Where did your user name come from?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

We all have stories to our usernames. Some we thought of on the spot. Others have some sort of specific meaning attributed to them. Others are from a memory. I'm always interested to find out why or how people come up with their names.

---
Mine I picked up from a club I had made as a youngster. We came up with it when we wanted to come up with a new name for the card game: egyptian rat screw. We decided that the form would be ethnicity, animal, lewd act (but we ended up dropping the lewd act part). So, after a few tries from others in the group I ended coming up with Australian Wombat club. We loved the name for it's shear ridiculousness and randomness. From there we had to have Ranks, so one of my friends was Head Wombat, and another Wombat #1, #2, so on. I didn't want to be a number, so I was going to be "The Rogue Wombat"...and then at the last minute when they were scribing out names in the constitution, they asked what my name was and I stated - The Wombat of Doom. They all thought it was hilarious and wanted to make up crazy names like that too, but all their names had already been put in so it was too late. :smallbiggrin:

That was 11 years ago now...Dear God. Anywho the name stuck, and I still am quite fond of it. Anyone else have a story?

[Deathkeeper]

This goes way back to 7th grade. That would make me...13? My friends had just convinced me to make an account for YouTube so I could favorite videos and such. My very condescending friend's exact words were "And don't name your username after a trading card or something." And because I really hated when he said things like that, of course I had to. So I dug up my MTG deck, pulled out one of the rare cards that sounded the coolest: Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper. Unfortunately, Deathkeeper was taken, so I just added Lord as a bit of a prefix. And well, I'm really bad at names, so I have trouble making new ones, so since then I've just been using LDK for everything, since no one but me would ever use that, I know it'll be available.

[about50heavies]

Running joke with friend involving tf2 classes and steam profile names

[Drakeburn]

Well, of all the Runescape accounts I've made to replace the ones which have passwords I have forgotten, there was one account that became my favorite: Drakeburn.

In my head, I've always wanted to write about some young adventurer who would become a treasure hunter and a legendary dragon slayer, so the name that came to me was Drakeburn. So, Drakeburn is my username.

(I'm actually currently trying to come up with a name for a purple wizard)

[Castaras]

Random letters that were put together for a runescape account.

It kinda stuck.

Although one day I want to go to the town which stole my username. :smalltongue: :smallwink:

[Morph Bark]

I've always been Morph, in one way, shape or form. Morphman. Morph. Morphy. Morpholomew (after a brief while of being called Mewy). Morpheus. Morphisto.

The Bark only came upon joining the old Gleemax boards, making my name into "M-Bark", which I had on here at first too, in the sense of "embarking on a journey", as I was venturing into a new kind of forum and a new part of the internet, whereas previously I had only really joined boards I already knew people at.

Then here on GitP I later had it changed to Morph Bark.

I've occassionally gone by Murphy's Lawyer (after joking for a while that it was actually MY law, darnit!) and my email still had that as the name associated with it thanks to MSN.

[TaiLiu]

It's a bit morbid, but my username comes from a dead relative.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Random letters that were put together for a runescape account.

It kinda stuck.

Although one day I want to go to the town which stole my username. :smalltongue: :smallwink:

Can I use it as a town in my novel? I love it!

[Castaras]

Can if you want - the real life town is Cástaras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1staras)

It's more of a village, really. :smallbiggrin:

[factotum]

It's from the uncommon English word meaning, approximately, "jack of all trades" (and no, I knew nothing about the identically named D&D class when I picked it)--just seemed to suit me, at least in my mind. I've been using it as my forum handle for around a decade now.

[Lensman]

I've always worn glasses, since I was about 10.

In my early teens I read the Doc Smith Lensman stories, with brave and heroic characters in possession of the lens, a psionic amplifier. I enjoyed the books (I did say I was in my early teens) and joked to my friends that I was a lensman. (My puns have always been awful). When, thirty years later, I needed a handle for myself, the old joke surfaced again. By then I'd been a D&Der for a long time - I just liked the image of a beholder wearing a lens - a monocle.

[Aurenthal]

Mine came from a book a few years ago (I can't really remember the name, but I do recall that it was in spanish). Anyway, Aurenthal was a sword the main character needed for achieving the plot or something like that. And somehow I started using it as a username for everything

[MoonCat]

I just liked the term MoonCat. I wasn't even thinking about space kitties, I just randomly strung together two nouns for things I loved back in fifth grade, and I realized how much I liked it. If I needed a random wordy thing for a while after that, I chose MoonCat, and then it became my goto username.

[RebelRogue]

It's named after the theme and class of my very first 3.5 character.

[ScrambledBrains]

Mine came from the fact that when I signed up for the forum, I'd just gotten back from an entire day at college, and felt like my brain had been sufficiently scrambled. A Science degree(AN: Environmental Science to be precise) class schedule is nothing to joke about. :smallsigh::smallbiggrin:

[KuReshtin]

Mine is from back when I needed a new user name after figuring out that my old one was too common and loads of people used it.

So, I started thinking about unusual but still pronouncable names that I could use, and came to remember a word from a series of books from Jennifer Roberson, The Cheysuli Chronicles.
"Ku'Reshtin" is basically an expression of surprise, it's an insult, a term of derision, and it kind of worked with my sense of self-derision at that point.

So, that's how the user name KuReshtin came about. The apostrophe was dropped since most forms won't accept special characters in user names, but the capitalisation of the R stayed.

Also, the pronounciation is not to far off my real name, so that helps as well. :smallcool:

[Das Platyvark]

The Platyvark is a crossbreed of a Platypus and an Aardvark, a combination which brought me much hilarity as a 7th grader. Das comes from the German.

