Josh Zabriskie
I’m writing this journal entry for the benefit of anyone who knew me before 1995, and wants to get in touch. Within a couple days, Google will have indexed this page, and it should be the top result for “Josh Zabriskie.”
I was born Joshua David Zabriskie, and anyone who knew me in Tennessee (where I was born and attended Northeast Elementary, Cookeville Junior High, and Cannon County High) or North Carolina (where I attended Carolina Friends School for two years) would know me by that name.
In late 1994, however, I shortened my last name to Zader, and dropped my middle name altogether, shortly before graduating from the University of New Mexico.
The name “Zabriskie” never felt to me like much of a fit esthetically, and after spending my spring semester making up names for fictional characters in my short-story writing seminar, I set myself to the task of thinking up a name for myself.
In the fine tradition of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden (as well as all great writers and thieves, apparently), I elected to keep my initials.
I made up the name “Zader” mostly out of thin air, and kept it because I liked the sound of it. It also happens to be a shortened rearrangement of my father and grandfather’s Polish surname:
Zabriskie –> Zabr…e –> Zader
I have noticed a few other Zaders around the internet, though I’ve had little contact with them. I notice I get periodic visitors from folks searching for the Zaders in Denmark and Brussels.
And I’m told that zader (or perhaps zadar would be the better translation) is the Yiddish word for “grandfather.” I can live with that.
Somewhere in our garage I have a framed photograph of me sitting with three other Rand-admirer friends (Kylae Griffin, Allen Costell, and Kirez Korgan) at the 1996 IOS summer seminar. One day I realized that three out of four people in the photograph had changed their name.
And then, earlier this year, I learned that the fourth one has recently changed his name too….
A very strange coincidence, or just a reflection on the kind of personal identity entrepreneurs who gravitate toward Rand conferences? You decide.
In any case, if you’re looking for me, you’ve found me. I often think about the people I went to school with, and occasionally do searches for them on the internet when I’m feeling nostalgic. Hopefully I’ll hear from one of you as a result of this journal entry!
