I've never quite liked my birth name. It sounds kinda, "bleh." It's been nothing more than a minor bother my whole life, only really coming up when I hear my name. So, a couple months ago I started trying to think of name ideas. Eventually, in a hit of inspiration (shortly after seeing it somewhere, no not 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I should watch that anyway), I came up with Hal, and recently I've started to use it.