More than gender-neutral - from my 2004 Trail Journal at Roaring Springs Shelter: " ...I made it before 6 and shared the site with Louise a SOBO guy (that’s right a guy, his hiking partner was a guy named Thelma who dropped off so now it’s just Louise)..."
From my 2005 trail journal on a winter section hike in SW Virginia: "... we were joined by another shelter mate.. Stavros (real name, not Trail name)..." I told him he had a built-in trail name.
I actually have a few names people call me. Just depends how they know me. When people really started using forums and deciding, for whatever reason, to NOT use their real names, I would pick a name that might be related to that hobby or group of people. I have people who call me Penny. Others call me Fannie. A select few call me Fran. I used to have a login name of Katchem on a few forums. Then there's the trail where I am One Half. And even now some social media feeds I use One Half. Of course, people who knew me when I was growing up - family and friends - call me something else. And then people I meet in person, as an adult, have another name for me - just the more adult version of the diminutive family called me when I was a child. But all these names kind of "sort" my acquaintances and if you are around me long enough, you will be able to sort people I know based on how they refer to me. I kind of like it. I'm not a "static" person. Why should my name be static?
https://tinyurl.com/MyFDresults
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White
"Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
Sleepin by the river just like he usually done
Call for his whisky
He can call for his tea
Call all he wanta but he can't call me..."
Robert Hunter & Ron McKernan
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I suspect some of my posts would be interpreted/understood far differently if they were made with a cool trail name, rather than RickB.
When people mind read, every detail matters.
A good name name is more than just a detail
RickB — Who would consider using the moniker “Mother of all Chickens” moving forward, as I adopted 6 pullets earlier in the summer.
Pretty cool name, right?
For me, trail-names are (mostly) an artificial contrivance - as if somehow life on the trail is different from the rest of one's life and therefore requires a different name.
Is it really that much different than having a nickname...or many nicknames?
My given name doesn't fit me nearly as well as the nicknames friends and family have created for me. One is just a shortening of my given name. The other nicknames are either associated with fun memories, or a combination they have created involving my nickname.
Being called by a nickname is not too much different than having a trail name, with no intention of trying to separate any part of my life (on trail, at work, with friends, etc). Sometimes a renaming just happens in the most natural of ways.
I mean, even my dogs have multiple nicknames and they are the same dog underneath it all.
Call me anything except late for dinner!
[QUOTE=Cookerhiker;2274068]More than gender-neutral - from my 2004 Trail Journal at Roaring Springs Shelter: " ...I made it before 6 and shared the site with Louise a SOBO guy (that’s right a guy, his hiking partner was a guy named Thelma who dropped off so now it’s just Louise)..."
And I met "Valley Girl" on a couple of trails in the 2000s. Great guy.
"Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning