Screen Name Origins

[JohnTheSavage]

Everyone here refers to themselves with something other than their given name, a screen name that they pick out for themselves. But why do you call yourself what you do? Is there a funny story behind the name? Did it just sound cool and/or funny? Why? As you might have guessed, this is a thread for people to share their stories or reasons behind their screen names here on the forums.

I go by "John the Savage" as it's a pun on my given name and as a reference to Brave New World. Gotta respect the classics, right?

Okay Playground, your turn!

[thorgrim29]

I was very into warhammer fanatsy when I was around 13 and I made my first MSN account (from which you might make a good guess as to my age). Thorgrim is the High King of the dwarves, the army I played, and I thought it sounded cool so I used it. 29 because Thorgrim, Thorgrim1 and Thorgrim2 were taken, so I went to 29 just because. I've been using it online pretty much everywhere ever since. I only made an email address with my real name when I was about 18 and people started googling the address I gave them.

[huttj509]

Back in High School (1990s), the usernames were LastNameFirstLetterofFirstName.

Hutt J

I may be a bit of a Star wars geek.

The 509 is what I tacked on once Huttj started being taken, house number I grew up in.

[VincentTakeda]

Vincent Takeda is simply one of my most recent character names that I like the sound of. Vincent being one of those smooth warm regal sounding names, and I've always been fond of the Takeda Shingen and the 4 white diamonds Mon. Also Sokaku, one of Morihei Ueshiba's teachers...

Previous to that I had a character named Tennengar Onneton, a slight misspelling of a norwegian or icelandic 'Unlucky Dice' for what should be obvious reasons. I have used this in screen names and email addresses from time to time.

Previous to that I mostly used Svipdag, who is Freyja's husband from norse mythology. It is from the poetic edda's which then could be considered epic poems...

These three pretty much comprise the bulk of my screen name identities for over a decade. On occasions where my screen names are all taken, I tend to use the name of Vincents paramour, Zhdurievdrioshka (жидуриевдриошка). Because it sounds russian but is entirely unique. She goes by 'dree' for short.
My icon to the left here shows Vincent and Dree as played by Mads Mikkelsen and Gemma Ward. I imagine him stylistically to be sort of a danish viking samurai, as inspired by his appearance as Tristam in King Arthur, where he, a Dane, plays an englishman (or ostensibly a Rus) in lamellar, using japanese swordfighting techniques with a chinese dao in King Arthurs england.
I found the clash of cultures impossible to resist. His 'super marksman schtick' combined with his aloof disheveled wildman who is also a knight thing... The 'warriors challenge with the viking leader at the end' and all that... Just a totally awesome character all around... But Tristam... Not the best of names....
To add a fresh layer of madness to the character while in play, though they both wore hakamas and carried bokken instead of katanas, and at the same time neither of them were martial classes of any kind and never used the bokkens in combat for over a year.
I seem to have developed a penchant for playing characters with anachronistic/foreign appearances designed to confuse and mislead.

[Ruslan]

Mine comes from my favourite epic poem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslan_and_Ludmila).

[Gnoman]

Mine comes from my favourite epic poem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslan_and_Ludmila).

Incidentally, mine ALSO comes from an epic poem. At least in the version I read in school, the scene with Odysseus and the Cyclops was translated as "My mother and father named me Noman.", and I adopted it primarily for online FPS games, because I found it quite funny to see kill reports such as "Solid Snake has been beaten down by Noman!" I later added a G to the front of it as a Gnome pun and also to make it a little more distinct.

[Domino Quartz]

Mine comes from the name of my character in an RPG my brother was GM of. In case you're wondering, no, it was not anything like D&D or any other tabletop game; it didn't involve pen, paper, or dice. It was really more like interactive storytelling than anything else. Like, "What do you want to do?" "I do this." "Okay, then this happens."

[factotum]

Although people often think it has something to do with the D&D class, I've been going by Factotum since long before Dungeonscape was released in 2007. I chose it because its approximate English meaning is "jack of all trades", and I thought that was a reasonable handle to go by. I usually name my characters in video games Factotum too.

