Name Magic

The belief that if you know someone's TrueName, you can cast spells on them.

This gets more interesting if "someone" is a manager- or executive-class demon from the underworld ;-)

Allegedly, "Abracadabra" was one such demon.
There are many unsubstantiated folk etymologies like that, but the actual origin is unclear. It seems to have first arisen in late Latin (second century C.E.) in charms worn by Gnostic Christians, but nothing is firmly known beyond that.

It gets even more interesting if "someone" is God. According to some, the TrueName of God is formed by the full text of the Torah. (There is something on this in PiTheMovie) It is said that god's name contains 72 Hebrew letters... from the Torah

Note that you can change any WikiPage as you see fit if you know its TrueName.

Does this mean that RealNamesPlease is inadvisable, magically speaking?

It means some have unfounded faith in RealNamesPlease. They think that the NameMagic will make posters more responsible & accountable. -- PhlIp

On the other hand, there does seem to be some truth to the observation that, when some people are forced to use their real names, their own belief in NameMagic scares them into behaving more responsibly. I'm not at all sure why this works. -- MossCollum

It should be pointed out that real (legal) names can be used to find more information about the person, especially when the Internet is available. It is possible to find almost complete vital data on students of many colleges simply by doing a web search, for example. -- DanielKnapp

People might know them, so they could get caught posting stupid crap if they use their real name.

I didn't think that TrueNames and real names had to be the same. However, my only source for this is OldPossumsBookOfPracticalCats, which may not apply directly.

No, they aren't identical always.

A password capability (PasswordCapabilityModel) is a kind of TrueName, sort of.

The belief that if you can name a thing, you understand it and can control it. Sounds like NameAndConquer.

This gets more interesting if the "thing" is a technology or a pattern. For example, "virtual function".

Classes, methods, variables etc. can certainly have "false names", making them harder to understand and control. I have again learned to appreciate the difference in the last few days, as I'm just enhancing an application written by native-Russian- / not-at-all-English-speakers... ;-) --FalkBruegmann

While I would agree NameMagic, despite being to varying degrees illogical, does hold true, I would not think that posting under a pseudonym makes you any more immune to being caught 'posting stupid crap'. I have found some pages on this wiki populated by people I know via their pseudonyms, and indeed, I can search for all their posts under said pseudonyms. Now, since they use these pseudonyms in almost every aspect of their life, I would say it is easier to trace their comments as pseudonyms tend to be more unique than your average legal name does. -- AsHen

I won't say CategoryMagic, but I would like to know more about Wikizens' BeliefInMagic?. -- NickBensema (who has Googled his name many times.)

Sure I believe in Magic. Never played the game myself, tho (I'm more a CosmicEncounter? type).

Gematria is giving any letter a value, an Int, Alef (a)=1 , Bet (b)=2 , Tav =400 etc. so the Name, TrueName, GivenName?, LastName?, NickName all have a value obtained by adding the letters' values together, and this is [maybe]: coordinates of stars, or planets or galaxies people souls came from, or a number specifying a Human-Type, energetic vibrations, etc. The Christian association of "666" with an "antichrist" is based on gematria. See http://www.wordworx.co.nz/panin.html for a brief look at Biblical number fun, as researched by Dr Ivan Panin.