Why I chose the name Plert Ankush

Plert Ankush is the name I use across the internet. It is not my legal name, and it did not arrive in a single flash of inspiration. It came out of a long search for a name I could build a personal brand around for years. This is how I found it, which names I turned down, and what the name does and does not mean.

What I wanted from a name

I wanted a personal brand that could represent me online for the long term. My first name, Ankush, is far too common to stand out on its own. Adding my surname would have given me an ordinary personal name, and ordinary names are hard to find in search results.

So I decided to look for a distinctive word instead. I was not after one more username for one more social media account. I wanted an identity that could sit across platforms, projects and whatever I build in the future.

Three things mattered most. The name had to be unique, it had to be sharp and easy to say, and it had to be available almost everywhere. When I finally found it, it ticked all three. It was available on roughly 90 to 95 percent of the places I checked.

The names I turned down

I tried a lot of options. Ankush Builds, 4nqush and heyankush were the main ones, and there were many more. Some were usable, but none of them was truly unique, and none felt like the name I had in mind.

After many combinations and many AI suggestions, I got frustrated. Then I remembered something I had already made.

Plerti, the idea the name came from

Plerti was an earlier startup idea of mine. It was meant to put infrastructure in one place, with one dashboard, one API key and one place to pay for everything. In the long term it would have brought together AI APIs, authentication, email, payments and similar services, built as a layer on top of trusted platforms instead of from scratch.

It never went beyond an idea, and it is closed now. But I had spent time on its name. I had found it through an AI suggestion and a name generator called Namelix, and I had saved it in a collection with four or five other startup ideas, each with its own unique name.

From Plerti to Plert

When I went back to that collection, I picked Plerti and started breaking it apart and joining it back together. When I removed the final letter, I was left with Plert.

It was short, clean and sharp, which was exactly what I had been trying to find. Adding my first name gave me Plert Ankush, and that made the whole thing even more unique.

Why Plert Ankush, and not Plert or Ankush alone

Plert on its own still returned a few existing results when I searched for it. Ankush on its own was so common that it was hopeless for standing out. I also wanted my first name to be part of the identity.

Put together, the two gave me what I needed. People can know me as Plert, or as Plert Ankush, and both lead to the same place. I do not want to be known only as Ankush.

A name with no meaning yet

Plert does not mean anything right now. I chose it for how it sounds, how it looks and how well it fits.

I may try to give the word a meaning over time, or I may simply keep treating it as a name. Either way, I will not make up a dramatic backstory for it.

One identity, with my legal name kept apart

I use Plert and Plert Ankush everywhere online. My legal name appears only in a small number of places, so that people who need it can still find it.

This is not about fear. My first name is public. I simply want my online identity and my legal identity to stay separate, and the name is a mix of everything I am, a version of my personality, a professional identity and the person I want to become.

More than a username

The handle is plertankush, and I use it on more than 20 platforms. Every official profile is listed on the Elsewhere page.

This website is the centre of it. It is my portfolio, and it is where I share what I use, what I learn and how I think. Many people start building in public on social platforms alone. I am trying to build, learn and think in public across the whole internet. You can see my setup on the Uses page.

Two principles guide all of it, honesty and originality.

What I want the name to stand for

I want Plert Ankush to mean a founder, an entrepreneur and a creator. Over the next five to ten years I would like it to be linked with founding more than one company in AI, technology and related areas.

I also have an early thought about a side startup that would give students knowledge beyond school, such as how business works. I have no plan or strategy for it yet, so it stays a thought for now.

All of this is a direction, not a list of achievements. I would rather let the name grow with the work.

Where things stand today

The name is young. I started using it one to two months ago, and the earliest version of the idea goes back about four months. I made it public only about a week before writing this, so nobody has reacted to it yet and I have no feedback to share.

A name does not make anyone credible. The work does, and I plan to let the work speak. For now, Plert Ankush is the identity I have chosen to build with, and I am comfortable with that.