Name and Identification

Table of Contents

Personal Name

For reasons of personal preference as well as to avoid a particularly problematic misspelling, my name is spelled in lowercase: brian m. carlson.

  • The entire name should be spelled in lowercase unless your computer system is incapable of producing lowercase letters (e.g. on a passport). Mixed case is acceptable, but discouraged, if writing it as above, and to be avoided with the full name, to avoid misspelling.
  • The Chicago Manual of Style, as well as some other style guides, discourage the use of a lowercase name as the first word of a sentence. If you choose to do so anyway, the name should not be capitalized.
  • In informal contexts, “brian” is fine. Where there are multiple people with the same name, “brian carlson” is fine in speech.
  • Using courtesy titles is to be avoided, but if you, like the New York Times, insist on doing so, ``mx. carlson`` or ``Mx. carlson`` is fine.

Pronouns

  • I use they/them pronouns in English.
  • I use elle with -e (neuter) agreement in Spanish (articles: le / les, direct object pronouns: le / les).
  • I use iel with a masculine agreement in French (tonic: ellui / elleux).

Usernames

My general preference on usernames is “bmc” for cases where I have terminal access and “bk2204” where I do not. The latter is fine if the former is taken, and “brianc” is preferable over “brian.carlson”.