[Mauve Shirt]

"Random" on TV Tropes

[Gamerlord]

First version of the name was from GameSpot a long time ago. I was not a very creative child. :smalltongue: Have had variants on it for almost every message board I have been on out of habit since then.

[Antonok]

Variation on Mantorok (http://eternaldarkness.wikia.com/wiki/Mantorok) from Eternal Darkness.

The 2 screen names I used before started getting taken so I tried to come up with something bit more unique. So far it's worked.

[Gnomvid]

I once needed a character name for a GURPS game where I was a fish eyed priest, and incidentally remembered an episode from one of my favorite comics, Herman Hedning (Herman the Heathen I guess would be the English translation), parodying Lord of the Rings, the episode was called Sagan om ringmuskeln (Lord of the sphincter) where the eponymous hero of the saga was called Gnomvid.

http://www.comics.org/issue/703873/cover/4/ it's not him on the cover btw that's the baddie, Härskaren (The Ruler) portrayed by Herman.

The fish eyed priest above was also inspired by a Herman episode about role playing where the "Fish eyed" priest's only power was to summon an angry gerbil but only on odd Wednesdays, as Herman the level 20 Barbarian had to be the best member of the party, but that's not related to this so never mind.

Anywho I've been Gnomvid since then in a great many places except Steam where I am Johnny Alpha SD from another favorite comic of mine, if you do not know this comic you should be ashamed of your self, being young is no excuse!

Edit: corrected some spelling errors

[Comrade]

I just think Comrade makes a pretty damn sweet username.

[BWR]

My initials. That is all.

[Cyber Punk]

It has a symbolic meaning for me, especially with the eagle meaning strength.

If I spoke more (especially about the element), I'll get modded for bringing religion into it.

Put together, it came out sounding nice.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Jaxzan sounds vaguely like the nickname I go by IRL, just with cooler spelling. Not wanting to chance Jaxzan being taken, I looked for a distinguished-sounding Latin surname and stumbled accross Proditor, which apparently is Latin for traitor.

[Castaras]

Random letters put together to sound vaguely good.

Apparently I'm good at putting random letters together and having the name turn out to be a real life town.

[Antonok]

Random letters put together to sound vaguely good.

Apparently I'm good at putting random letters together and having the name turn out to be a real life town.

To be fair, Zzyzx (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zzyzx,_California) is a town so that's not that much of a stretch.

[qechua]

I was after a name for a PvP alt in Eve Online, one which was a) not easily pronounced, but still pronounceable and b) wouldn't be taken or need a string of numbers after it. After a while staring at the character creation screen, I took a break and played some Civ 4 instead. New game, and I got stuffed next to the Incans, who sent some Quechua units at me early on. I looked at the name, had my lightbulb moment, dropped the first u (because the first time a native English speaker tries to pronounce a q without a u is quite funny) and I've stuck with it since.

The mildly unpronounceable bit didn't work, since people naturally put the u back, but I've never had the name taken elsewhere, so I call it a success.

Unlike that game of Civ *grumble*

[Peelee]

First initial, last name. Spelled phonetically, because the first online service I got with it required at least 6 characters.

It was already a common nickname for me (especially whenever there was another friend with the same name), and it's almost always available on new sites. I am apparently in a battle with a few other people for the name (someone else snagged it on steam, for instance), but I have it on almost all the best sites and services. And I really, really love having a consistent, simple, easily-pronounceable name with no prefixes, suffixes, bookends, or numbers in my online accounts.

[Telonius]

A mis-spelling in Latin. I've had it for years; has nothing to do with the jazz pianist.

[BannedInSchool]

I brought my D&D books to school and then was told not to. :smallsmile:

[Jay R]

My first name is "Jay", and my last name starts with an "R".

I feel so boring and uncreative.

[Peelee]

My first name is "Jay", and my last name starts with an "R".

