Phorkyad Acropolis

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

This is an amusing little prompt, since I had already thought about this when I created my avatar in Second Life in 2006. Luckily I took it seriously, since I think he is synonymous with me, and I gladly identify with the name.

Why Phorkyad Acropolis? In Goethe’s Faust Part II, when Faust and Mephisto venture to the Mediterranean and the cradle of Western civilization—Greece—a character named Phorcyas shows up. This personage is one of the Phorkyads, aka the Graeae, three witches who share a single tooth and a single eye. To see anything , they had to pass the eye back and forth. Since my avatar and I were sharing a screen I thought this was an apt choice.

As for the last name, you had to choose from a pop-down list in the viewer. At that time, there were many choices, and I didn’t feel like spending a lot of time on selection. Luckily, Acropolis came near the top and since it’s a major landmark of Ancient Greece, it too seemed appropriate.

Since that time, we have been synonymous. Magazine and newspaper articles have put photos of us both side by side. At Second Life Community Conventions, I announced myself as Phorkyad.