I agree with 99% of what you said. The remaining 1 % concerns nick names.

I will tell you why I only use my first name, and that is because I am a published author (Random House) and people will do Google searches on my name to get my email address so they can email me about my book. I want them to get to the professional stuff, or the web page my husband made for me, * and not be sent to adoption or earthquake or chihuahua sites.

My website isn't all that spiffy, but here it is, if you're interested. You even get to see what I look like, and that's always fun: http://www.alpert.com/cathryn/index.html

Simply Cathryn