t honestly never occurred to me to be called anything but "aaron" online.

I had already been "aaron" since the early eighties on work systems and dialups that didn't assign gibberish ID's.

Strangely enough, I've never had to have a login other than "aaron" on any system of any sort. I was aaron@b, aaron@cse, aaron@alumni, and aaron on every company's system on which I've ever had an account.

During the time I was at UCSC, I thought there was some sort of significance to being willing to "sign my name" to everything I did, but now that significance escapes me.

I used to be able to get "aaron" at pretty much any online service, but that all changed a few years back, of course.