> I am not saying that people with
> nicknames different from their given names
> aren't themselves-just saying that's how it
> works for me. When I've tried to interact with
> people under another name, I've had to build
> personality from the ground up, and have
> difficulty acting like myself.
>
> Curious, does anyone else indentify so
> strongly with their name/nick?
>
> Tess

I came by mine when I was trying to get a hotmail email account, and everything I could think up was already taken unless I was willing to insert some squiggly characters that really meant nothing to me. So I ended up with this, a combination of my birthday and a book I loved at the time. (Fortunately, I do still enjoy and reread the book.)
I've *always* been one of at least two Joannas in my grade/group of friends, so I've gotten used to responding to Jo, to the point where, if I hear someone say Joanna, I no longer respond. I instinctively assume it's for someone else. Which is kind of odd, complete disassociation from my own name.
Maybe because of this, I've always been the kind of person who seems to accumulate nicknames. (jojo, JL, Banana [It's just great when my dad introduces me that way...], Mazer [it leaked into my life], Hootie, and a couple more, including a slightly un-pc rhyme.) But because each is based on a different aspect of my personality and/or used by a different set of people, I do act differently as each. I'm not sure how much of this is based on the name, and how much on the people I'm with at the time, or, whether I would act differently if my friends started calling me banana. While I accept it from my father, I'm not sure that they'd be able to get away with it.
I've applied to be a Soph in September, one of the people who runs the orientation week activities and helps get the frosh settled. And everyone goes by a Soph name, part of the idea is that the frosh aren't supposed to know your real name until the end of the week. Although most of the names are based on one random incident from during training, they usually end up sticking for the rest of the year (or beyond). Everyone acts differently as a Soph, we're a massive group of people running on literally no sleep and candy necklaces, hyped up to a point where we break into cheers every 5 seconds. So the character that people will associate my Soph name with really won't represent me at all. But some of my frosh are always going to know me that way and call me by that name, which to me will represent a distinct era of my life. I think that might be odd, and of course, it depends on the name they come up with (I've always liked the idea of a bunch of people calling me 'supreme dictator' but I hear that's taken...plus, it wouldn't fit on the shirt).
It's just odd for me to think that I will be known by this name which I don't think will be representative of the real me. Although I'm not sure of how much I would say any of my names fits my personality.

Whoa, rambly much? I'll stop now.

Maz"People usually end up with Jo cause it's easiest. Which I don't mind, cause then I get to one-syllabalize their names"er31