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dop·pel·gäng·er or dop·pel·gang·er (dpl-gngr, dôpl-gngr) n.

A ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart.
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[German - a double: doppel, double (from French double); see double + Gänger, goer (from Gang, a going) (from Middle High German ganc) (from Old High German).]

Nicknames, aliases, chat handles, I've had my fair share of the bizarre and the embarrassing. Let's see if I can remember some of them ... Shaggy, T-bone, Suede ...

My friends in high school came upon doppleganger in response to one of them always getting my name confused with another 6' tall blond friend of ours, and it stuck.

As it turned out, I couldn't have had a better nick name for the Internet. What can better describe the alter egos we sometimes wear behind the computer screen.

As a chatter I warmed to the opportunity to meet new people and listen to bits of their lives. I speak of chatting in the past tense because I find I don't chat much any longer, but I still enjoy meeting and talking with folks from all over.

As for the technical aspects to "Dopplegangers;"

• Spelling - yes it can be spelled either as doppleganger or doppelganger. It just depends on which dictionary you use.
• History - near as I can recall (I've lost all of my supporting articles) dopplegangers were objects of old Germanic folklore. Ghosts or ghouls who took on the likeness of a living person and then haunted them or worse.
• Web sites - unfortunately both .com and .net seem to be smut sites now. *sigh* More evidence of the need to have a .xxx extension that we can move all X rated sites to. I'm not saying eliminate sex sites, just put them where they belong.
• Variations - there are lots of other "dopplegangers" online these days. So I've become known by several alternates including: Dopple, MrDoppleganger and SirDopple (okay that last one is pretty corny I know, trust me I don't use it anymore).