My father insisted that I be named Alexander, but my mother had noticed that a lot of people she knew were naming kids Alexander or Alex. One day, out of the blue, my grandmother mentioned to her that sometimes in Scandinavian countries, Axel was a nickname for Alexander. My birth certificate and any other official forms cite my name as Alexander, but I've always gone by Axel, and plan to continue doing so.
My username was made up of word roots that mean "against god." While I was a pretty hardcore atheist at the time of the penning of this name, I more meant it as a conflict against a higher power. A symbol of defiance. I also liked the sound of it, with the similarity to Amadeus. I'd tried a bunch of other combinations of word roots and this was the one thing I figured out that I liked. As my beliefs shifted, it became somewhat embarrassing, but it's my name now and it won't change.
