How do you spell D-A-V-1-D ?
Many people have asked me:
"Why do you spell Dav1d with the digit 1 instead of the letter i?"
Well, there are lots of reasons for the 1 in Dav1d, and here are a few of them:
• It makes my name unique. I am not just another "David".
• It prevents people from abbreviating it to Dave (which I detest).
• I am a geek… this is proof.
• I can type it left-handed, and then slam [ENTER] with my right
• I like saying: "There’s no I in Dav1d". (hehehehe)
I have been spelling my name like that for over 25 years (long before anyone even starting using the term "l33t"). My nieces and nephews only know me as that, and don’t find it unusual at all. In fact, when I see David, it doesn’t even look like my name to me, so I think it means someone else.
I use this everywhere, including the digits of my home phone, my business cards, websites, etc. Even when I write my name, I spell it this way. Of course, there are some systems (and some people) that won't permit a digit in the name. But that's because they are very old-fashioned.
I have been spelling my name this way since 1981!
How the "1" started is a slightly longer story . . .
When the local license issuing offices started offering “Own Choice Plates (OCP)” in 1981, I wanted my own name. However, when I got to the ministry office (at 2:00am in the morning) to line up, there were already 5 people in line ahead of me. I assumed that there were at least five people in line at all other issuing offices as well. Effectively, there could already be over 100 people who would get their choice before me. And, I knew that D A V I D would disappear in the first 10 purchased. I had to come up with something else between 2:00am and 11:00am when the window opened. It took every single tired brain cell I had available at that hour of the morning, and I didn’t succeed in finding just the right one until I stepped up to the window!
(At the same time, I had called in to work with a fake cough, saying I wouldn’t be in the office. The next day, I arrived to find my entire cubicle plastered with the front page of the local newspaper which carried a photograph of the "idiots" who lined up at 2:00am for license plates. Most of the pictures had the words "Did you get yours?" scrawled across my face in thick black marker.)
Anyway, I am not allowed to wear the "DAV1D" license plates on my car anymore. I took a few liberties with parking tickets that were made out to “DAVID”, and eventually, the person with those plates came after me with the backing of the government. I still have the single front license plate… for historical reasons.
Postscript: I have heard that there were many other people who elected to use the digit 1 instead of the letter I, and the digit 0 instead of the letter O, but the government has since made those two cases go away, allowing only one or the other to be issued, not both. (Other l33t replacements are still allowed!)
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