Some email nicknames relate to the writer's real name (Carolyn Smiledge '98 = Smiling Girl; Leigh Dumville '00 = Indubitableigh). Some reveal personal passions. First-year student Chrissy Deangelis's Pixie Tink stems from her fondness for "Tinkerbell, pixies, faeries, and all other wee winged folk." Crystal Alberts '99, who goes by Raven, admires Edgar Allen Poe. Laura Draper '99 renamed herself Ska Princess after the music she loves. Self-described punk-feminist Kelsey Guntharp '01 uses hearmeroar, as in "I am woman; hear me roar!" She changes her email name-and hair color-almost weekly.

Junior Holly Dintzner's past names include Son of Zorro, Hank of the Wilderness, Boom-boom Dallas, The Bane of Your Existence, Scooby-Doo, Vixen, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Daphne of the Water Nymphs.

Some, like senior Katherine Fleming's pseudonym Siajara, are invented words. And the elaborate-history-behind-the-name award goes to Emily Wolf '00. She goes by Ginger Rogers due to a lifelong love for Rogers's movies with Fred Astaire. Wolf's dream of dancing with Astaire sort of came true on her sixteenth birthday. "My parents hired a man dressed in a tuxedo to sing a song to me that Astaire had sung to Rogers. Then he made me put on a red feather boa and dance with him at my party."