The name that I carry around with me has a story. Ed is not my real name, it's a pseudonym I use on the web. The name eFlare is also a pseudonym. With the latter being a little more obvious, since I can't imagine anyone having that name on their birth certificate.
Back in the day, everyone had a cool nickname on the web. People still do but, as you look around it's becoming more common for people to use their own name to identify themselves. The thing with my name, it's not very English friendly. "Michel" (pronounced like in the Beatles song) is the French variant of the Hebrew "Michael" meaning "Who is like God" (go figure)
Depending on where I am, the pronunciation of my name varies. My real name is Michel, pronounced as in the Beatles song, though when used in English I tend to go by Michael, pronunciation-wise. Michel is a very common -and well pronounced- name in the Netherlands, where I just so happen to have been born. It's the whole sounds-like-a-girls-name-in-English-thing. This isn't the exact reason for me to take a different name on the web, but it is one of the reasons why I keep using my pseudonym every so often on the web... in addition to just be called Michael instead, in the real world.
Also known as "Eddie Flare." eFlare originated from the name Eddie Flare. I choose to write the first letter lowercase and add Flare to it. Later I discovered that an e-flare is a traffic cone with a warning light on top of it. So much for my cool name. Nevertheless I kept using it.
I came up with the name Eddie Flare in two parts. Eddie was the name of the mascot of my first website, called Fun News. The E in news had a face and some weird hair drawn on it. I called the little fella Eddie, because it was a fun name and it started with an E. Flare was the name of a game character I came up with for one of my first own made video games. Quite a primitive one but, still. When I had to register for an online service at a curtain point I didn't want to use my real name so quickly came up with Eddie Flare. Short after that Eddie Flare became sort of a second identity, which I only used online. In 2000 I joined a Zelda forum and had some trouble coming up with a good name. Eddie Flare was fun but, not really "cool." That's when eFlare was born.
Ed is the the updated version of eFlare. With Ed being an existing abbreviation for Eddie and a lot of people already calling me Ed for short, it was a simple switch. Maybe not as simple as I tend to say, eFlare just has that little extra identity. Ed could refer to any guy, eFlare refers to me.
Before Just Like Ed, I had a website called eFlare.boxxle.net. The name kinda gives it away, I was kindly hosted by someone. When it was time to move along to a space of my own, I needed a new name for my website. After some pondering I came up with a concept that sort of grew beyond realizable proportion. However the name remained, it was a website that was about me. The website would be just like me. Just like..ed. Yes, there's not much deep thought behind this one. Still.