The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:09am on Tuesday, 25th January, 2022:
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It's long been established that the first use of the word avatar to describe the visualisation of a character in a virtual world came from Habitat, by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar.
I had assumed that Randy and Chip had got the name direct from Hinduism, but it seems not. The name was actually inspired by the title of a Poul Anderson book, The Avatar, that Chip had been reading. Obviously he knew it was from Hinduism, but it wasn't Hinduism that made it pop into his mind. Presumably Poul Anderson did get it direct from Hinduism, though.
Here's a video clip in which Chip explains the origin of the term.
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