mononymous

[Victor Steinbok]

WordSpy seems to be tracking "mononymous" but only has one quote for it.
The general association is with Brazilian and Iberian soccer players who
use only one name--often a nickname, like Pele--as the identifying
marker. FIFA specifically allows such labeling on jerseys if the name is
well established. Everyone else gets their last name emblazoned on the
shirt instead. Such names also exist in basketball and likely some other
sports.

Of course, single nicknames are in frequent use in art (particularly
"street art") and music circles as well, not to mention political
activism. The latter may have more to do with the history of spying, but
that's beside the point. On-line activism made this practice much more
attractive. I just came across a post where the two worlds collide.

http://goo.gl/7ibA4
> About a week ago, a group of Tumblr users, led by Raven, a mononymous
> Chicago-based progressive activist, began to tweet taunts, insults,
> and other expressions of outrage at Ryking, whose selections of
> political material on the service earned him the status of “tag
> editor” on the blogging service.
> Raven claimed that the “trolling,” as she described it, was in
> retaliation for comments Ryking made on Tumblr in support of TJ “The
> Amazing Atheist” Kincaid.

[Bonus alternative use of "trolling" included]

OED has no entry. None of the OneLook dictionary list it either--the
only link is to WordSpy.

VS-)

PS: I always wonder if BZ has already posted on new words like this at
some point in the past, so I'll just admit upfront that I have not
checked. And the word may not be particularly new either.

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