[Eldan]

I'm really bad at character names. Getting a bit better now, maybe with experience, but back when I first started D&D...
My first character was an elven wizard. So I picked up hte Silmarillion and went through the appendix, until I found the word for Wizard. Hence, "Istari", my first character.

For my second character, my DM told me I'd need an actual name. Couldn't think of anything, even after hours, so I started up the random name generator on the wizards site and got "Eldane" for my halfling rogue. It stuck, but the "e" got dropped.

[Amidus Drexel]

Amidus Drexel was the name of an NPC from a campaign I ran about a year ago. I don't know where "Amidus" came from; it doesn't have any special meaning to me. "Drexel" was the name of a street in one of the towns near Cleveland OH (I was there on vacation), and I thought it would made a fitting last name. Apparently it's also a university.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Amidus Drexel was the name of an NPC from a campaign I ran about a year ago. I don't know where "Amidus" came from; it doesn't have any special meaning to me. "Drexel" was the name of a street in one of the towns near Cleveland OH (I was there on vacation), and I thought it would made a fitting last name. Apparently it's also a university.

It is! It's down the road from me! :)

[Hbgplayer]

HBG is the letters many people use to shorten my hometown, HealdsBurG. Player because, well, I play games.

[Dave Halfbreed]

I'm not very creative, and I didn't have room for "Halfmexican" and "Plasticshield" as the epithet. :)

[Siosilvar]

Ah, another one of these.

The name comes from my very first D&D character, an elven fighter/magic-user. It appears to be a mutation of "Silver Star" from my ten-year-old self. Siosilvar Silareth (now Sio'allyn Silareth Varscera, the Black Eagle - that comes from my fifteen-year-old self and is even cheesier than the original) never saw a lot of playtime but he did get a 3.5 writeup and a few paragraphs of backstory.

[Silverraptor]

My username comes from 3 distinct moments of my life.

1) Back when I was 6 or 7, all the kids in my grade were talking about how much better gold is to silver. I didn't think that was fair because silver was almost as valuable as gold. Therefore I decided to like silver better because it was being mistreated.

Over time as I grew older, I began to find silver prettier than gold, so I legitamately liked it better.

2) I was 12 and was volunteered by my dad to a church goodwill act to clean up a burned down house up in the woods in the mountains. Later after we cleaned it up and spent the night at a log cabin that was rented to all of us, I got bored of all the other teenagers (I was the youngest there) talking about drugs and what not (I distinctly remember hearing marijuana in their conversations) I went off exploring the log cabin.

I came across a tv that was only hooked up to a VHS player and the only tape around was Jurrasic Park. Given that I had never seen the movie before, I decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, I was scared out of my mind (Not having watched too many scary movies before). But despite the T-rex large size or the venom spitters, the one that scared me the most were the veloceraptors because they *OPEN DOORS!* The amount of intellegence from them scared me immensly.

I had such a fear from them that some time later when watching "Teen Titans" and Beast boy morphed into a raptor for a scene, I gasped and found myself pushing away from the tv. However, over time the intellegence of the raptors that scared me so much began to make me appreciate them more and more. I was even beginning to wonder if they weren't wiped out, would they become the dominant intellegent species of the planet?

3) When I was 14, and after much arguing and delaying, my entire family decided I needed an email address. However, they decide to force me to do this when it was my turn to cook dinner. So they had my younger sister do it for me. When she called out "What do you want your username to be?" I thought, What do I like the most?

And thus I became Silverraptor.

(Interesting note, my sister being 11 was a really bad speller, so my email is 'rapter':smallannoyed:)

[White_Drake]

The Knights of the White Drakes was an order founded by my friend's father's gaming group. My first character was eventually inducted, and when I needed a username, I happened to remember it.

[Kumori]

The first time I used Kumori was playing Halo 2. I wanted my gamertag to be something Japanese that didn't sound awkward when used by English speaking folk, and I wanted it to mean something cool. I chose 'Kumori' because it doesn't immediately jump out as being Japanese and it meant 'shadow'.
At the time, my favourite anime was Naruto, and Itachi was pretty cool, so my gamertag was "KumoriUchiha". I later dropped the end part.

Kumori stuck after I used it for XBox live, even after I later discovered that it doesn't really mean shadow. It's would better be used to describe the weather as 'shadowy' on it's a cloudy day.

[smellie_hippie]

Hippie.:smallsmile:

What!? :smallannoyed:

The "smellie" was just because I wanted something that rhymed. There is no actual association between the surname and my general state of being. PLUS I wanted to find a hippie reference that DIDN'T reference drugs or the sixties in general... *stabs Archie*

[golentan]

It's my favorite part of my full title.

[Aedilred]

I have two preferred forms of userid online. One of them is often taken before I have the chance to get it, and although I sometimes suffix it with a number (almost always "03" regardless of whether I am in fact the second with that name) I prefer to leave it unadulterated if possible.

The one I use here is in the older tradition, which dates back to when I first started using the internet in the mid-90s. All these usernames are some variation of "Æþel-x". Usually it's transliterated as "Athel-x" hence why I sign my name "Ath" when using one of these names regardless of what the actual name looks like. Sometimes I render it as "Adel" or "Aedel" for a bit of variety or to disguise it a bit. Here Aedilred was a character I was using in D&D when I signed up, so rather than thinking up a new variant I just used that.

[Mauve Shirt]

Hit the random button on tvtropes.org.

