I was told by an online acquaintance once that my username sounded Japanese. That person then went on to ask if I was male.
First off, let’s put these rumors to rest. I am a woman. And my username is actually Spanish. Well, sort of…
It’s kind of a long story.
We all make mistakes in our youth. Maybe you dated the wrong person who set you up for years of self-loathing. Maybe you got a tattoo or a piercing that you’ve been regretting ever since.
Well I was 18 when I got my first Gmail account. I thought I was a mature adult, but apparently I didn’t have the username-picking sense God gave a Fortnite player.
In my defense, high school is the age where it’s important to flaunt what sets you apart from your peers. What makes you unique. And what made me unique when I was 18 is that I crochet. I had actually learned to knit as well by that point, but crochet was my first arts and crafts passion. And so I picked the name… “crochetgrl”…
Yeah.
Obviously, “crochetgirl” was taken, and instead of coming up with something that didn’t sound like I was either 12 or didn’t know how to spell, I went with “grl.” I’m not proud of it.
But because I’m a big believer in consistent naming over multiple platforms… it spread. YouTube, Twitter, countless of those dumb websites that make you “Register, Please!” before you can access their content.
And that’s how we get somewhere close to the point. (Don’t start getting impatient yet!)
I was a Sophmore/Junior (a long story for another time) in college when I went to study abroad in Madrid, Spain. So that’s where I was in the fall of 2008 when I decided to attempt NaNoWriMo for the first time. I got totally into it–as I am wont to do with most of my hobbies–and made it a point to attend a “Write-in” at a local Starbucks.
The event was fantastic. I got to meet some great, like-minded people, chat about my novel, and write 5,000 words.
But I ran into a problem (as you do at meet-ups of online friends)
“Hi, my name is Rebekah. My username is crochetgrl.”
But somehow I felt it was important that they knew not only which user I was, but also what my username meant. So, multiple times that night…
“Me llamo crochetgrl. Es como ¿ganchillo?”
Except that “ganchillo” is
A. only sort-of a translation of “crochet”, and
B. not widely recognized in Spain. At least, among the people I met, none seemed to care much what I did with my own yarn in my own free time.
The guy hosting the write-in had a name, but I no longer have any idea what it was. His username was Excalibor, and I’m so grateful for him. Because, despite the fact that no one cared about the difference between knitting and crochet at that write-in, and that I was being so socially awkward, he gave me a nickname. He made me feel so at-home and comfortable in this foreign country, in this foreign Starbucks, with all these people I hadn’t met before.
Anyway, the nickname he gave me was, as you’ve probably deduced, “Ganchi”. And it stuck.
And the rest, as they say, is history!
A very long history which I could tell you if you have a few minutes… Wait, where are you going?
I told this same story once before over on my YouTube channel:
