Chris Sells wants to be called Charlie
Chris (who is as much a Depeche Mode fan as I am; he once sent me a cool DP tee-shirt) linked to my posts on home servers in his blog. In his post he said:
P.S. While I don't believe that this attitude has anything to do with Charlie Kindel, if there had been a 3rd Sells Brother, he would've been named Charlie. Likewise, I've always hated my girlie name and sometimes think about changing it. To what, you ask? You guessed it: Charlie. : )
I almost hate to admit this but prior to the day I started working at Microsoft almost 14 years ago I had a nickname that I was known as exclusively since I was a baby. My oldest sister started calling me "Tigger" one day and it stuck. Seriously. It actually was a pretty good way to pick up chicks in highschool and college; unique names can do wonders for starting conversation and having people remember you. In fact, this is one of the reasons we named our son "C.J.".
When I was hired at Microsoft I was entering the "professional world" for real. I had used Charles for professional correspondence as part of my college jobs and shareware business, but still went by Tigger before that. So I had the choice of deciding what I wanted to be called. My full name is Charles Edward Kindel, Jr. I could have choosen, Charles, Chaz, Chuck, Ed, Eddie, or just about anything; I had made my mind up to stop being called Tigger. I almost chose Eddie, but I really didn't like the image Eddie Haskel raised. And my great grandfather went by Charley, so I picked Charlie. The funny thing is I didn't realize my great grandfather spelt it the way he did; if I had I would have done the same thing.
To this date most of my close friends, especially those who knew me "before" call me Tig. My poor wife has a difficult time talking about me to her college buddies; they never knew me as Charlie.