Why the nickname Rafz
Raffaele Iannello (his curriculum here) began “playing” with computers in 1984, at the age of 10. In those days personal computers were not very widespread, very few people (at least in Italy) had one in their own home. In fact, although Bill Gates, the famous founder of Microsoft, predicted in 1975 that in the future there would be a computer on every desk and in every home, it took many years for that to actually happen. The ealry adopters were the ones who really needed it for work. Raffaele’s father, a math and physics teacher, at one point in his career also became a computer teacher. Consequently, buying a pc for himself and his family was almost a natural step for him.
Therefore, from a very young age, Raffaele Iannello was able to approach this new tool and to learn the basics of the programming languages of the time. Since then he has never stopped using computers, which have indeed gradually become an integral part of his life… until it forms the basis for his work, which coincides with his passion.
First Rafz logo, in use from 1990 to 2010
Current Rafz logo, in use since 2010
When, in the early 90s, he began to use computer tools to make his debut on the Net, he chose the nickname Rafz. The first three letters obviously represented an abbreviation of his first name, while the fourth was the last letter of the alphabet. At the time, in that environment it was customary to add a Z to one’s nickname because this gave it authority, making it look like that of a hacker, that is, a person who really knew technology. These in fact very often had a name that ended with a Z. Over the years Raffaele Iannello has kept this name, which is now also his registered trademark and represents his identity on and off line. @rafz is the name on almost all of his social networks and rafz.com is the address of his website (a four-letter .com domain is now a very rare thing, in this case possible because it was registered in the early 2000s).
By the way, Rafz is also the name of a Swiss municipality in the Canton of Zürich, but this has nothing to do with Raffaele and his choices.