I've been an Internaut for -- lessee... 1, 2, 3... 21 years.

Back then, it was rather unusual for someone to use anything other than their real name for their online account, I think mostly because most people had no actual say in the matter; their accounts were assigned to them by The Powers.
So I got used to people knowing me by my real name.

Now that I'm "older", I find the whole idea of being known online as something other than your Real-Life identity to be pretty stupid. No offense to the rest of you, of course.... :-)