[willpell]

My actual username here is just my name, but on a lot of other sites I go by Envisioner, which is a title I granted myself at a specific moment in my late teenage or early twenties, I no longer remember the exact year but I can still picture the moment. I was at a science fiction convention and announced my decision to my best friend / mentor, who assumed I was joking - when in fact I was deadly serious, and that's been my "truename" ever since. It's a fancy word that means "one who imagines" but also seemed proactive somehow, as if it connoted "one who causes the imagined to be", and I still feel as if it's true, despite an increasing amount of evidence from reality to the contrary.

[Zaggab]

According to this (http://www.barrowdowns.com/middleearthname.php) name generator it's my orc name (or, at least it was in Middle School, I'm unable to replicate the results now). Though it was actually Zaggob the Slaughterer, but I misremembered when I created this account.

[Tylorious]

my name is tylor, not tyler...everyone emphasizes the "O" in my name and it eventually became, Glorious Tylorious...but i just stuck with tylorious

[Traab]

Traab has been a name I use for virtually all of my characters since I started playing MMORPGS back in 99 with everquest. Its my online identity, so even when playing other games people know its me.

[Killer Angel]

Mine arrives from here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Angels).

(BTW, my previous avatar was the sticky figure of gen. Armistead)

[razorback]

Mine has to do with my prehigh school days in wrestling. When i was 11 i moved to the next town over and joined the wrestling team there, which were my forrmer rivals. New teammates started to refer to me as the Razorback. My former team. It got into school and kind of stuck from there. Old friends still use it.

[Remmirath]

When I first signed up here, I used the name Relvinar. That had been the most recent character I had made. However, I never really like using character names for account names -- it tends to make me feel as though I should write like the character, or always use them for an avatar, and then they have this tendency to die off.

So I started thinking of something that would not be a character name, wouldn't be something I would use for a character name, but I would like and would make sense to me. I eventually settled on Remmirath (http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/n/nettedstars.html), because I've always been fond of and interested in stars, and it also ties in to my general fondness of Middle-earth.

This was the first place I used that name, but since then I've been trying to be more consistent with my usernames and use it in most places now. I used to have a different one for nearly every site I went to, and that was annoying.

[scurv]

My user name.

Well once upon a time I enlisted in the navy and though many antics there I got the nickname Mad Dog Moody....ahem yea. I had a hobby of breaking 4 by 4's.

Then when the internet got out of its diapers The name i use to use was Scurvy Dog, Mostly it was a toss away and quite often it was.

Then some years later That ended up being a name i used on a podcast...ahem no comments please.

And from there i shortened it to scurv just because that's what everyone called me.

[CoffeeIncluded]

I can be incredibly hyper, especially with topics that interest me. One joke with me and my friends is that I'm perpetually caffeinated. Since CaffeineIncluded was too long for this forum, I'm CoffeeIncluded!

Ironically, I almost never drink coffee, and when I do, it's got to be as sweet and creamy as coffee ice cream, which I love. Anything else is just too bitter for my tastes. So when I drink coffee, nine times out of ten it's a frappachino or some equivalent.

[TheIanOakley]

Mine is mostly my IRL name. Sad, isn't it?

The "The" part came from a school in-joke.

[noparlpf]

Mine's boring. Comes from the sequence 'nop' in the alphabet stuck onto the random result 'arlpf' from button-mashing on a phone. Both were usernames a friend used during grade school and then middle school, so when I got bored of my older one I just stole his and combined them. He still goes by Arlpf himself, but I don't like capital letters, so I'm just noparlpf.

[Grinner]

I do enjoy a good joke.

[peterpaulrubens]

My favorite painter, of course.

But I started to use it during my first "real" job (i.e., a salaried job instead of an hourly one) which was during the dot-com boom. Among other things, it was my job to log in to customer's websites and verify our ad tracking code was placed properly on their webpages (it wasn't a given that every customer actually had a webmaster for their website). I got really tired of keeping a spreadsheet for all my customer site usernames. Eventually I figured out that "peterpaulrubens" was never, ever taken on any site, and so my spreadsheet got retired in favor of The One True Internet Username. :smallbiggrin:

[Rawhide]

Hit the random button on tvtropes.org.

Best. Backstory. Ever.

[Chilingsworth]

I chose mine after the main villian from A Scarlet Letter when I made my first online account around a decade ago. I don't know why it popped into my head, but it just sounded good.

[Jay R]

1. My first name is Jay.
2. My surname starts with an R.
3. I decided not to use my complete name.

Pretty boring, actually.

[turkishproverb]

He who tells the truth shall be chased out of nine villages.

[dehro]

my first and principal online rpg character. a random digitation of the keyboard cleaned up to make it slightly more elvish.

[Starscream]

Mine's not very interesting; Starscream was my favorite Transformer back when I was a kid and watched that show all the time. But I guess it's kinda important to me, because I am totally obsessed with animation, and Starscream represents a big moment in my becoming so. When I was about six I had an epiphany; Starscream had the exact same voice as Cobra Commander.

At that age I knew just enough to sort of get how cartoons are made, with people drawing lots of slightly different pictures and putting them together like a flip-book. It had never occurred to me that there were actual actors doing the voices, but if those two characters sounded the same, it must mean they were played by the same guy (Chris Latta, BTW), right?

I started actually paying attention to credits from then on, to confirm this. Cartoons back them rarely said who played what, you'd just get a list of VOs. So it became a game for me to try to identify familiar voices (Rob Paulsen! Tara Strong! Billy West!) and then check how I did at the end (much easier nowadays with the internet). I still do it.

Try it yourself. Protip: When in doubt, guess Frank Welker, especially for any sort of animal voice. You'll be right 50% of the time.

[MoonCat]

Best. Backstory. Ever.

Up until you randomly land on the old MEH page. :smallwink:

[AttilaTheGeek]

Back when I first started playing Halo online, in my very first match there was one guy on the other team called "Attila The Geek", instead of Attila the Hun. In hindsight, it's not all that funny, but I kept getting killed because I couldn't stop laughing. Nowadays, I usually use AttilaThePun instead because it sounds more similar to hun, and also emphasizes my terrible puns, but IIRC it was taken.

[JoshL]

My name is as boring and self evident as boring as self evident can be. (http://www.reverbnation.com/joshloughrey)

But in the past I have gone by gnarphlager, and my self-publishing is under gnarphlager records....which was the first string I could pronounce after an afternoon of random typing back in college. The old line was I would give people three guesses as to what gnarphlager meant. I would then tell people I didn't know, but I'd know it when I heard it. I eventually determined what it meant to me (http://pancreaticaardvarks.bandcamp.com/album/voice-in-an-empty-room), but I never expected anyone to understand or care.

[Vwulf DeMarcus]

So. This one. Interestingly enough I started one of these myself on this forum...quite a while back. But that's beside the point. This username comes from my 9-10 year-old self. I liked ninjas, and the letters "x" and "q". That's where this one came from. But I've had two other on this forum, one was a shortened version of a D&D character(Shadowhisper) and one was because I was obsessed with Dune(Paul Muad'dib). Tbh I normally use a different one, but I haven't gotten around to asking for a name change here yet.

[Wyntonian]

In the long, distant past, I had a history teacher who thought that Wynton was too boring of a name, so she took to calling me Wyntonian. I liked it, it stuck, it's never taken and I use it for everything now. If you see a Wyntonian elsewhere on the internet, it's probably me.

[turkishproverb]

Was probably you. Now? I imagine an enterprising individual is going to start registering under that name. :smallbiggrin:

[Morph Bark]

He who tells the truth shall be chased out of nine villages.

Only nine? Nice! :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

My nickname is in Quenya - "El"-base was what I was going for (El means star; one of the few words I knew) and I added random stuff from names in the bbooks so I ended up with Eldariel. Which conveniently means something totally unrelated to the word "El"; "Eldar" - "riel" or "Elf" - "maiden". Oops. This was back when I was like 12 and had just read LotR; used it everywhere ever since. Nowadays I use Elealar from "Elen" - "alar" or "Starshine".

[Lonely Tylenol]

Spell it backwards.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Spell it backwards.

Nice! Love those things.

[Anecronwashere]

Inspired by the avatar (still have the avvie see)
Was supposed to be Anecromancerwashere
but I typed Anecronancerwashere and it was too long, so I backspaced ancer (thinking I had done mancer)

THus through 2 mistakes my name was born

[Eldariel]

Nice! Love those things.

"Those things" as in palindromes or tylenol?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

"Those things" as in palindromes or tylenol?

Palindromes.

[Leon]

Its my SCA name.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Palindromes.

Here you go! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4)

[Razanir]

My current name (Elimu Marimech)– It's the name of the character I played in the longest running D&D campaign I ever had. (3-4 sessions. We're bad at keeping them going) He/she was a dromite wilder, if anyone was wondering.

My name change request (Razanir)– So I read a fan fiction where someone retold Ocarina of Time with pokémon. This made me want to write my own but LotR instead of OoT. It's on hiatus for anyone who's wondering. Anyway, I needed a name for my account there, so I picked what I thought I remembered as Pippin's name in Westron. Turns out, I misremembered his name. Peregrin is actually Razanur. Either way, the name's stuck with me around the internet.

[tcrudisi]

1. My first name is Jay.
2. My surname starts with an R.
3. I decided not to use my complete name.

Pretty boring, actually.

1. My first initial is T
2. My second initial is C
3. The beginning of my last name is Rudisi
4. I also decided not to use my complete name.
5. This came from university naming systems where almost all universities give you a username based on first initial, middle initial, and first 6 letters of your family name.

[noparlpf]

1. My first initial is T
2. My second initial is C
3. The beginning of my last name is Rudisi
4. I also decided not to use my complete name.
5. This came from university naming systems where almost all universities give you a username based on first initial, middle initial, and first 6 letters of your family name.

The two colleges I've been to do first initial, full last name. One includes year of entry at the end. So like jsmith13 or something.

[Serpent Stare]

My username, Serpent Stare, has been my tag in one form or another for a long time. It is a derivative of "Snake Eyes", which is a nickname a friend gave me in my preteen years, because I had a habit of rolling my eyes back to the whites and making a rattling hiss. I just thought it was cool. Once, when I saw a bible-thumper who was bashing gays on a website's built-in IRC, I assumed the name SerpentStare to serve as both a reference to my nickname, and to the serpent in the garden of Eden, thus establishing an antagonistic standpoint towards the gay-basher and taking up argument against him: Damn straight I was going to Hell, and he'd meet me there; me for my deviance, him for his hate. It was the most fun internet argument I'd ever gotten in, including insults exchanged in Shakespearean English (he called me a harlot - it was hilarious!) to the point where I got up from the keyboard and danced around after every post. At the end of it, I thanked him for the dance, and he, whoever he was -thanked me back-.
I liked the name SerpentStare, found it sounded a little more mature and dangerous to me than Snake Eyes, and have used it ever since.

[Groundhog]

My birthday is on Groundhog Day. Pretty simple.

[Lady Moreta]

I stole it from a book :smalltongue: (Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern for anyone who doesn't recognise it) My penpal and I were both in love with the Pern books and decided we needed Pern nicknames, she was Lessa and I ended up with Moreta. Then when I first signed up to an online forum, the name I had originally wanted was already taken, so I figured why not use the nickname I already had? Initially it was just 'Moreta', but after that forum died, and got reinvented, I noticed one of the other members had put 'Lord' before his name, and I figured if he could nobilify himself, then so could I, so I tacked 'Lady' at the front.

