Deef's Net

This is easily the most frequent question I get when I give out either my E-Mail address or this web site, particularly to people who aren’t at Dartmouth. This page explains the history of that name.

I got involved with the Campus Crusade for Christ group at Dartmouth College shortly before Sophia West, the second child of CCC staff Chris West, was born. This meant babysitting opportunities galore, and I got to know “Phia” and her older brother Caleb very well (both of them are shown in a picture to the right, taken in 2001).

Now, as any English-speaking Spaniard will tell you, the consonants “st” at the beginning of a word are not the easiest to pronounce — that’s why “Steven” becomes “Estevan” for them. Phia wasn’t up for three-syllable names, however, so she went a different route and got rid of the “s” altogether, and flipped the voicing (ask a linguist what that means).

DEEF I became!

Now, nicknames are not something you can choose for yourself, usually. Rather, they tend to be chosen by other people, and then stick.

This name stuck.

It stuck so well, in fact, that in the CCC group, the only person who does not now call me “Deef” is Phia herself, who has since learned how to put an “s” before a “t” at the beginning of a word. Everyone else — from her brother to her father to the college students in the group — calls me Deef.

Deefs.net

When I finally decided to get a domain name for myself, I was having some trouble coming up with a name. “simms.com” would have been a great option had Serial Integrated Memory Modules (a.k.a. RAM, a few years ago) been called something else. “stephenmsimms.com” was available, but I didn’t want this for two reasons — being “steve@stephenmsimms.com” seemed a bit redundant, and was a long name in any case. I like short names, since they require less typing and are much less prone to error.

Eventually, I got to thinking about what names I could use besides my actual name, which would be memorable, short, and available, and “Deef” came to mind.

“deef.com” and “deef.net” were taken by a “Department of something-or-other” and a foreign site, respectively, but “deefs.net” was available, and it had the advantage of being a phrase (Deef’s Net[work]).

This meant that I could have the E-Mail address “Steve at Deef’s Net,” and anyone who knew me would be able to remember the name (as it turned out, the biggest problem was people thinking that the address was “deefsnet.com”).

Welcome, then, to Deef’s Net!