I was only called Jared when my mother was yelling at me. 

Aside from the Beverly Hillbilly nonsense, JED is a good name - not many people have it.

I've noticed people love to rhyme it into a nickname - I have an idiot
brother-in-law who calls me JED the Shed. Pretty funny right? Being a DeadHead gave me two other nicknames - 
Tennessee and JEDHead. JEDHead is my favorite. My least favorite was given by my least favorite ex-girlfriend - JEDDYBEAR.

I was the only JED in town until two grammar schools merged into one junior high school - I had to SHARE my unique JEDNESS 
with another guy. What's worse, his given name was actually just plain JED, wheras mine was a nickname. 
As luck would have it, I actually wound up in the same sixth grade class as this other JED, so for the first time in my life 
I was called Jared by a teacher, but i was still JED down deep where it counts.

When I went away to college, my big sister convinced me JED was a
bumpkin name and that I should take advantage of the new environment to change my identity. I tried it for about a week, 
but eventually my JEDness came seeping through and jared was finished at college. 
I have never been traitor to my JEDNESS since.

weird page - great idea - LONG LIVE THE CIRCLE OF JEDS

PS - there is a band called Grandaddy that has some great songs about a humanoid called Jeddy3 - maybe you should link to their page
www.grandaddy.com - I think the song is freely downloadable from that site.

Jed York