Back at Caltech in the 70s, user accounts on the DECSystem 10 had 3 characters, and was set as the student's initials. One fellow had no middle name, so he used 'x'.

He got so used to it he legally changed his name so his middle name was 'X'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_X._Cohen is actually David S. Cohen but the name was already taken.

Thanks for this -- I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I had the same confusion and it was definitely because I was thinking of Cringely.

Of course Dvorak was one of the writers on the Cringely column.

So confusion is to be expected. :)