When did it become the 
in 
thing to sign off your e-mails with just your initials (or even just one initial)?
I’m getting more and more e-mails that end with something like (using John Doe as the name in the example):
… Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
Regards,
j.
or even a plain:
… Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
JD
Why am I seeing more and more of this?
Is this supposed to signify an informal relationship between the two people?
Perhaps the person is so busy and important that they don’t have time to type their entire name? (I even know some folks who have this as part of their auto-attached signature. What, too busy to type it even once?)
Or is it a cult of self-loathing, where these folks hate their names so much they can’t stand to see it in print? 
Chime in and pile on or, perhaps, defend yourself and
Popularity: 13% [?]
Robert Accettura adds this Comment:
I admit I’ve become ‘-R’, but the main reason is just pure lazyness and the fact that nobody reads your name anyway. It’s just extra typing for no reason.
- R
September 13th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Why not put your name in as part of your signature and skip writing it entirely?
September 13th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Kevan adds this Comment:
eh, sigs take up extra room. brevity FTW.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Why? For example, I could have a signature that is just:
September 13th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Kevan adds this Comment:
Actually, I sometimes don’t “sign” the email at all. I do if I’m saying something as I close (like, Thanks, or Love…) but often I don’t. Maybe it serves as an “EOM” type marker, and people are just used to writing less and less if they can – blame SMS for that one.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Eric Cheng adds this Comment:
I’ve been signing mine as “-e” for a long time now, but only when I’m familiar with the person. It isn’t about it being an “in” thing.
I want to stress the familiarity. Somehow signing “Eric” or “Eric Cheng” seems … formal.
September 13th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
dvg adds this Comment:
I’ve been “signing off” as dvg for as long as I can remember. I’m talking 15+ years. (My full name is in my signature already.)
FWIW, I sign postcards and anything else handwritten as Dg usually, too.
I have no idea why. I actually love my name.
September 13th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Brett adds this Comment:
Your loyal readers know that you’re now on the much slower EDGE network instead of EVDO, and are just trying to save you bandwith speed.
September 13th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Eric – interesting to hear your reasoning, thanks.
dvg – if your full name is already in the sig, why do you feel initials or some sort of “sign-off” is needed beyond that? And why not have that be automatically added as part of the sig? Honestly curious here.
Brett – nice.
Actually, I’ve never had EVDO on a device that gets e-mail. My Treo 600 wasn’t capable.
September 13th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Elaine adds this Comment:
I honestly don’t know why I sign emails as “emn” — and only at work, really. Just one of those email tics, I guess.
I can say that it’s “emn” vs “e” because I grew up as one of three “en”s, so the m is just part of how I initial stuff.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
jt adds this Comment:
I’m with Eric that initials feel less formal the a full name (or a full first name). So, you’re probably right about it signaling a less formal relationship between the two people. Where signatures to me have always indicated an extremely formal relationship.
Best Regards,
jt
Plus – I suppose more of my options are open, ’cause I’m on EVDO or RCN
September 13th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Geof F. Morris adds this Comment:
If it’s an in-thing, I haven’t noticed.
For the record, I’ve been doing this for at least seven years; the only reason that I know it’s been that long is that I had to unlearn signing as GFM at the office [when I really don't think that being so brief is all that professional, although I do sign internal emails with initials].
[I probably have a vastly different reason for doing this than most, though.]
September 13th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
stephen o'grady adds this Comment:
b/c sog has a nice ring to it
September 14th, 2006 at 12:07 am
Justin Moore adds this Comment:
I’ll chime in with a few of the others and say that I do it as an informal method of ending my message. For online-only ‘friends’ I’ll often use ‘-JM’ but for my closest friends and co-workers, it’s often just ‘-j’
September 14th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Think about it adds this Comment:
I wouldn’t sign things like that, but I’ve made the same observation.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Jeremy adds this Comment:
In my use of it, yes.
I would never sign anything formal that way. And I don’t really sign any emails that I send out unsolicited to people that way. So, if I’m contacting the person for the first time – as in, this is not an email in the middle of a back and forth that has been going on – I always sign with at least my full first name.
I usually sign an initial in the middle of an exchange of emails, because I like closing with a sig but it seems repetitive. So if we’re going back and forth it makes sense to announce the end of the email in a cursory fashion.
- J
September 14th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Chris P. adds this Comment:
I have been signing my work related emails as “CP” for about a year now, and as a result, I am now known as “CP”. Nobody calls me “Chris” anymore.
I did originally do it because it’s the “in” thing. That’s the #1 reason I do anything.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
ricorea adds this Comment:
Signature is about a SIGN. If i put “-rc” in my signature, it means two things. One is my unique sign and the other is my name abbreviation. Just that. It’s not a big deal.
September 16th, 2006 at 6:28 am
Alex adds this Comment:
Hmm, I’m not sure how :scare: unique :/scare: “-rc” is.
September 16th, 2006 at 9:28 am
alba adds this Comment:
since most of the time i’m emailing from some kind of mobile device, i’ve gotten used to signing like this.
lorem blah blah.
e
–
eric alba
the dashes and name below are the automatic signature, so people can decipher the single, informal e above.
if i know the person really well, they’re lucky if they get punctuation. let alone the shift key.
e
September 20th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
I’m not sure if I understand the value of the ‘e’ here…
September 21st, 2006 at 12:20 am
Shawn adds this Comment:
I hate it. Despise it. To the point of googling it, and feeling quite personally satisfied that I found a blog about it.
To indicate how foolish I think it is, when I reply to those messages I ususally begin my response with their initial in quotes…
“E”,
November 1st, 2006 at 9:29 pm
parul tyagi adds this Comment:
thank you shawn! and thank you alex!
i HATE it too. And no, I do NOT think it implies informality. I hate my professors (i do love them) when they use such initials. I am at a loss. Do I address them by their first name or use prof. last name? If anyone is informal WHY would they use the first letter of the last name as well?
Obviously, the initials are only a MARK and really mean the ENTIRE name. How lame! Someone once signed as dja, and another as sp, and yet another as RD and i wanted to say : Hello R chaic.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Mike adds this Comment:
Basically, it is a subtle form of arrogance, conceit and narcissism. Look out for the correlation. If someone sends you an email and then just signs it with a single letter, ask yourself whether they are a bit up their own harris. They probably are.
I hate it too. A good example would be college professors, as mentioned above. Tony Blair signed his memos ‘T’. Maybe it meant ‘tw*t’ though.
Everybody stop it please.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Eric adds this Comment:
It is common practice to sign memos with initials because the name of the author is in the heading. The email is analogues of inter organizational memos.
Emails are not a substitute for formal business communication.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:14 am