So, what is up with the name?
time to read 2 min | 262 words

Some people are confused by the nickname that I use on the web, and I thought that I would explain what it is all about.

About six or seven years ago, I was really big Wheel of Time fan (and still am). The name Ayende Rahien comes from this series. The literal translation is “dawn of freedom”. Yes, it is silly, but in my defense, I was seventeen . I used the nickname for all my online activities, up to and including my computer’s username.

Fast forward to the beginning 2004, I was using the name Ayende Rahien so long that it became automatic. When I opened a site, it was natural to use this name. Another reason was that at the time I was at the army, and I didn’t know (nor do I know now) what is the army’s stance with regard to blogging. I know of at least one case of a soldier getting into trouble for posting a review about a TV Show in his blog.

At the moment, I got another reason to use this name. Ayende is not common, Oren is. I got a friend who tells me that there are four Oren in his team. I once checked, and at Israel alone, there are over 8,000 people with this name. There are also six or seven guys named “Oren Eini”.

The end result is that searching for Ayende will bring you to my blog, which is not something that I have been able to do had I been using my real name, which is far too common.

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