Dangers of choosing one's own name.

On a lot of Internet sites, you choose the name that you will go by. As a rule, you use a favored nickname, or something random.

On a particular site, I chose to use the name Thomas Linquist. It was the name of a fictitious captain I had planned to use in a story. It's simple, believable and unoffensive. Or so I thought. I just googled my pen name, just for the fun of it, in images mode.

It turns out that I have chosen as my nom de plume the name of a convicted sex offender!

This is rather disturbing, as the site that I use this name in is a forum that is frequented by young girls, this man's preferred target. What happens if one of the parents of these young ladies does the same research that I just did? Any responsible parent would. If they don't check a little deeper, they might assume that this creep is me!

Maybe I should have gone a little more random.