Say My Name

Screwing with the naming convention has a lot more impact than I think the folks at the Lab realize. My picture today sort of illustrates that we residents have been expressing creativity with our names, group tags, titles, etc. already. We don't need a new naming system to do that. (You can get your own customizable "Hello, my name is..." sticker for $1L on XStreetSL. Copy version  Transfer version )

Here is the blog post that explains the new soon to be rolled out function called Display Names. In addition, new players will be able to choose their own name rather than selecting it from a list of available names - since for some unknown reason some of the Labbies think that scares off new players. The naming convention change takes something away from the rich SL culture.

The naming convention was put into place originally in order to help foster a sense of community. There was always a small group of people who joined SL at roughly the same time as you with whom you shared a name. There was an odd sense of family with those folks. I know I get all excited and try to say hi to any of the rare Thornes I see while out and about. My husband's "family" even had Darwin Clan meetings for a while!

I loved that there are historic names. The system of retiring names lent a sense of history to the place. You know how when you hear certain last names you know that person was a pioneer, etc? That was unique about SL.

I sincerely doubt that choosing a last name from a list drives people to never sign up for SL. What I think the Lab is seeing is people who hear about a cool new last name and try to get it to make an alt. If you don't get the last name you like in the list when you sign up, you can abandon that try and start over and get a new mix of names to choose from. I know this since I tried unsuccessfully to make an alt once when the last name Blogger was available. I must have abandoned the process a dozen times and the name never came up for me.

Dear LL - Please fix the things that are broken (Premium benefits, customer service, search, TPs group chat, group limits, etc.) and stop wasting resources on frivolous things. We do not need a change in the naming conventions.  It doesn't mean poop if you have a nice display name when you crash every time you try to TP. Fixing what is broken will keep new players.

Luv, 

Tymmerie Thorne