) Journal
    Max Barry's novel "Syrup" has a main character named "6". She was born as "0", with a number added on each of her birthdays. Her parents died in an airplane accident when she was 6, hence...

    (It's a GREAT book, by the way. :) )

    Triv

  • Re:Don't do it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by billmaly ( 212308 ) <bill.maly@NosPaM.mcleodusa.net> on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:13PM (#8738980)
    I'm not ripping on the name Jan, no matter the culture it originates from. Here in the midwestern United States, in the 1950's, boys names Jan were ridiculed for having a girl's name (Jan being the shortened version of Janice). All through grade school, he was assigned to the girls side of things and caught a lot of flak for it. It really weighed heavily on him for the rest of his life. Believe it or not, a lot of folks around here were not too appreciative of someone with what was perceived as a foreign name. That's not right to be sure, but that's what happened.
  • by Wun Hung Lo ( 702718 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:15PM (#8739011)
    In his novel "The Demolished Man", some of the characters (mostly the telepaths) had names that would now be considered internet slang names...Samuel @kins and someone else who last name was Wyg&, just to name a couple. But he was always ahead of his time. Maybe it was it just me, but I saw some of his influence in Stephenson's "Snow Crash". Hiro Protagonist has got to be the best name for a main character ever...!
  • Re:Ry4an (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:20PM (#8739099) Journal
    well, wtf was the goal then?
  • Re:Ry4an (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ry4an ( 1568 ) <ry4an-slashdot@ry[ ].org ['4an' in gap]> on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:21PM (#8739106) Homepage
    Yup that was me. Ran a board called The Zoo and dialed into BSBox, Pinball Palace, and a few others.
  • anonymity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:21PM (#8739117) Homepage
    it's true. I have an uncommon enough name that when I do a google on my name in quotes, over half the results are actually about me. This has good and bad sides. For one thing, anyone who knows my name can find out a fair bit about me pretty fast. Fortunately nothing bad about me is really on the net, but who knows if it will stay that way.

    On the other hand, I have a friend named John Smith who was arrested on pretty serious drug charges but managed to get off without a jail sentence. There are half a dozen articles on the internet that mention his name in this regard, but type John Smith into google and they're nowhere in the first thousand results.
  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:24PM (#8739169)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:29PM (#8739231)
    A friend of my sister had twins and (no joke) named them Orangello and Lemongello (Orange jello and Lemon jello, get it?). They are of school age now, and their names are practially urban legends, but as far as I've heard havent had any problems because of their names.
  • It's Illegal (Score:2, Interesting)

    by md27 ( 463785 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @02:32PM (#8739267) Homepage
    I'm pretty sure that, in New Jersey at least, you can't have profanity or digits in your legal name. Now teaching your kid to spell their name that way would be a completely different story...
  • by sharkdba ( 625280 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @03:10PM (#8739727) Journal
    Don't do it, dude. Your kids will have enough reasons to hate you without giving them stupid names.

    Not necessary. In this more globalized world, and specially immigrant heavy US, there's so many unusual names, that people have stopped to raise their eyebrows for any new encountered name.

    Names with digits in them will be somewhat exotic at first, but then after a while they will simply give a statement: "your parents (or grandparents or some other relatives) are/were geeks, right?"
  • Mod Parent Up! Re:oy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by J05H ( 5625 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @03:15PM (#8739775)
    Yes! Mod the parent up! He is very right!

    Embrace the persona of "DAD". I wish my parents had...

    J05H
  • by macmastery ( 600662 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @03:17PM (#8739818) Homepage Journal
    A famous Texan Ima Hogg [famoustexans.com]. No foolin'.
  • by IncohereD ( 513627 ) <mmacleod@ieeeEULER.org minus math_god> on Thursday April 01, 2004 @03:37PM (#8740071) Homepage
    I know a guy whose last name is "Vanden Hoven", with a space. His department of electronics account (FirstnameLastname) at university would never work, so he'd always have to use his partner's.

    Personally I have an uppercase in the middle of my last name, MacLeod, and that often gets filtered to lowercase, especially if an entry form is ALL CAPS and there's no real way to represent it.
  • by StrongAxe ( 713301 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @04:02PM (#8740333)
    In Alfred Bester's novel The Stars, My Destination, there was a colony in which everyone used special symbols in their names to represent groups of letters, such as $ (Buck), S&4d, Br+, Gr/, N8, <ter, C>, W@son, _bara, etc.
  • Re:That's nothing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by claes ( 25551 ) on Thursday April 01, 2004 @06:42PM (#8742051)
    In Sweden, Jerker is actually a pretty common name. You don't believe me? Look here [eniro.se]

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