strange symbols in names

now, i thought it was a modern phenomenon to use obscure characters in names, like exclamation marks and question marks, and of course the liberation of the @ sign in to every email address.
however, it seems the typographical thing goes way back. like frederik who abbrev’d himself to fred^k. That’s a superscript underlined k. fancy that.
i’ll even forgive his capitall letters as it’s so good.