I’ve grown up sick of nicknames on the Internet.
Everyone is able to post any random junk behind a nickname. It takes a minimum bit of courage to publish something exposing your real name, so for me it becomes a matter of credibility. Look at Julian Assange. He could have done everything anonymously, but who would have believed a single word he published on the net?
It’s some kind of psychological trick I guess. My brain automatically assigns less importance to a nickname. In my job I spend lots of time looking for information on the web. Code snippets, IE quirks workarounds, marketing tips. You name it. When something interesting ends up on my monitor, I find myself automatically, unconsciously discarding information published by individuals who has no guts to use their real name. And this happens even more when I’m not familiar with the topic I’m researching.
So, if you are a professional (any professional), please use your real name to stand up from the endless crowd of no_name_54. You get credibility and people start connecting your skills to a real-world identity. Trust me when I say that it opens a lot of opportunities, especially in the IT world.