Description: Real Names Online: How You're Identified, and Why It Matters.
When joining new online social communities, the default to sign up frequently requires a real name as the cost of entry. If there is a case for enforcing the concept of real names, we should start by examining what real names actually are. They vary widely from culture to culture in meaning, history, length, and order, and continue to be highly susceptible to change, differentiation, and permutation, accommodating for nicknames, marital names, and changed spelling.
My father didn’t know his real name. My father got his name from his grandfather and he got his name from his grandfather and he got it from the slave master.
If a name were synonymous with identity, then the common practice of changing one’s name would be viewed as committing fraud.