Your Facebook Name- Your Virtual Tattoo

Once you pick a name, it's yours to keep.

Facebook has unveiled it's new vanity ID plate package, that anyone with a Facebook page can be a name and instead of a number from now on.

Once you get a name, they are not transferable. You will be that name forever.

As someone without a tattoo for the exact same reason as I worry about my Facebook name, is --I change my mind-- a lot.

Right now, if I would have be been brave enough to get the tattoo I wanted in high school, I would have a pink flamingo standing next a giant surf board up my ankles.
Think Johnny Depp's "Winona Forever."

Women who have taken their husband's name (and I fall into this category) have it harder. We cannot see what the future holds. I know many people who thought they'd be married forever or they thought their husband would never die and then they find themselves at a different point in their life remarrying and having a new name, or going back to their maiden name. Do you want to see your ex or dead husband's last name every time you sign or link your Facebook page. You'd have to say, "You can find me under Carol Dierfildorf even though I'm now Carol LeBlanc because that was my first husband..."

If you have a common name, good luck. I hope you get something reasonable close to your name without having to add a bunch of numbers after it: www.facebook/johnsmith148093 If you have to do something like that, you might as well come up with something creative like:

john.of.a.million
johnofmany
oneofmany
commonnamejohn
johnjohnjohn



My husband and I have talked about getting wedding band tattoos because wearing a wedding ring at his firefighting job is dangerous and well, honestly, I don't like to wear jewelry and mostly my wedding band is in a drawer. He has twice had his finger swell around it, dented it, and once got it caught in the hose. I do not want my husband's proof that 16 years ago he wore a tux (& me, a brocade dress that made me look as if I was a extra for Gone With the Wind) to hurt him, so we've thought about it.

I said, "Well, I could get "Rose" (his nickname) and then if we ever get divorced, I could get a "P" tattooed before it, so I'd be married to 'Prose.'" Problem solved. Sort of like how Pamela Anderson turned her "Tommy" tattoo into "Mommy."

Or is the problem solved? Am I too much of an unromantic and pessimistic to be thinking, "how naive am I to think I could have the same last name in 20 years..." Or am I being a realist by giving advice to married women with their husband's last name to be thinking-- maybe just use your first and middle name.

And while I don't plan on having my marriage breaking up (does anyone plan on their marriage breaking up), I am no psychic and who knows if in twenty years I'll be cursing my choices as a 40 year old.

Mostly, I already feel sorry for the younger generation who will choose names like "JonasBrothersForever" and "ZacEfronIsHot"

Or the ones whose first and last names don't look so great together-- Like poor Jonas Hitting (www.facebook.com/jonashitting) or Milo Serville (www.facebook.com/miloserville) I mean, who wants "loserville" in their name.

So maybe, make a list of your top 10 names or nicknames.

Here are some fallback names in case yours is taken (feel free to use at your leisure):

www.facebook.com/12345

www.facebook.com/2cute2B4gotten

www.facebook.com/couldntdecide

www.facebook.com/snugglebunny

www.facebook.com/askmeaboutmyissues

www.facebook.com/mynamehere

www.facebook.com/ZZZZZ

www.facebook.com/grandpoobah

www.facebook.com/thissucks


I definitely do not want to be 60 and cursing the fact that I chose:
www.facebook.com/kellilovespinkflamingosandsurfboards or www.facebook.com/sulkygirl (reference to an Elvis Costello song for anyone who missed it...)

But I also don't want to believe that who I am now will be so different.

We'll see what we each get.

And I'm open for any of your ideas. Are you going to use your real name, first/middle name, or a nickname? And again, I'd love to hear any good ideas...


And I hope I will be like the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and be able to say when I visit your Facebook page, "You have chosen wisely."


And I hope you'll be able to say the same when you visit mine.

kelligolightly...


*