Yes, identity theft is a paramount concern. It's not much of a concern of mine, because unless you have my personal ID number, address, and mother's maiden name, you're not getting anywhere. Finding my name is not hard either.
One of my reasons for using a nickname is because most email services, forums, etc don't exactly let you register with your full name (On UF, my name would probably fill a good three or four lines in the username column) -- a nickname is an easy way of shortening that. I continue using it because more people are likely to shout 'krikkert' at me across the street than 'Christer'.
A second reason is: Many people can have the same first name. Nicknames are reasonably unique. |
