Nahua Net Names

[XocoyoCopitzin at aol.com]

Even though I didn't originate the question, thank you Frances for clarifying
re: -tzin.  :-) These are precisely the kind of fact-a-day posts that I enjoy
receiveing from the list.

karttu at nantucket.net writes:
<< The big prohibition is using the honorific in reference to oneself.
Yaoxochitl should never refer to himself as Yaoxochitzin.
Adding a -tzin to one's own name is a gaffe that will usually provoke a lot
of laughter and teasing. >>

I of course realize that this statement is not directed specifically to me,
but it does bring up something I've been thinking about for a while as I
study the issues of identity on the Internet, which often includes the act of
self-naming.

My AOL Screen Name is not a Nahuatl name I have taken for myself as a person,
nor do I expect to be addressed by it.  I don't sign my posts to this
listserv using it, but am often referred to as "Xocoyo" or "Copitzin" in
other non-nahuatl venues where I desire a modicum of anonymity.  Because of
the sophisticated nature of the work we do together in those forums, not a
one of the participants confuses me with the nature of the screen name.

Here on Nahuat-l, should you ever need to quote me, I'd rather you just call
me Alison King.  :-)  I wouldn't presume to take a Nahua name for my own
unless I had a legitimate reason to.  Xocoyocopitzin is, however, the name
for a storybook character I'm currently researching and writing about, and
since much of the book's conversation happens between Xocoyocopitzin and her
revered elder, the -tzin was important for me to include in the Screen Name.
I employ the -tzin in a fond, diminiutive sense.  Who knows, maybe I even got
some part of the name wrong in my haste to get started on the project before
resubscribing here.  I guess now would be a good time to find out if I'm in
error.  :-)

Of course, you wouldn't know a shred of this reasoning unless I'd shared
today.  I bring it up because I think its important to realize that folks
using Nahuatl names on the internet may be doing so for an increasingly wide
variety of reasons, some of which have to do with Real Life identity (ala
Mexica Movement), and others for more conceptual reasons (poetic license), or
in my case, arts & entertainment purposes in a ficitonwriting club.

As the Age of the Internet swells into a sizeably legitimate form of
worldwide cultural revolution, the integration of Nahua words and principles
into Net culture is going to be an inevitable fact.  (A quick search of the
AOL Screen Name database shows quite a few.... creative.... uses of the term
"coatl", "yaotl", "Tezcatlipoca" and "quetzal") We're bound to see increased
use and abuse of the language as the Net is cast wider.  I'm sure a good
number of us are familiar with the dangers of "playing indian" (let's let
that beaten horse lie), and the Internet makes that even more tempting to do
on all sorts of levels, largely because of the anonymity that the medium
affords.

Interesting times, indeed.

For those of you who have taken Nahua Net Names (whether of Mexican descent
or not), I'd be interested to hear the reasons why, how you use your name,
whether it was self-conceived or given to you, how others perceive and use it
on the Net, the process you may have gone through to choose a Nahua Net name
for yourself, and perhaps what it means to you to bear a Nahua Net name in
this small, small world.


Alison King