What’s in a Name*

For a while now, I’ve been suffering from a split identity. When I first started blogging, I adopted the name ‘Disgruntled’. This suited my blog, and to a lesser extent my state of mind, at least during the commuting hours. Over the years, it became less relevant, partly because I grew more contented (and may I say just how much not using the North London Line any more contributed to that) and partly because the word itself seemed to take on different connotations. By ‘disgruntled’ I suppose I had in mind a milder state of disgruntlement, the sort of harrumphing truculence that causes one to fire off letters to the editor, or roll one’s eyes, or mutter audibly beneath one’s breath. But recently I heard a radio article about ‘disgruntled muslims’ turning to suicide bombs. Disgruntled? Surely there was something stronger at work there than mere disgruntlement? But the English language is an elastic thing, and neither interpretation could be said to be exactly wrong.

But there I was, going about the inter-world, innocently commenting on bikes, or pigs, or sunsest, with a name that implied I was one step away from strapping on a belt of explosives. No wonder people sometimes took my remarks the wrong way. Once I started with this blog, I toyed with posting under different names – town mouse, for instance, or city exile. But there’s something a little twee about anything with the word ‘mouse’ in it, and ‘exile’ implied my sojourn here was an unwilling one. And besides, so many people already knew me as disgruntled, not just in blogs but on flickr, on forums and the like. It seemed a little odd to suddenly turn around and call myself something different.

Now I’m sort of half and half. Where I’ve regularly commented in the past, or on WordPress blogs (where I’m logged in and can’t change it), I’m still disgruntled. Other blogs I’m experimenting with ‘town mouse’ again, although I’m still not entirely convinced. Tell me, o readers, what should I do? How should I style myself? What do you do?

*post title and topic shamelessly borrowed from Flaneur ‘don’t call me Brian‘ Brian