But wait, you say … doesn’t this “Vera” look an awful lot like your existing child? The one who is definitely not named Vera?
Yeah, about that….
When I first started to blog about the baby, I worried for one nanosecond about the privacy issues of using her real name on this blog. I don’t generally get worked up about slight First World dangers, and it’s not like this blog has a zillion readers. But as time passes, I’m discovering more and more that online content lives forever. Luckily it’s tremendously hard to Google anyone with an Asian last name, but I don’t want to doom our girl to future embarrassment based on Mama’s blog.
I kind of hate it when blogs use nicknames instead of names (“Mr. T” is entirely a Weddingbee-based habit), so a pseudonym it is. Of course my immediate thought was to re-name her something that I considered but couldn’t use in real life. And that means “Vera.”
Vera has the old-time-but-modern vibe that’s popular these days, is easy to spell and pronounce, is an in-joke for Firefly fans, and calls to mind one of my favorite 30-something actresses, Vera Farmiga. Better still, the reason we couldn’t use it in real life makes it perfect for the Internet — hey future stalkers, good luck Googling “Vera Wang.”
(Plus, the word nerd in me loves choosing a fake name that means “truth” in Latin.)
In theory I’ll go back and change her name in older posts, but in practice I rarely finish non-essentials like that. Sorry if the changeover is extra-confusing for a while!
Other bloggers, do you use real names on your blog? If you have children, or might someday, would you use your child’s real name?
She is such a doll! I love her sweet jacket
And very clever on the whole “Vera Wang” pseudonym!
Thanks! I’m crazy about the jacket as well — so crazy I’ve bought it in increasingly larger sizes as she grows. Thank heavens for Old Navy (the maker) and Ebay (my supplier)!
First of all, she’s ADORABLE. Second, it’s too bad you couldn’t use Vera in real life. I think it is a really cute name and kinda looks like it suits her. But I’m sure her real name is perfect too. Third, I don’t like blog nicknames either. I use real names for my husband and my baby, with the exception of “Cubbie” and other shorts we use for the baby in real life. I suppose that might open us up to stalkers, but our last name is very unique so you could probably track us down even if our first names were changed. O-well!