For anyone thinking about a forum name change, let me relate my experience. When I joined the forum originally, in late 2012, I used my real name as my forum name.
Soon afterwards, I learned that a Google or Bing search would expose everything I ever wrote in the forum, and every thread I participated in, to literally anyone who knew my real name. Just as an FYI and BTW, Ivar has the forum piped out to social media platforms on the back end. I have no issue with that, but knowing it at the very beginning would have helped. I have since closed all my social media accounts out of privacy and personal security issues, NOT related to this issue.
I do not know about the rest of you, but my forum family here, and my larger Camino family are not something I choose to share with the world, writ large. As I consider all of you my extended family, I confide things here and discuss matters that I would not normally expose to public view or comment.
Some of you may disagree with this, but throughout my life I have relied on colleagues in arms, so to speak. They have nurtured, protected and covered me when needed. I am only still here today because of their sacrifices, friendship and loyalty. I return that loyalty, friendship, compassion and charity whenever possible. I know that if I ever lost everything I own and dear to me at home, I would still have this community.
I know this sounds odd and very saccharine. But, for those of you reading this who have not yet walked a Camino, walk a few hundred kilometers in the boots of me, or of any veteran peregrino here in the forum, and you will come to understand what I am trying to explain.
Ergo, I quickly asked Ivar to change my user name. The one I use now is simply the first ever e-mail address I was ever assigned at work. Back in the day, all e-mail addresses had to comport with the MS-DOS 8.x file naming format. That is 8 alphanumeric characters followed by the @ symbol.
So, my first-ever e-mail name and forum "handle" is devised by using the "t" from the first letter of my given name. The "andreo" is the first six letters of my family name.
As my parents did not bestow a middle name on me, I was assigned the number "2" to mark that required place in the now-obsolete file-naming nomenclature. It is "2" and not "1," as I was the second person in the worldwide organization with the same first initial and beginning of the family name. I know, boring, but true.
Just thought this might help others...