Cooler Nicknames

Much to my continual amusement and wonder, one of the most enduringly popular TealArt entries is Cool Nicknames, which I wrote when I stopped blogging as RealName, and started using tycho. Clearly people are in search of cool nicknames, and they stumble on the page from google, and frankly, while I would always welcome more readers of this site, that’s probably the one entry that I would be perfectly happy if no one ever read again, but here I am linking to it, so go figure.

Anyway, once upon a time, I was a huge fan of blogging under my real name, but more recently, I’ve started to feel like I want to have more control over that name, and I guess I didn’t want a casual connection between my endeavors in science fiction and any academic work that I might end up doing in the future. Also, as a student of identity, I think the pen names and assumed names are really fascinating, and something that should be played with.

And so, I have, in some circumstances, become tycho. While I quite like being the blogger known as “tycho,” I’m a little unsatified with this for a couple of reasons:

1. I have a connection with my old name on these sites which isn’t really going to be removed, and there are a couple of online forms that for one reason or another, I still go by my given name it.
2. tycho, until now, hasn’t had a surname, which, and we can’t all be prince.
3. Connections between TealArt/tychoish, and published work related to TA/TY content. While clearly I have yet to decide anything, I’ve toyed with the idea of putting together some of my work (knitting and science fiction) in book form, and I’m unsure what the best way to credit this would be. I think tycho is perfect for the science fiction, but I think knitting might go best under my real name, but I’m not sure, it’s something to think about.

Anyway, on the surname question, I’ve thought of adding a number of things: family names that are in danger of dying out, parts of my real name, initials, so forth. I wanted something that was meaningful, but that also sounded good, something that was uncommon but not unheard of or hard to pronounce by english speakers, and something that had a little jewish tinge to it. The name tycho, comes from an old obsession, but also from a character that I was quite fond of in my first very unpublished¹ novel, named “Tycho Morgan,” I liked that but, didn’t want to take that name, and it wasn’t right. After some pondering, I’ve gone back to the names that I use in that book, and I think I’ve decided on “garren²” as a good surname. “tycho garren” looks good, it works in the vague way that jews name after people, and it marks a connection to a project that means something to me.

tycho garren³. I like it.

cheers, tycho

ps. sorry, I don’t have a list of cool nicknames for you. I hope you enjoy the site though.