I’m all for names with some weight on them, but give the kid a normal name and just tell people, “We call him Kicker.” Let the kid make up the story for why. Everywhere has a little line for ‘prefers to go by’ now, and you can avoid the problems (and don’t try to say there aren’t any) associated with names that don’t fit the average idea of normal.
We had a discussion of employee email address formatting and how to handle collisions in a workplace that hires many, many immigrants. One idea that came to my mind (but wasn’t voiced for obvious scope/feasibility concerns) is to do firstname+nickname+lastname so John.Brickman.Smith@contoso.com displayed as John "Brickman" Smith then during the onboarding process users can select from a list of approved and not-yet-assigned nicknames (I imagine a webpage with a search bar and a “regenerate” button then it shows a list of 10 or 20 nicknames they can select from) and pick something that they like and thinks fits them. It would add some whimsy and worker empowerment but also still prevents interesting situations like someone selecting an inappropriate nickname
I’m all for names with some weight on them, but give the kid a normal name and just tell people, “We call him Kicker.” Let the kid make up the story for why. Everywhere has a little line for ‘prefers to go by’ now, and you can avoid the problems (and don’t try to say there aren’t any) associated with names that don’t fit the average idea of normal.
We had a discussion of employee email address formatting and how to handle collisions in a workplace that hires many, many immigrants. One idea that came to my mind (but wasn’t voiced for obvious scope/feasibility concerns) is to do firstname+nickname+lastname so John.Brickman.Smith@contoso.com displayed as
John "Brickman" Smiththen during the onboarding process users can select from a list of approved and not-yet-assigned nicknames (I imagine a webpage with a search bar and a “regenerate” button then it shows a list of 10 or 20 nicknames they can select from) and pick something that they like and thinks fits them. It would add some whimsy and worker empowerment but also still prevents interesting situations like someone selecting an inappropriate nickname