Okay. Wow. I see where I got off track. I completely misunderstood SHADOW in that post about his friends. I was thinking he meant they referred to themselves in the third-person. :P
Apparently, I kept reading into the posts what wasn't there-as well as leaving out an important bit of what I had intended to say. '...it seems that referring to one's self (by name) is more common among females...'
I understand that people refer to themselves, I was just confused as to why-through my misinterpretation-you were saying that it's not very uncommon for guys to call themselves by name.
I got my information from forums, web-searches, etc. After I read one post saying that ぼく is considered childish, I googled it and came up with a ton more results with the same opinion-some people claiming that Japanese friends told them not to use the word. :P
Just do a search for 'boku is childish'.
Sorry for making such a mess of that! I definitely need to be more specific in my speech.
Thanks for calling me out on my mistake.
