Oh Jilli, I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry, Jilly.

When you named Aeryn, I was thinking to myself that you use fannish names like I use Japanese names.

So do my other friends, you guys might remember Jacob Treebeard. And there's Amelia Eowyn. And others, that I'm not thinking of right now, but I know I have lots of fannish names in my circle.

My brother was named after a sports reporter writing for the Sun-Times back in 1961, just because Mom and her first husband really liked the name "Kip." They thought to make it longer, so they fleshed it out to "Kipley." His middle name was after the husband's favorite uncle Hans, but after Mom divorced him and remarried Dad, when Dad adopted him it was Anglocized to "John."

ETA: About 25 years later, my sister was in a wedding for one of her best high school friends, and the ringbearer's name was also Kip. Turns out, the kid's father had gone to high school at the same time as my brother, and even though they weren't close friends, the guy just really liked my brother's name and decided to name his son after him!

I have no idea where my name came from! Maybe I should investigate that.

Jilli, I'm so sorry. You, your dad, and all who love your mom are in my thoughts.

Our deepest sympathies, Jilli, to you and your dad and to Pete.

My mom wanted something that kind of sounded like Velvet (Brown, of National Champion) that wasn't actually, thank goodness. The middle name is my dad's first, with an e tacked on at the end.

I do have stage name, pen name, and several online pseuds, thanks. No, I'm not sharing, that's why they're pseuds.

I have no fake names lined up. Which is why I just use my own name everywhere. I just registered somewhere with a fake name for the first time!

My first name came from the newspaper. While pregnant with me, Mom saw someone in the Wedding announcements whom she thought was so pretty, and thought that was a good name, Andrea. My middle name is a bit of a family name, insofar as it is the same as one of my aunts' middle names, Lea.

I never settled on an alternate first name (other than the brief period in adolescence in which I wanted to change my name to Andriana). But I have often thought that if I needed an alternate last name, it would McAnally, my paternal grandmother's maiden name.

The short answer is, I was named after my father. I'm a Jr., which was far from unusual for first sons in the early '60s. If I'd been a girl, I'd have been named Elizabeth, but I don't know why.

Not sure how my grandmother came up with Frederick George for my father. But she was quite fond of classical music in her younger days, and there is a composer named George Frederick Handel.