Then when I came here, I was so used to being Lady Moreta that it wasn't much of a choice really. It's now gotten to the point where people have nicknamed the nickname, and shortened Moreta into various other forms.

[DaedalusMkV]

I played Deus Ex for the first time in the same year we studied Greece in school and I spent about a month binging on Greek Mythology. Needless to say, being the kickass Greek inventor who transcended mankind's limitations was a lot cooler than being his idiot son, or the sun god in a rather random reference.

So, about 50% because of the AI Daedalus, and 50% because the actual mythological Daedalus was a pretty cool dude. The MkV bit is just because Daedalus is almost always taken, and I tend to ignore it where I can.

[JabberwockySupafly]

Save Yourself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQMhtUmliEs)(NSFW due to language) by Aesop Rock.

Specifically, the line:
Now I'm thinkin' "Who am I?" Jabberwocky Superfly bent left,
Pushin' war without the ten step cushion and what (what)
I plan to hold this B-positive sacred in these golde veins
Until the day I die from grimace overload.

Aes is probably my favourite lyricist and musical artist (tied with the Johns from They Might Be Giants), I loved the imagery & satirical bend that the lyrics held, and gleefully stole the name as a type of veneration.

I've also been known as DrunkAtheist, 1000Bayonets, and MusicAngelsMake elsewhere, which are all references to Mr. Ian Bavitz's lyrics as well.

[Raimun]

Raimun is a character from a somewhat obscure videogame. I liked the sound of it and used to use it as a gaming name whenever I couldn't think of anything else.

[Greyshadow]

I choose my name because of the typcally Dutch weather,
when it rains, everybody on the street is a grey shadow:smallsmile:

[Tvtyrant]

In the long, distant past, I had a history teacher who thought that Wynton was too boring of a name, so she took to calling me Wyntonian. I liked it, it stuck, it's never taken and I use it for everything now. If you see a Wyntonian elsewhere on the internet, it's probably me.
surreptitiously puts Wyntonian accounts across the length of the internet.

My name comes from my area of birth/currently occupied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tualatin_Valley) location. I rule it so gently no one has noticed yet! I also picked this name about 12 years ago now...

[Grand Silver]

The first video game I ever got really super excited about was the second generation of pokemon. It was what made me buy my first game magazine, I liked the design of silver more than gold, also put the first two letters together and you have the initials of gold and silver.

[Jib]

Jib was my imaginary friend from when I was little. I just kept using the name over and over.

[JustSomeGuy]

My story is far too long and wonderous to commit to mere language.

[Silverraptor]

The first video game I ever got really super excited about was the second generation of pokemon. It was what made me buy my first game magazine, I liked the design of silver more than gold, also put the first two letters together and you have the initials of gold and silver.

Haha! The truth has been spoken!:smallbiggrin:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I have a penchant for puns (a punchant, you might say), an interest in devils (both baatezu and Biblical), and a refined taste in literature (speaking of which: Killer Angel, you have an excellent taste in books), so my username combines all three. (Also apparently a fondness for parentheses, but that isn't relevant to the username.)

I settled on this particular punny name due to the avatar, or rather due to an event the avatar reminded me of. Story spoilered for length:I was running a Baator-themed game during which the PC decided to try (emphasis on try) to dethrone Asmodeus. Unfortunately for the PCs, between excellent preparation and tactics on the part of Big A (including this) and incredibly unlucky rolls on their part, they just never caught a break. It got so bad that when they would talk strategy between sessions I started assuming my Asmodeus persona and taunting them about how the universe bent to his whims, they could never succeed, etc.

They kept doing badly enough that by a few sessions later they were convinced that Murphy's Law was on Asmodeus's side, and the rogue's player (who'd been rolling practically all 1s and 2s on his hit dice and sneak attack dice with the two old, crappy d6s he owned) had gotten new dice for Christmas, so when we got together for New Year's and had a bonfire he planned to make a burnt offering to the dice gods to settle his luck. Right before he tossed his two d6s into the fire, I made some crack along the lines of "Your sacrifice is useless, some people are just doomed to go through life rolling one snake eyes after another," and when the dice fell in the fire...well, take a look at my avatar.

Everyone there couldn't believe their eyes, and I of course played it off as if I'd planned it that way; the rogue PC left the party shortly thereafter and was replaced by a sorcerer who made a point of needing to make as few rolls as possible. So when I was searching for cool avatars and happened across this picture, I had to come up with a name that matched the avatar and its associations, and the rest is history.

[noparlpf]

I have a penchant for puns (a punchant, you might say), an interest in devils (both baatezu and Biblical), and a refined taste in literature (speaking of which: Killer Angel, you have an excellent taste in books), so my username combines all three. (Also apparently a fondness for parentheses, but that isn't relevant to the username.)

I settled on this particular punny name due to the avatar, or rather due to an event the avatar reminded me of. Story spoilered for length:I was running a Baator-themed game during which the PC decided to try (emphasis on try) to dethrone Asmodeus. Unfortunately for the PCs, between excellent preparation and tactics on the part of Big A (including this) and incredibly unlucky rolls on their part, they just never caught a break. It got so bad that when they would talk strategy between sessions I started assuming my Asmodeus persona and taunting them about how the universe bent to his whims, they could never succeed, etc.

