Other Xaqs

What's with the name? 1990, bored in class, I start playing with alternate spellings and come to this funky, pithy, unique spelling of my birthname, Zachary. X as in Xylophone, Q as in Iraq. This confuses people when they see it written. Of what ethnic descent is he, they wonder. Is it official, others ask: well, I haven't changed the birth certificate yet, nor the passport; but I can deposit checks to that name, and I sign all of my work this way, my family spells it this way, and it is my identity... has it really been 14 years?

Other Xaqs do exist, I'm amused to say. Firstly, I discovered a XAQ on the Terminator II pinball machine in Pittsburgh, who had the highest score. Initials? I saw another XAQ on another game somewhere else. Not me. Very strange.

Here's a list of other Xaqs I've found (or who have found me):

  • Xaq Pitkow (me)
  • Xaq Glover
  • xaq Thorp van Driel
  • Xaquery Taro Meyer
  • Xaq Frohlich
  • Leader Dude Xaq
  • The Shack of Xaq, DJ
  • Xaq Fower
  • Xaq Lutz
  • Xaq Kreuzer-Land, xaq since 0
  • Xaq Halzel
  • Xaq Webb
  • Xaq Wissner-Gross
  • Xaq Arnold
  • Xaq Shane Peralto
  • Xaq Bentele
  • Xaq Rothman
  • Xaq Caswell

    So much for uniqueness. I suppose by putting this web page out in the public domain I'm further diluting the uniqueness, but I choose meta-selfish aka altruistically to post anyway. Hey, this worked out recently because I learned the following from Xaq Frolich:

    "I thought you might be interested in knowing a fact which I had descovered about the name 'Xaq'. There is a Aztec (or maybe Mayan) rain god named 'shaq,' but the translation for the name into spanish can also be 'xaq'. So we are coincidentally sharing a name with an Aztec rain god (who for their culture, would be a relatively well respected one). I discovered this in the anthropological museum in Mexico City."

    A friend of Xaq Glover's mother had a star named XAQ as a Christmas gift the year he died. It is outside the Gemini constellation. Rest In Peace, Xaq.