Huh. It's like we're evil opposites, or something.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Roughly 8 years ago(*feels old*) I had no idea that Dallas or Dakota were places in America.
I made them up in my teenage head.

To this day I get asked why I use this handle. I still have no idea where I got it from.

[golentan]

It translates to "Twin Faced Bride" and is my favorite part of my full given name.

[Rodin]

Random letters put together to sound vaguely good.

Apparently I'm good at putting random letters together and having the name turn out to be a real life town.

Mine was the same way, except with famous French sculptors. And Godzilla monsters according to a surprising number of people, even though I'm reliably informed that's spelled "Rodan".

I had to come up with a character name for a Mage for the Sierra MMO The Realm, way back when MMOs were a new idea that was just starting to take off. I think it even pre-dated Ultima Online by a year or so.

...I just realized my username is old enough to vote. GIT OFF MAH LAWN!

[sktarq]

ess kay tark?
sk: initials
tarq: short for Tarquin - which is what m father wanted to name me, my mother shot him down but some friends found out and liked it so Tarquin and various derivations were added to the list of nicknames for me (I was running at close to 300 for a while-boarding school)

and Zzyzx is quite pleasant really. . . as long as you avoid/are prepped for the desert.

[danzibr]

Interesting reads. I feel like I'm getting to no playgrounders.

As for me, first name is Dan, last name starts with Br, have cousins whose last name starts with Zi. Mash it together, all lower case. I've used it since... 2000ish. Maybe a couple years before, maybe a couple years after.

[Durkoala]

I'd been lurking around the forums for some years and wanted to join, but I couldn't think of a good screen name that described something about me in vaguely flattering terms. Eventually, Durkon got vampirised (spoilers) and the people started referring to him as Durkula. This was fine with me, but the misspelling Durkola got on my nerves a lot. So I combined my grammar pedantry and Austrialian heritage to make a name that could be a misspelling of Durkola so I could put a stop to these lax standards. Then I drifted away from the Oots forum and I was too polite to draw attention to it anyway.:smalltongue:

[Chromascope3D]

Back in middle school I had a few OCs that appealed to my preteen cynical nature, named Karson the Arson, Conrad the Comrade, and Parker the Parka (He was the straight man of the group. He wore a parka. The name didn't make any sense then but I rolled with it anyway). Conrad was a proud member of the Soviet Union, which he refused to admit had been dissolved (not unlike the followers of a certain former political entity from my neck of the States). Anyway, Conrad had a kitschy superhero alias named 'Commander Fallout,' which is exactly what it sounds like. I kept that name for a while, and eventually started using it for my new screen names, of which this was one of them. Of course, by that time I had gotten into the Fallout franchise and kinda fell in love with nuclear wasteland type stories, and started tying it into that.

In hindsight, I probably should've stuck with the superhero theme, since abandoning it changed it from 'somewhat amusing' to 'bland and uninspired," which is why I've fallen out of love with it and am now looking to get it changed.

[Morbis Meh]

Morbis: Name of the first necromancer that I played on Diablo 2

Meh: a word I like to say that drives people up the wall due to its inherent laziness

[Killer Angel]

As you should easily guess from my avatar, I took it from the book "The Killer Angels".

[KuReshtin]

My name is a swear word from a series of novels by Jennifer Roberson. It's a very handy 'cover-it-all' swear word that can be used as an exclamation of surprise, it can be used as an insult or just generally as a swear word.
Kind of like 'Sonofabeech' or 'B'stard' in regular English.

No one ever seems to know about the series of novels I've taken it from, though.

Also, the pronunciation of the word kind of sounds almost like my proper real life name. With a bit of imagination, at least.

[Kianlon]

My principal epically made a typo when he typed my name one time. It became a nickname that I really, really hated in grade school... until I found out that it was a great screen name because it was never, ever taken.