They kept doing badly enough that by a few sessions later they were convinced that Murphy's Law was on Asmodeus's side, and the rogue's player (who'd been rolling practically all 1s and 2s on his hit dice and sneak attack dice with the two old, crappy d6s he owned) had gotten new dice for Christmas, so when we got together for New Year's and had a bonfire he planned to make a burnt offering to the dice gods to settle his luck. Right before he tossed his two d6s into the fire, I made some crack along the lines of "Your sacrifice is useless, some people are just doomed to go through life rolling one snake eyes after another," and when the dice fell in the fire...well, take a look at my avatar.

Everyone there couldn't believe their eyes, and I of course played it off as if I'd planned it that way; the rogue PC left the party shortly thereafter and was replaced by a sorcerer who made a point of needing to make as few rolls as possible. So when I was searching for cool avatars and happened across this picture, I had to come up with a name that matched the avatar and its associations, and the rest is history.

Wow, that's just excellent.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Wow, that's just excellent.

It really is.

[Salbazier]

A magic sword I made up, randomly named, and either have not used in any story whatsoever or utterly forgot what kind of story idea I intended to use it for as soon after I made it. The name stuck somehow despite being complete gobbledegook and end up recycled into a character's name and later one of mymost common internet handle.

[Proud Tortoise]

http://bidwicket.com/Item/C/Collectible_Games/Pirates/Singles/Pirates_at_Ocean_s_Edges/50202_1M_Proud_Tortoise__1_.JPEG

I love this ship. Everything about it except actually using it in games. And, for some reason, nobody else takes the name, a phenomenon which I find both strange and useful.

[Castaras]

I PLAYED THAT PIRATES GAME.

Still have all my ships somewhere at home. Think they're mixed with my brother's collection as well unfortunately. It was so much fun and the ships were so pretty!

[Killer Angel]

Killer Angel, you have an excellent taste in books

Tnx. :smallbiggrin:


I have a penchant for puns (a punchant, you might say), an interest in devils (both baatezu and Biblical), and a refined taste in literature, so my username combines all three.

I settled on this particular punny name due to the avatar, or rather due to an event the avatar reminded me of. Story spoilered for length:I was running a Baator-themed game during which the PC decided to try (emphasis on try) to dethrone Asmodeus. Unfortunately for the PCs, between excellent preparation and tactics on the part of Big A (including this) and incredibly unlucky rolls on their part, they just never caught a break. It got so bad that when they would talk strategy between sessions I started assuming my Asmodeus persona and taunting them about how the universe bent to his whims, they could never succeed, etc.

They kept doing badly enough that by a few sessions later they were convinced that Murphy's Law was on Asmodeus's side, and the rogue's player (who'd been rolling practically all 1s and 2s on his hit dice and sneak attack dice with the two old, crappy d6s he owned) had gotten new dice for Christmas, so when we got together for New Year's and had a bonfire he planned to make a burnt offering to the dice gods to settle his luck. Right before he tossed his two d6s into the fire, I made some crack along the lines of "Your sacrifice is useless, some people are just doomed to go through life rolling one snake eyes after another," and when the dice fell in the fire...well, take a look at my avatar.

Everyone there couldn't believe their eyes, and I of course played it off as if I'd planned it that way; the rogue PC left the party shortly thereafter and was replaced by a sorcerer who made a point of needing to make as few rolls as possible. So when I was searching for cool avatars and happened across this picture, I had to come up with a name that matched the avatar and its associations, and the rest is history.

That's amazing. I have always found your User name... brilliant, but with this story, it's now one of my favourites.

[Proud Tortoise]

I PLAYED THAT PIRATES GAME.

Still have all my ships somewhere at home. Think they're mixed with my brother's collection as well unfortunately. It was so much fun and the ships were so pretty!

I once won a game with my brother in something around four turns. :smallbiggrin: And then there were the 200-point deathmatches... Now all my ships are in tins somewhere (except for the Tortoise, which is on my Shelf of Shiny Objects and Miscellaneous Diminuative Keepsakes.)

[Dirtytabs]

My name comes from my area of birth/currently occupied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tualatin_Valley) location. I rule it so gently no one has noticed yet! I also picked this name about 12 years ago now...

And all this time I thought you were a despot to televisions. Your pony seems too friendly to be that.

[Castaras]

I once won a game with my brother in something around four turns. :smallbiggrin: And then there were the 200-point deathmatches... Now all my ships are in tins somewhere (except for the Tortoise, which is on my Shelf of Shiny Objects and Miscellaneous Diminuative Keepsakes.)

I can't remember many of the games, unfortunately. :smallredface: I mostly wanted to collect the pretty ships. Did a few games which I'm pretty sure I won most of the time. Weren't that big a points level.

Disappointed that it seems to have disappeared. Might have to try and find my old pirate ships and rules and see what I can do about making my own ships... :smallbiggrin:

[Proud Tortoise]

I made my own islands out of clay. They were really stupid though...

Is there a thread for non-D&D miniature game discussion?

[Amidus Drexel]

Is there a thread for non-D&D miniature game discussion?

Probably. I'd check either in the general Roleplaying subforum, or here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=60).

[Astrella]

Wanted a new username that was vaguely space related and ended up with this after considering Astronomiss.

[Pika...]

Well...um....you see, there was this show I watched as a kid...

[Lea Plath]

Lea Plath is the name of my character (the 6 armed spider girl) and it just kinda happenned. As a way to express the femine side of me, I started using her more and more as a character.

[Morrolan]

Morrolan E'Drien is a character from the novels written by Steven Brust.
He is a sorcerer, has mastered witchcraft (psionic-like rituals), and wields a legendary sword called Blackwand. Also, he's a duke and owns a floating castle called: Castle Black.
In other words, Morrolan is just about as badass as a fantasy character can be.

