Toki Pona Forums

I read that the way to change your user-name is to just make a new account. If that's true then I should do so before I participate much further. I don't want to just TP my given name (Bill/janPilu?), nor do I want to TP my longtime screen name (Baerdric/janPeturika?). What I would like to do is translate Baerdric into toki pona. Baerdric is one of maybe 200 words I put into a temporary conlang in the early 90s. It means redbeard, (because my beard was actually red before it suddenly went white). But janSinpinLinjaLoje (is that right?) is quite a mouthful.

Any other suggestions? Or should I just keep what I have?

Well, keeping what you have is not a problem since many people here don't have tp names or even close. On the other hand, non-tp names are a problem in conversation, so getting one is a good idea, even if you don't use it here. No law saya it has to be related to any of your other world names, but they are a starting point. "Bill' tends to be 'Pili' (and, like "John", whether 'San' or 'Jan'), not used much (most of the 'Jan's are "jan"s from other languages. And there are also last names (my 'Kipo' is from "Clifford", for example). As the parenthesized example shows, a lot can happen to a name in tpization. There tend to be two extremes, with most folks coming in the middle somewhere. One side gets all the sounds in, with buffering vowels, if need be: "Beardric" (as i would read it) becomes 'Pelitiliki' (/r/s go to /l/s and I randomly picked /i/to buffer -- /a/ seems more common.) The other extreme goes for basically the same syllable count and some features that seem right, so, say, 'Peli' (right first sound, middle cluster /rdr/ reduced to the major element/l/, final consonant dropped since not /n/). You might want the /k/ back, at the cost of another syllable, or use the /t/ rather than /l/ from the middle cluster. Or, of course, you might just think up a string of sounds you like and that fit tp phonology and use them without any previous reference at all. As for 'linja sinpin loje', a lot of people who take this path, just drop out things that make for length, so, for example, 'sinpin' might go altogether and then 'lin' and 'lo' share the final ''je/a'

I'd go with jan Loje, in the spirt of discarding too much information, which is what a toki pona phrase typically does.

Well then, maybe for cross cultural and cross forum searchability, I will keep Baerdric here, and add janLoje as a tagline and personal name in discussion.

jan Mato o, unlike an explanation about tp.
jan Loje o, pona mute tawa toki tu ali.