{"id":73992,"date":"2023-01-03T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/meaning\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T23:36:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T21:36:26","slug":"meaning","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/en\/meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaning of the nickname"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\" id=\"wpb-content-root\"><p>[vc_row content_placement=&#8221;middle&#8221;][vc_column width=&#8221;2\/3&#8243;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h1>Why the nickname Rafz<\/h1>\n<p>At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, a very young Raffaele Iannello (here is his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/en\/cv\/\">curriculum<\/a>) chose the nickname Rafz to make his debut on BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), namely the first digital communication platforms that allowed the exchange of messages and files. The first three letters were an abbreviation of his first name, while the fourth was the last letter of the alphabet. At the time, it was common to add a &#8216;z&#8217; to one&#8217;s nickname to give it a distinctive touch. This practice recalled the hacker culture, associated with people with a deep knowledge of technology.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years he has kept it, and it is now also one of his registered trademarks, representing his identity online and offline: @rafz is the name on almost all of his social media profiles, and rafz.com is the address of his website (yes, a .com domain of only four letters&#8230; a very rare thing nowadays).<\/p>\n<p>By the way, Rafz is also the name of a Swiss municipality in the Canton of Z\u00fcrich, but this has no relation to his choice of nickname.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/3&#8243;][vc_single_image image=&#8221;76679&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1666035708849{padding-top: 40px !important;padding-right: 40px !important;padding-bottom: 50px !important;padding-left: 40px !important;background-color: #efefef !important;}&#8221;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1666035597992{margin-top: -70px !important;margin-bottom: 50px !important;}&#8221; el_class=&#8221;nota4&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"price-alert\">First Rafz logo, in use from 1990 to 2010<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=&#8221;76676&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1666035701786{padding-top: 40px !important;padding-right: 40px !important;padding-bottom: 50px !important;padding-left: 40px !important;background-color: #efefef !important;}&#8221;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1666035686046{margin-top: -70px !important;margin-bottom: 40px !important;}&#8221; el_class=&#8221;nota4&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"price-alert\">Current Rafz logo, in use since 2010<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row content_placement=&#8221;middle&#8221;][vc_column width=&#8221;2\/3&#8243;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;&#8221;] Why the nickname Rafz At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, a very young Raffaele Iannello (here is his curriculum) chose the nickname Rafz to make his debut on BBSs&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":76676,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-73992","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.5 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Meaning of the nickname &#8226; Rafz | Raffaele Iannello<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rafz is the nickname chosen by the Italian designer and artist Raffaele Iannello at the beginning of the 90s for his presence on the Net.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/en\/meaning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meaning of the nickname &#8226; Rafz | Raffaele Iannello\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rafz is the nickname chosen by the Italian designer and artist Raffaele Iannello at the beginning of the 90s for his presence on the Net.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/en\/meaning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rafz | Raffaele Iannello\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/rafz\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-18T21:36:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rafz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/rafz_modern_logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"530\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@rafz_com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rafz.com\\\/en\\\/meaning\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rafz.com\\\/en\\\/meaning\\\/\",\"name\":\"Meaning of the nickname &#8226; 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