I read those books during the time when me and my friends were just about done with Runescape (I used Bigelf back then, because I like elves and I am very tall), and started searching for other games to fill to void left by it. This required a lot of account creating, and I started using Morrolan.

Funny thing is, after a couple of years of using this name and playing D&D I found out that Steven Brust's novels are based on his D&D adventures.
Imagine my delight :smallbiggrin:

[Deathkeeper]

(snip)

It's kind of odd, but despite the many forums (and three schools) I've been a part of, this website is pretty much the only place I see people who have read those books.
Which is sometimes a problem due to my frequent referencing of them that people will now actually understand :smallbiggrin:

[Tvtyrant]

And all this time I thought you were a despot to televisions. Your pony seems too friendly to be that.

Thanks! Glad to hear I don't come across as a heartless despot :P

[Lycunadari]

When I signed up in skype, Lucy (my chosen name) was already taken, so I made it longer – Lucynda. That was also taken, so I made it even longer – Lucyndaria. Since then, that's the name I usually go by. For this forum I wanted something different, but not too different, so I tried various anagrams of Lucyndaria and Lycunadari sounded best.

[Avilan the Grey]

My favorite Baldur's Gate / Baldur's Gate II character: Avilan the Grey, Mage / Thief.

[The Viscount]

I very much like this thread. It's great to see the stories behind the names.

Mine comes from my first D&D character, his full title being The Former Viscount of Malbury. Not a real place, as far as I know. I used it because it is a semi-pun, mal being bad, and thus a reference to a poorly done or evil burial. This was because he was a Dread Necromancer. He was a fop and a libertine of the highest order who had tried every vice under the sun except for dark magic, so he took up necromancy mostly for kicks. He chose Dread Necromancer because if you're a noble who never dies, you can keep on marrying up until you are king. The "former" in his title is a result of his father throwing him out on his ear and stripping him of his title for his many indiscretions, culminating in his latest. He knows it's only temporary, as he is the only living heir to his father's land.
As a side note, I always play him for laughs. It may sound odd, but it works.

[Kjata]

It's a summon from FF7. Honestly, I don't really like the summon that much, but I was registering for a forum a LONG time ago, and used "Chaos Kjata." The "Chaos" got dropped, but Kjata stuck.

Interestingly, I was playing an FF7 mod a year or so ago, and I'd forgotten where Kjata came from. I picked up the Materia and it said "Found 'Kjata.'" I was using Kjata as the name for cloud, so I was a little surprised at first.

Also, I have no idea how to pronounce it. I've been alternating between "K-ja-ta" "Ja-ta" and "Ki-a-ta."

[Proud Tortoise]

I think it's pronounced 'kjata'.

[Kjata]

I was really curious, so I looked into it a bit.

Turns out they misspelled "Kujata," which is an Arabian myth. Aparrently, Kujata rides on a gigantic fish called Bahamut, and on his back is a mountain. On top of that mountain is angel who supports the heavens, hells, and earth.

That story sounds pretty familiar...
http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/discworld_terry_pratchett_desktop_1024x768_hd-wallpaper-963407.jpg

Great, my username is a misspelling of the inspiration for the freaking DISCWORLD.

I'm not sure if that's awesome or not.

[Fragenstein]

I was really curious, so I looked into it a bit.

Turns out they misspelled "Kujata," which is an Arabian myth. Aparrently, Kujata rides on a gigantic fish called Bahamut, and on his back is a mountain. On top of that mountain is angel who supports the heavens, hells, and earth.

That story sounds pretty familiar...
http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/discworld_terry_pratchett_desktop_1024x768_hd-wallpaper-963407.jpg

Great, my username is a misspelling of the inspiration for the freaking DISCWORLD.

I'm not sure if that's awesome or not.

Well... not quite. The turtle/world elephant structure derives from various translations of Hindu origins rather than Arabian. That's most likely where Pratchett was finding inspiration.

[Layman]

I was getting desperate for a clever, well sounding name that I wouldn't get tired of.

I like the notion of "Layman's term". I think it's important to spread knowledge and attempt to make complex theories understandable to everyone.

I also feel I'm quite the Layman myself compared to the various DND guru's out here.

So, there it is...

[dehro]

Well... not quite. The turtle/world elephant structure derives from various translations of Hindu origins rather than Arabian. That's most likely where Pratchett was finding inspiration.

wikipedia actually has an entry called turtles all the way down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down), which makes for rather funny reading

[Fragenstein]

wikipedia actually has an entry called turtles all the way down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down), which makes for rather funny reading

"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"


Nonsense, I say. Our universe does not support infinities.

http://librarianspivey.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/gamera12.jpg

The last turtle in the stack can fly.

[noparlpf]

I was really curious, so I looked into it a bit.

Turns out they misspelled "Kujata," which is an Arabian myth. Aparrently, Kujata rides on a gigantic fish called Bahamut, and on his back is a mountain. On top of that mountain is angel who supports the heavens, hells, and earth.

That story sounds pretty familiar...
http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/thumbnail/discworld_terry_pratchett_desktop_1024x768_hd-wallpaper-963407.jpg

Great, my username is a misspelling of the inspiration for the freaking DISCWORLD.

I'm not sure if that's awesome or not.

Think I fixed the image, as it wasn't working for me before and manually entering the link just took me to the main page.

And yes, that is quite awesome.

[Giggling Ghast]

An old Internet meme.

I would change it, but I can't think of an appropriate replacement.

[The Second]

The username I wanted was taken, therefore I am The Second.

