Why not? My first name is "Romeyn". For those of you not in the know, it's pronounced "ro-MINE" or "ruh-MINE". Emphasis is on the second syllable, NOT the first. People who bother to listen to me saying my own name and care enough about getting such things RIGHT actually pronounce my name correctly. My best guess is that less than a dozen people on the planet outside of my family actually do so. Most people who THINK they are pronouncing it correctly say "RO-mine". People encountering it for the first time stumble and invariably spew forth with "Romaine" or, believe it or not, "Romlyn". (I have NO idea where THAT comes from!) This is mindbogglingly handy when hanging up on telemarketers. I can do so guilt-free by stating (after they butcher my name) "I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name. <click>" and not be lying about it.

All that having been said, I DO have a nickname. I go by and answer to "Rom" should anyone care to address me as such. (Actually, if anyone actually calls me "such" I will probably ignore them...) Why? It goes way back...to Space Invaders. Ah, the good old days. When I was able to save up enough pennies to trade them in for a quarter, I would play Space Invaders. Or Asteroids. If you were really good, and got a high score, you got to enter your intials (three of them). My name is Romeyn Prescott. I have no middle name and, hence, no middle initial. "_RP" or "RP_" looked pretty silly next to "JIM" and "BOB" and so forth. I had never had a nickname, but I quickly figured out that the first three letters of my first name were pronounceable, so I used "ROM". But no one EVER called me "Rom" in person.

Until College.

When I got to SUNY Potsdam in the Fall of 1987 the mainframe computer hosted a "conference" system; a sort of electronic bulletin board or BBS. Conferences were moderated and users could post anonymously. I thought this idea neat at first. Though anonymous, you still had to pick a nikname by which you would be known on the system. I had never gone by anything but my first name, so I had to come up with something. I remembered video games and my "initials". I started tagging my posts with "Rom". I soon realized how cowardly it was to "hide" behind a nickname and started "signing" all my posts with my real name. But I never got around to changing my nick on the system.

The first person ever to call me "Rom" in person was Roger Pray. He (a fellow geek and Conferencer) hollered at me from across the Snack Bar. He had to yell "Rom!" about three times before I realized he was talking to ME! After that, it just sort of snowballed. I worked for (then) Academic Computing and the people there started calling me Rom. I now answer to either my real name or "Rom".

I "sign" my E-mails "...ROMeyn" to sort of draw attention to the nickname while at the same time using my full name. If you want to call me "Rom" in writing, please do not capitalize all three letters, or I will think you are SHOUTING AT ME.

I am not a Space Knight. I never even collected the comic. I do not have "Read-Only Memory" either.

...ROMeyn

Last Updated 6/13/00