That question (or similar) comes up any time someone notices my name. I hadn’t even heard of the tiles when I chose this - actually, not even sure they were a thing at that point. People also always assume my real name is Tony, which it’s not.

This is my username because, last time I was looking for a username, the first X-Men movie had just come out. I read the then age-appropriate novelization and I liked the Toad’s secret name, Mortimer Toynbee, and claimed it for myself. Sadly, there is at least one animated series in which they’ve retconned his name.

I’ve never intentionally used AI, but obviously it latched on to the “bee” part. I wonder what it did with the “toyn.”

But relevant anecdote! After I had been using this name for many years, I got a job in Philadelphia. I lived a long drive away, so I would take the train to the city and walk to work. One day I took a different route between work and the train and randomly walked over a real life toynbee tile I hadn’t known was there. I had my eyes down as I crossed over it or I wouldn’t have noticed it.

It was very jarring to see my online name in real life in a city where I knew literally no one other than my coworkers, who definitely didn’t know that name. I knew of the tiles by that point but didn’t know they’d started (or existed) in Philly and hadn’t been thinking of them at all until I read one in the street. I was so surprised that I think I stopped in the middle of a crosswalk. Seeing that tile eventually lead to me watching a documentary on the tiles, which itself was pretty interesting.