Names

The name Halcove was coined when coming up with an island name for Animal Crossing: New Horizons within the 10-character limit. I never played the game again after the first session, but I had to use the name for something... and here we are! Luckily, the name can extend to words like

• Halverse (Halvorsen)
• Halworld (Palworld)
• Halken (Halken)

As you can tell, flexibility was the number one value that went into finding a name. For reasons explained below, I'm very proud of my surname and like to brandish it whenever I can. But what about my middle name? Moreover, why does it seem to confuse so many people?

I mean, names are nothing more than words, proper nouns in fact... They've always been used to describe or define a specific and unique object. Human names are often based on existing words of common nouns or adjectives. People seem to get confused at North, but don't bat an eye to the people named

• Hope
• Joy
• Grace
• Hunter
• Victor
• Chandler
• Mason
• Taylor
• Jasmine
• Drake
• Chance
• Miles
• Holly
• Storm
• Carter
• ..........need I go on? All of those are just basic words. What makes North different?

Names aren't random syllables without origin that happen to sound pretty. If we name objects, pets, places, and virtually everything else we interact with for their actual function, purpose, origin, or timbre, there's no reason human names would be any different.

I've never really gone by my full birth name. Family never used my first name, I've never made an active decision to use my last name on things like social media. My middle name was also not very pronounceable. Most of my birth name was never anything that I ever associated myself with, or recognised as my own. And since it became dangerous for me to continue using it, I ended up moving away from it. Keeping the first paragraph in mind, I made sure to keep the names in line with what makes up my character. This name change also took place during the shift into legal adulthood, so it does represent a period of my life where the old name essentially represents a different time period entirely.

There's a few functional reasons that I chose these names, and it took a few years of consideration to arrive at this point. It can also make it easy for me to instinctively differentiate a person's relation to me based off of what they call me, mostly since this name change occurred at such a pivotal time.

My first name is and always was Kenneth, but I still don't use this name often. In certain environments, I prefer to be associated with this name as it was originally what I went by for much of my life. I also use it with closer friends. This name is leveraged as the first name to present as a more formal and traditional name for impression's sake, like in professional environments. However, it remains my least-used public facing name.

North is a middle name and an online handle. It is intended to be easy to spell and convey, as it's a generic, one-syllable word. It is also a nice unisex name, given that I don't subscribe to any particular gender idealogy, a popularly gendered name was something I wanted to avoid.

Halvorsen is my surname. It is my online handle for services adjacent to my real presence and will more often represent me as a human. It was inspired by my family dog's name, implying that my dog was always part of my family.

Solo is generally my online handle. It is my online handle for services adjacent to my online character. It represents the value I place in solitude, and the acknowledgement of me being the only person who has the ability to pilot my own actions and choices. It was inspired by a multitude of factors: from Cave Story - starring a silent protagonist who is alone with his thoughts and actions, and fact that the entire game was developed by one person; and also ongoing emotional solitude that has been present for nearly a decade.

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There are a few miscellaneous reasons I chose these names as well.

Truncating parts of the name spells out Kensen, Norsen, but more notably, HALKEN, which happens to be the same name as the original development company of Super Smash Bros. and Kirby. I've capitalised on this by launching my first personal website using that company name in 2019. In addition, Kenneth and Halvorsen both use similar amounts of characters, allowing the name to appear balanced in terms of character length, which is visually appealing.

My initials spell out two prominent symbols for me, being KH (Kingdom Hearts) and NH (Nintendo Homebrew).

I can self-reference anything denoting myself as Northern.

HAL is a common word due to HAL9000; but I can also shorten Halvorsen to make words and memorable domains such as "https:/halcove.com/" (from "Halvorsen" and "alcove") and "https://halv.ing/" (from "Halvorsen" and the word "halving").

Flexibility is my most favored trait. It would be impossible for me not to choose these names. They collectively describe me and my experiences - as a name should do.

North

I did underestimate the fact that people could misinterpret the name as Morris, Marth, Mark, etc. over the phone. I've seen people who have never been invited to parties try to achieve humour by calling me South. Some people bring up North West, which is more understandable.

It is a fun exercise to gauge a person's mental aptitude and maturity based on their response to a name.

North carries a positive connotation to "continue forwards". Though, I suppose something like Sky or Skyler would have also worked equally as well. Either way, North is concise. It's to the point, and it works.

At first, I wanted something that would transliterate into a Japanese word. This would be Kita [北; "North"]. I don't mind Kita, given that Keaton is a name I considered at one point, so I was already pleased with the phonetics, but I went with North due to its flexibility.

I've also considered Tidus (tee-duss), Ventus, (vehn-tuss), Xi (shi), and some variation of K (kei/kay/k). I'm still not against them and may consider replacing North at some point in the future.

But in the end, it was important that this middle name I use as my spoken name was malleable, flexible, easy to convey, gender-neutral, and short.

Halvorsen

This was based off of my family's pet name. My dog's name was inspired by the Hilton Hotels franchise, so I thought it to be fitting to have my surname inspired from my dog as well. Conrad Hilton's father was named Augustus Halvorsen Hilton, and so I merely took that middle name and made it my surname. Being strongly European in origin, Halvorsen also tends to look more exotic and desirable at first glance than other common surnames in America, so it helps avoid negative prejudice.

This name ties in with my middle name: the L in Halvorsen becomes a northwards facing arrow in ha1vorsen, my online handle. Using "ha1vorsen" also helps if the name "Halvorsen" is taken as a username for online accounts.

At first, I intended to pair this surname with a European-esque middle name, Tidus (Tee-dus). While Tidus Halvorsen has a cool ring to it, I wanted the other benefits listed of the names that I decided on, as listed above.

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