For people who use pseudonyms, would you care to explain why you chose yours?
I use it elsewhere, including sometimes in real life. Here are the general reasons I chose the name:
You don’t want to choose a name that starts with a vowel, because they are hard to understand. For example if I said “I’m Arya,” or “My name’s Arya.” A good percentage of people would confuse where the name actually started and hear “I’m Marya” (Maria) or “My name’s Sarya” (maybe Soraya?). (I learned this the hard way a couple years ago with a different name) So you want your name to either be very common, or to start with a clear consonant.
Having an unusual name allows the person you are talking to to ask you about it. It allows them to start a conversation with you (“Daenerys? That’s an unusual name. Where did you get it?”)
Having a name that is an somewhat-rare reference to something interesting causes people to feel an instantaneous kinship with you if they happen to “get it”. Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked too well for me, as I’ve only met a handful of people IRL who caught the reference when I introduced myself.
As to what the reference is to, it’s to one of my favorite book series; “Game of Thrones” by George RR Martin. I actually like the character Arya better, but I’ve already mentioned why that name won’t work. Daenerys is a bad-a$$ chick with an army and dragons. It works. :)
I use it elsewhere, including sometimes in real life. Here are the general reasons I chose the name:
You don’t want to choose a name that starts with a vowel, because they are hard to understand. For example if I said “I’m Arya,” or “My name’s Arya.” A good percentage of people would confuse where the name actually started and hear “I’m Marya” (Maria) or “My name’s Sarya” (maybe Soraya?). (I learned this the hard way a couple years ago with a different name) So you want your name to either be very common, or to start with a clear consonant.
Having an unusual name allows the person you are talking to to ask you about it. It allows them to start a conversation with you (“Daenerys? That’s an unusual name. Where did you get it?”)
Having a name that is an somewhat-rare reference to something interesting causes people to feel an instantaneous kinship with you if they happen to “get it”. Unfortunately, this hasn’t worked too well for me, as I’ve only met a handful of people IRL who caught the reference when I introduced myself.
As to what the reference is to, it’s to one of my favorite book series; “Game of Thrones” by George RR Martin. I actually like the character Arya better, but I’ve already mentioned why that name won’t work. Daenerys is a bad-a$$ chick with an army and dragons. It works. :)
Unfortunately, it makes you essentially impossible to google. (It may also be a feature, of course.)
Alicorn and I were both immediately inclined to like you when you started commenting, due to the name =)