Post No. 170 - Some idle speculation: names and readers

One of the things that is important to many people starting off in Wicca is choosing a craft name. I was fortunate in that aspect, in that, before I found Wicca, I found what would become my craft name (Gnwmythr) through a dream. Otherwise, I would probably have gone through the same sorts of agony as other newbies to Wicca, and probably chosen something just as fluffy bunny as the other newbies :) In fact, this choice of names is something that was sent up by a programme that was being circulated a few years ago : my (send up) craft name according to this programme was something like "boadicea pixie dolphin" ... hmmm.

More seriously, I am interested in names - I've been doing Qabbalistic numerology for decades, from the time I was a teenager, actually, and have used it several times to choose legal names (although I have settled with my current legal name for quite some time now :) ).

I just tried to find a good link on the topic of Qabbalistic numerology, and couldn't (some good links of the Qabbalah generally, though - beginning here): I might have to do a post on that myself ...

Anyway, going to back to my speculatin' ... Occasionally I bug my friends with questions like "what do you think would make a good middle name for me?" I ignore the answers along the lines of one friend who suggested anything beginning with O, so my initials would spell KOW :)

Now, I'm thinking of bugging them with a question along the lines of: "what do you think would make a good craft name for me?" I like owls, I like female warriors, I like stormy weather ... maybe Stormwings Owl ... If I had more people (well, any people, actually :D ) calling me a mage, I could go for Storm Owl Mage ... hmmmm ... maybe not :)

Still it can be interesting to speculate about such matters. This was, to some extent, triggered by a post I read recently on the Witches' Voice website, "Learning from the Fluffy Bunny", which is well worth a look.

Another matter that has been intriguing me is the readership of this blog. Blogger now allows bloggers to get access to statistics (actually, I think they have for a while, but I only cottoned on to that a year or so ago). It is fascinating to me to see the nations that viewers come from, and it seems that there may be a pattern. I don't have the time, energy or inclination to invite comments on my posts (I am too busy, too exhausted most of the time, and too cranky :) ), but I am idly speculating about possibly inviting readers to complete an on-line survey. That would need a LOT of careful planning - privacy needs to be maintained, which means I have to think carefully about what I could do with any information, and nothing could be included in any published statistics without prior permission (some of the views are from nations where being publicly identified with Wicca could cause serious problems) ... I would need a form of software that gets my Internet guru's seal of approval ... still, I may actually be curious enough to have a go at this.

If I do, keep in mind that I currently get NO personal identifying information about any reader, and I am not seeking such information. I'm mostly just curious about why people have come to this blog.

Anyway, enough speculatin' ... back to work :)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

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Tags: names, numerology, Qabbalah,

First published: Tuesday 16th November, 2010

Last edited: Tuesday 16th November, 2010