I was corrected for saying “real name” when I meant “legal name.” So, a reminder:

Your LEGAL name is a name that identifies you for official purposes.

Your REAL name is the name by which a practitioner of the occult arts could conjure you in a summoning circle and bind you to complete a task.

in reply to Max Leibman

@bitprophet I appreciate the effort! But as a master of the mystic arts (retired) I feel compelled to point out that _all_ names are Real, and the distinction you are drawing is to one’s True Name, which may be a composite of several Real Names and indeed may in some (but obviously not all) cases _incorporate_ one’s Legal Name

Ricardo Harvin reshared this.

in reply to Max Leibman

I don't want to quibble too hard here, since the thrust of your post is spot-on. That said, in the US, the idea that people have a "legal" name is simply nonsense. Whatever names you use are your "legal" names, by right.

It is not clear to me how having multiple monikers might affect your susceptibility to magic users, please check in with your shaman or priest. But I do know of a helpful paper exploring the legal side of things: hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/the…

in reply to Max Leibman

Both LEGAL and NAME are assumed to be of type INTEGER. Only REAL is REAL.

A "joke" of sorts for the olds who may recall Fortran77. I'm going for a deep cut here.

And because explaining it makes the joke funnier:

retrocomputing.stackexchange.c…

#programming #fortran