[Seer_of_Heart]

Homestuck, I took the class that I am most likely to be and one of the aspects that I most likely would be. I'm placing myself in a few different aspects so I just randomly chose heart.

[Aurenthal]

Next time I have to choose a character's name, I'll come here first.

[Wild Zubat]

The very Pokemon which is the avatar of Annoyance.

[Guizonde]

i was way young (10?11?) and i got phantasy star online on the gamecube. it was a midrange spell called "gizonde", that was VERY useful when soloing the game as a squishy wizard.

i always loved that spell, a lightning bolt that zig-zagged through enemies, kind of like what a warrior should be doing through enemy ranks, hitting fast and hard. i just modified the name so that i get a hard "g" sound. if you see this name elsewhere (and a few variants cos i forgot the password) it's me. always. heck, i've even had people irl calling me that. talk about an ego booster:smallbiggrin:
other reason i keep it, nostalgia aside, is i firmly believe that internet is a parallel world, where we each create our identities in this new world. i stick with this name as to be sure that people know who i am, despite different avatars and contexts. my cyber-id, if you will.

[Rawhide]

An old Internet meme.

I would change it, but I can't think of an appropriate replacement.

You could change it, but your post would read:


Please change my name from Candle Jack to

[TheWombatOfDoom]

You could change it, but your post would read:


Please change my name from Candle Jack to

This made me think of alternate names for rawhide.
My favorite was Rawhideinplainsight.

For Candle Jack, hmmm? I'd recommend not another meme, but who knows, some may last longer than others? Either way, as Rawhide said, once you do think of one, you can request it as shown above. :smallbiggrin:

[RaefgarRockfist]

Mine comes from, oddly enough, my first 3.0 D&D character. Dwarven Cleric by trade. (can't turn down that much holy beer!) I rolled ridiculously well on his stats (CHA was his lowest at level 1 with a 15 after the adjustment - DM watched me roll, haven't been able to top them since!). He's gone out and married himself a Druid, (my wife's first character) started reclaiming his homeland, and become an Over - Judge for the planar version of Sigil we have in our multiverse. He was a ton of fun to play in his adventuring days, and even more fun to expand on once he semi - retired. Not aging due to deific intervention has some benefits. :smallbiggrin:

[HalfTangible]

Warcraft. Specifically, Nether drakes and the backstory behind them.

The short version is that they are descendants of black dragons whose eggs have been exposed to Nether, thus making them half-material and half-ethereal. Half-physical, half-ghost.

Half intangible, Half tangible.

(This is also why i prefer HT to halftan - Halftan sounds like a nickname only if you consider HalfTangible to be a single word. Nobody calls me David Bur, why HalfTan?)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Mine got it's start in Heroes of Horror, as Zousha of Telos the name attributed to a flavor quote for the Death Delver prestige class. When I joined the Wizards of the Coast forums, I decided to use the name Zousha, and added the surname Omenohu, a randomly designed "Greek-sounding" name from Seventh Sanctum.

It was as Zousha Omenohu that I began to get involved in PbP play, and as the crowd I played with migrated and changed, I did too. I became more and more interested in paladins than I had been with the wizards I'd been playing, and eventually realized they meshed better with my outloook and interests. Thus, when the opportunity came to change my username here, I took it and dropped the odd "Omenohu" surname and took the title of Archpaladin, which I know is more than a bit pretentious.

[turkishproverb]

Well...um....you see, there was this show I watched as a kid...

Beast Wars?

[CapedLuigiYoshi]

The Yoshi of Luigi when he has a ca... oh, right. Yeah, it's meant to be CapedLuigisYoshi, but that was a character too long.

But yeah, I chose that back when signing up for the NSider forums when I was like 12, back when my favorite game was Super Mario World Super Mario Advance 2, in which I exclusively used Luigi and favored flight powers.

[PurityIcekiller]

I took my name from this (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=fantasynameex) random generator because I thought it was funny.

[mistformsquirrl]

mistformsquirrel comes from a homebrew Magic: The Gathering card I made way, way back when I still played that game.

It was a 3 casting cost (1 blue, 1 green, 1 colorless) 2/2 creature with the ability to tap to create a squirrel token, and the ability to, for 2 colorless, change anything with the Squirrel creature subtype into another creature type.

Mostly I chose the name for three reasons:

1) I like squirrels, they're nuts, I'm nuts, it works out.

2) It's unique - I don't mean "Look at me I'm so interesting" but rather "I don't need to add numbers to the end usually". So it's my online handle just about everywhere; and as far as I know, I'm the only one <^_^>

3) It's nerdy, I'm nerdy, it works out.

<._.>

[genderlich]

The opposite of Doctor Strange.

[TechnOkami]

Basically, I like Techno at the time (I've found I'm more of a house/electronica/trance kind of a guy) and I really like the video game Okami (still do) and the fusion between the two words just kinda worked out. I mean, they practically flow into each other and it lead into a drawing of what he would look like, and it just took off and developed into my online avatar-thing.

[Lex-Kat]

ALexia-Katarina

[TheifofZ]

Back when I was just a sprout, fairly fresh from spawn and all that, I had found an anime hosting site with a chatbox in it. I enjoyed bickering anonymously for awhile, but I wanted a handle that people could recognize. As cookies were a regular running joke, and I had often questioned the existence of the cookies, I went with Theifofcookies.
Which I then used for something else, but as I needed it to be semi-mystical, I went with Theifofdreams. That one has stuck with me forever.

Several years later and I decided to join the Natch Evil forum. Since I didn't post a picture of me, however, Grimwit decided to make my first avatar of a Z. Just because.
Of course, neither this nor my other regular handle are ever used.