There's no problem with using your real name if that's how you choose to be known here - and if no one else has already used it as a mudcat name.

In earlier times, you needed a separate email address to register each name, so couples often shared the same mudcat name. I understand that it's no longer required; but I haven't looked at the details since nearly all email services now allow "subaccounts" and there are lots of free email accounts available.

In my case, using my real name could be problematic, since (according to the web) there are at least 268,438 persons in the US (as of a few months ago when I checked) using the same name. For my mudcat name, I've only found a little more than a half-dozen (all elsewhere), so the mudcat name is a more specific ID than my real one. Although none of us have much control over who else might choose to use the same name as ours, mudcat - I believe - still allows only one user per mudcat moniker. (And there has been at least one other here with the same "real name" as mine - already in use here when I got my own mudcat ID.)

John