True, but that was for convenience, not because we thought we needed to have a "real identity". (IP addresses were later, ISPs were much later, but yes, UUCP hops were recorded. FWIW, my UUCP paths ended in something close to my legal name.)

Remember some of early Usenet, I wouldn't be surprised if some people had taken advantage of Californian naming laws (at the time, one could use almost any name one wanted, as long as it was consistent and not intended for fraud) to make their legal name more consistent with their online handle.

Mark V. Shaney is an example of a user who was not using their real name/identity (nor even had one).

Maybe https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thequux can tell us how pseudonymous usernames were in his time?

    Quaxity quuxity,
    Teitelman's InterLISP
    Has a DWIM feature that's
    Really a screw;
    MacLISP has evident
    Superiority,
    Letting its customer
    Mean what he do.