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The Name DjRelAt7 explained.

whats in a pen name?

There’s a lot in a name right? History and origin can make a name be mighty! Names can also be created, changed, or ignored. I wasn’t born with DjRelAt7. No one called me that as a nickname either. When I first started writing I wanted to keep my true identity anonymous. The internet can be a scary place and I wanted to be safe not sorry. So for months…well really minutes because I’m a procrastinator, I came up with the pen name DjRelAt7. Over the last few years people have asked where the name came from and what it means. What’s in a pen name?

Dj …

When I was growing up we had a floor stereo unit. It had the record player on top for our vinyls, a section to tune into the radio, and two cassette tape slots. This stereo unit belonged to Papi, so we didn’t touch it when he was home. When he wasn’t we’d play the one or two cassettes we’d purchased. Mami had this cute peach Sharp boom box where she’d play only her cassettes. What we listened to is what they listened to.

When the latest song would come out on KISS FM or Hot 97, the kids in class would sing them. This was always annoying for me because in school I could not sing along. Humming is not the same. Trust. So for my birthday I asked for my own boom box. When I wasn’t reading my stack of library books I was listening to the radio. I had my blank cassette in the deck so I could record the latest song to learn the words. I remember listening to the likes of Angie Martinez and Wendy Williams thinking I to could have a future on the radio. While that thought didn’t make it off my wish list, I wanted to carry out that voice in my writing. I wanted to feel like I was in the booth in front of a microphone talking to my audience about topics that mattered to us all.

Rel …

 

If you’ve been along for the journey here on My Pocketful of Thoughts you’ll have picked up that my real name is Arelis. I wanted my pen name to have a part of the real me in it. The Rel is that part. Actually after playing around with it for a bit it was the part that flowed the best. Dj Rel on the ones and twos y’all!

 

At 7…

 

Like all disc jockeys, you can catch their show at a particular time. If you’re a fellow Z100 fan than you catch the Elvis Duran and the Morning Show between 6 and 10. I wanted to be consistent with what time I came on. I wanted my show to start at 7 in the morning or at night. If you check out my past posts the time that they publish to the site is either 7:13 am or pm. As time has gone by I’ve become more flexible and its some variation of the numbers 713. You find my more recent ones published at 7:13, 10:37, 12:37, 1:37 or 3:17 …morning or night.

Put that all together and you get DjRelAt7. My keyboard is my microphone. Can you dig it? Did you think it meant something else? Let me know below!

A Penny for your thoughts!

Do you use a pen name when you write? How did you come up with it? Did you have a career in mind when you were younger that transformed into something else? Do you know the meaning of your name?

Until then,

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23 replies on “The Name DjRelAt7 explained.”

I had wondered what your pen name stood for and now I know :). The internet is a scary place and you were right to come up with an alias. My nickname is Cori…not too mysterious huh? But I used it when I was at work and it sort of stayed with me. I was also called Coco.

Now I’m mom, babe, Corina, or grandma :). Great post lady! Happy Halloween!

I get asked a lot what djrelat7 means … but its a story so it was overdue to explain it. I like Coco for you! It wasn’t until I got more into the site that people mentioned that I should put my real name somewhere especially if someone wanted to contact me about the site.

I’m debating on switching to my real name as I get called dj a lot …that and I get a lot of music to sample via Twitter lol I love listening to music but I can’t play it for them on the radio :/

Thanks for stopping by Cori and sharing your name with us!

Well I for one loved the story of djrelat7.

I learned it’s good to use our real name too. I was thinking about just using work from home concepts or not now moms busy but I kept my name after reading a couple of posts that said our name would be best, especially to put the name with the blog.

I like dj for you….it fits you! Have a great new week hon!

Yes, I learned that after that its good for people to know your name, especially if they want to pay you 🙂 I’m glad you kept your name, it works better especially if you have more than one site!

Happy ALMOST Friday Cori!

That is definitely an interesting way to come up with an Alias for yourself, and I do understand why people do it. Heck many authors have written books under a different name too.
And the stereo unit in your parent’s house with the record player sounds very similar to what we had in our house. Actually my father still has ours.

Have a great weekend 🙂

My Dad still has our too but I don’t remember the last time we actually used it :/

Yes an alias sometimes is the way to go but then I think it definitely depends on what you want to do from your writing. When I first started it was just supposed to be an exercise to get me to write so I can work on a book …. I’m still doing it four years later. Whether my book will be in my name or not is still undecided!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Sicorra! Happy Thursday!

That’s really cool and creative! I find myself looking at some names and coming up with my own pronunciation. I probably made up some pronunciation that incorporated all of the letters in your name. Ha! For a while, I was going by a different spelling of my first name and then half of my middle name: VaneiceLashun. That didn’t last long.

Thanks Vaneese! A lot of people thought that it was my real name and would always ask me how to pronounce it or what it meant. I tried to be purposeful when I did it by capitalizing the first part of each section DjRelAt7 but that didn’t always transfer. My real name isn’t much easier to pronounce for much people though. VaneiceLashun sounds like a runway model’s name, cute!

thanks for sharing with us!

I too have wondered what your pen name represented. Like you, I use pen names for online stuff. They incorporate initials, birthday months and dogs names, like cemb0612. But for whatever reason, perhaps because I started blogging after commenting on blogs, I was “ready” to go with my name and drop the pen name for my blog. So I am who I am here! lol

Carol, using combinations like that is a great way to come up with an alias for our online selves. When I first started blogging I knew nothing about it and didn’t really know many other bloggers until I met one while I was on vacation and she introduced me to another blogger and it all changed from there but I didn’t actual start leaving my real name on the site until I thought of writing as another source of income. It would be awkward to get emails about doing things on the site and they were addressing me by DjRelAt7.

I love that you used your name! I might have done it differently if I had started commenting on blogs first and then starting my own. Thanks for sharing!

Funny, I always wanted to ask you this! It’s very cool:) Love that you post at the same time, gives readers consistency and we aren;t disappointed when we log on looking for knew news.

Hey Heather! Yes one of the things that have been drilled into my head has been to be consistent when publishing a new post. I was rigid with one time only but as I started to write when I could I didn’t want to wait all the way until the next morning so variations of 7:13 came to be.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Fascinating, Arelis – I can understand why some people use pen names online, but I’ve rarely done so myself – I think I did once, some time back, for one or two forums. I just prefer to go by my own name, so that people can get to know the real ‘me’.

True, when I first started writing though I was just writing as an exercise. I had know idea that I’d still be doing it years later. I have thought about changing it to my real name but I’m undecided.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Sue!

I love, love the breakdown of your name and always wondered what it meant (although the only piece I got was the Rel lol). Thanks for sharing!

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