Steemit Name Challenge - Fiftysixnorth

A few days ago a fellow alliance member (@felobtc) started a challenge called the ‘steemitnamechallenge’. He tagged my in this challenge and I totally missed it (Ginabot where were you?!?) so I am answering the call now!

So what is this steemitnamechallenge?

Here are the rules

1. Tell us in your post how you chose the current Steemit username you have, the story behind it.
2. Tell us your real name!
3. If you could change your current Steemit username, which name would you choose and why? If you have a possible usernames list, mention it!
4. Use the tag #steemitnamechallenge so that I can track all the posts and check them out
5. Nominate 5 people for this challenge

Lets get started!

My steemit name is @fiftysixnorth. How did I come to choose this name? Well, many years ago when I decided I wanted to start sharing my photography online, and potentially sell some of my work as a nice bit of money on the side I had to come up with a name for my social media pages/accounts and website. I wanted something catchy and easy to remember as well as spell! All things that my real name is not.

In the end I went for 56northphotography. You can find me under that name on facebook as well as my (very) old wordpress blog. That morphed into 56_north on instagram (56north was already taken) and now on steemit it has become @fiftysixnorth.

“But where did it come from!?” I don’t hear you scream. Well I live and work in Scotland so a lot of my photography is done here and in terms of GPS coordinates I live roughly at 55˚56’59” North which works out at roughly 55.9˚ North .. rounded up is 56˚ North, hence: @fiftysixnorth. Why didn’t i stick to 55? Well somehow 56 just kinda rolls off the tongue better.

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My real name is Karsten Moerman. Its a dutch name.. my family is from Holland (yes I speak dutch) though Karsten is a more common name in Germany and recently I learned it is a very typical name in Denmark. Yet no one uses it here .. and when as a kid I was growing up in America it was unheard of and people could not wrap their heads around it, the spelling or pronunciation yet “Carson” is a very common name in america .. practically the same name .. go figure. So I have been called various girls names that are similar (which is very upsetting when you are a 7 year old boy) and even to this day people confuse my sex in emails.

It still happens, today I was referred to by someone in an email as ‘she’. I just laugh it off these days and let them think what they want. When I finally meet them in person its fun to watch them squirm when they are suddeny in a room with a tall bearded man instead of whatever type of woman they assumed I was.

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If I could change my current steemit name I don’t think I would. I like the name I am using now and it ties in with all my other online presences quite nicely. -actually .. hold that thought.. I think if perhaps I was in the situation where I had to, I would change my name to ‘fifty’. Plenty of people call me that on here already and its nicely succinct and related to my existing name.

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A brief interlude... here is a nice photo... All the pictures in this post are from .. you guessed it 55.9˚ North!! Also known as the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Therefore I believe relevant to this post and a bit a break for your eyes from this wall of text I am writing!

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Now it’s your turn! I have to nominate 5 people to take on this challenge, so I nominate: @bluelightbandit, @keciah, @maxabit, @guiltyparties, and @ancapbarbie.

So that’s the story of my name, thanks for starting this challenge @felobtc and apologies for taking so long to do it.. hopefully I haven’t tagged anyone that has already been tagged.

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Thanks for Looking.
Follow me and read more of my posts here: @fiftysixnorth
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