What's the deal with the name hockeybuggy?

Publication date: 2014-10-03
Edit date: 2023-07-17
misc
misc

Sometimes when I tell someone what my email or GitHub username is, I get asked about the name hockeybuggy.

Back in the day

A long long time ago (2003) Gmail did not exist. On April 1st of 2004 Google announced the Gmail beta. At first the beta was invite only, and if you were invited to Gmail, you received 10 invites you could send others.

On January 31st 2005, I received an invite from my older sister. (I discovered the day that I created my account using the helpful advice of this page).

Being young I foolishly did not get my full name @gmail.com. Instead, I got hockeybuggy@gmail.com, a combination of:

  • my favourite sport at the time: hockey
  • and a modification of a nickname: buggy (my family would sometimes call me "bug")

Why Keep It?

I have the username just about everywhere on the web.

Since I have the .com as well as the same username on Github, Google, and Twitter and just about everywhere else, I don't think I will be changing it any time soon.