Seriously. What's Your First Name?

[Merneith]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Many of us are pretty free with life and employment and family details, but there is still a level of masking because we all know 62.5% of Dopers are murderous stalkers, as are 99.9% of Google users. Repeated requests for these deeper, guarded, and more narrowly identifying data concern me.

Just sayin’.

• — Nunny*

My name’s Meghan. I’ve never made any real secret about it because I’ve never been under the impression that I was anonymous on the internet. Maintaining a false identity takes work. If someone knows your life and employment and family details, your name is trivial.

[Brynhildr_Budladottir]

@Amateur_Barbarian

I don’t mean to TS here, but is anyone else uncomfortable with these threads that ask for a piece of personal information most of us would otherwise guard from public posts?

No, telling us your first name is pretty harmless. But about once a week a thread wants to know some other fun personal fact - what city were you born in? what’s the name of your street? How many kids do you have? - etc. Since all of these answers become a permanent part of the googleverse, anyone from the OPs to a random Doper to anyone with a browser can assemble a pretty clear portrait of those who respond, even make a positive ID, which (as some of the responses in this thread indicate to me) is not wanted.

Many of us are pretty free with life and employment and family details, but there is still a level of masking because we all know** 62.5% of Dopers are murderous stalkers**, as are 99.9% of Google users. Repeated requests for these deeper, guarded, and more narrowly identifying data concern me.

Just sayin’.

• — Nunny*

LOL. But I get your point.

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

@Amateur_Barbarian

I don’t mean to TS here, but is anyone else uncomfortable with these threads that ask for a piece of personal information most of us would otherwise guard from public posts?. . . .

No, I’m not uncomfortable with threads that ask for personal info. If I’m not interested in responding, I don’t. [Somewhat ironic post coming from you, of all people.]

–Signed, “Son of the Right (Hand)”

[a35362]

April.

[Tethered_Kite]

Call me “Anything But Late to Dinner.”

[dwyr]

Leslie

[Spiderman]

@Chefguy

Eye-gore

But they told me it was “ee-gor.”
Peter P.

[Napier]

Unusual and unknown. Let’s keep it that way.

I’m already a bit irked that my name and some details about my work life are out on the Net along with my home address, for other reasons nobody thought were important way back when.

[Katriona]

Wendy

[Nobody]

@Napier

Unusual and unknown. Let’s keep it that way.

I’m already a bit irked that my name and some details about my work life are out on the Net along with my home address, for other reasons nobody thought were important way back when.

That’s ridiculous. I’ll mail you a letter explaining why.

[Steken]

Peter.

[dougie_monty]

@Spiderman

But they told me it was “ee-gor.”
Peter P.

That’s FRON-KON-STEEN!!

Frau Blucher

[Greg_Charles]

Gregory. I use Greg here to protect my anonymity.

@susan

Raymond, but it’s pronounced “Throatwarbler.”

Nitpick: Throatwobbler.

(Pedant is my middle name.)

[engineer_comp_geek]

@dougie_monty

Frau Blucher

(horses neigh)

[Ulfreida]

Ulf

[AnalogSignal]

@bldysabba

You may be kidding, but it is(or was, may not be so anymore) a reasonably common Bengali first name. I’m not Bengali, but the internet says it means ‘Fire’. It’s pronounced Onol.

It was a dumb joke based on my username.

[Locrian]

Peter. Nice to meet ya.

[buddha_david]

Can’t tell you. It’s top secret.

[Nobody]

That is so Zen.

[Little_Nemo]

@Amateur_Barbarian

I don’t mean to TS here, but is anyone else uncomfortable with these threads that ask for a piece of personal information most of us would otherwise guard from public posts?

No, telling us your first name is pretty harmless. But about once a week a thread wants to know some other fun personal fact - what city were you born in? what’s the name of your street? How many kids do you have? - etc. Since all of these answers become a permanent part of the googleverse, anyone from the OPs to a random Doper to anyone with a browser can assemble a pretty clear portrait of those who respond, even make a positive ID, which (as some of the responses in this thread indicate to me) is not wanted.

I agree. You see people playing these seemingly harmless games like “What’s your porn name? Use your pet’s name and the street you live on.” Then you start considering how many people use stuff like this as passwords.

My name isn’t a secret and anyone who really wants to know it could find out. Same with a lot of my other personal information. But I prefer not to just throw it out there.