[LeSwordfish]

I think I based mine, in some or other way, on the Terry Pratchett "The Password Is Always Swordfish" thing. I have not the slightest clue why I added the "Le" to the front of it - I assure you, it was some time before the "Le Memer" reddit thing. I suspect it was a spur-of-the-moment thing to get around the fact that "Swordfish" was already taken on Steam.

[SirKazum]

I came up with my screenname as a pun - "Sir Kazum" is supposed to sound like "sarcasm". Maybe my grasp of English pronunciation wasn't as good as I'd hoped when I came up with that name :smalltongue: And it doubles as a fantasy character name, which is good for a D&D-centric board like this. I imagine "Sir Kazum" as a boisterous, hot-headed, rude fellow who got knighted pretty much just because of family connections or whatever, so Destruction from the Sandman comics popped up in my head as a pretty close approximation, hence the avatar.

In most other places, however, I go by "Lynx Cat" of some variation thereof (like Lynx T. Cat when "Lynx Cat" is taken - I like to think the T stands for Tiberius). It's a name I came up with on the fly, the first time I was ever asked to name a character, in an old NES game (where you're a dude in an Indiana Jones-esque costume adventuring in a Disney theme park). I just like cats, and thought lynxes were cool :smallbiggrin:

[Chromascope3D]

I think I based mine, in some or other way, on the Terry Pratchett "The Password Is Always Swordfish" thing. I have not the slightest clue why I added the "Le" to the front of it - I assure you, it was some time before the "Le Memer" reddit thing. I suspect it was a spur-of-the-moment thing to get around the fact that "Swordfish" was already taken on Steam.

Wasn't that started by a Marx Brothers movie?

[golentan]

Wasn't that started by a Marx Brothers movie?

It was! It was great...


Baravelli: ...you can't come in unless you give the password.
Professor Wagstaff: Well, what is the password?
Baravelli: Aw, no. You gotta tell me. Hey, I tell what I do. I give you three guesses. It's the name of a fish.
Professor Wagstaff: Is it "Mary?"
Baravelli: [laughing] 'At's-a no fish!
Professor Wagstaff: She isn't? Well, she drinks like one! ...Let me see... Is it "Sturgeon"?
Baravelli: Aw, you-a craze. A "sturgeon", he's a doctor cuts you open when-a you sick. Now I give you one more chance.
Wagstaff: I got it! "Haddock".
Baravelli: 'At's a-funny, I got a "haddock" too.
Wagstaff: What do you take for a "haddock"?
Baravelli: Sometimes I take an aspirin, sometimes I take a calomel.
Wagstaff: Y'know, I'd walk a mile for a calomel.
Baravelli: You mean chocolate calomel? I like-a that too, but you no guess it. [Slams door. Wagstaff knocks again. Baravelli opens peephole again.] Hey, what's-a matter, you no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say, "Swordfish." Now I'll give you one more guess.
Professor Wagstaff: ...swordfish, swordfish... I think I got it. Is it "swordfish"?
Baravelli: Hah. That's-a it. You guess it.
Professor Wagstaff: Pretty good, eh?

[Ryotaiku]

While playing Final Fantasy X for my first time I was tasked with giving a name for Tidus, the protagonist. I could've just kept his name Tidus, but I wanted to be different. So going to a random name generator the first three names I got were Ryo, Yota, and Taiku. I decided it was good enough to use as a username.

That, and Ryo is one of my favorite song artists of all time.

[Loreseeker]

Meh, pretty simple for me....

I'm pretty heavily interested in just about everything. From quantum physics to biology, from history to mythology, I've got that dangerous curiosity that gets ambitious wizards killed in fantasy stories.

If I could, I would get myself modified to be purely immortal. That way I could learn EVERYTHING. When I was younger, I foolishly considered becoming a pioneer in bioengineering and cybernetics, so I can give himself a durable and enduring shell with which to continue to exist and accumulate knowledge until the end of time. Hell, I STILL want to do that, and continue to exist all the way through and beyond the death of the universe, so I could find out how it happened and what comes after.

Realizing the futility of such dreams, and falling in love, I have pulled back on that a lot in the past decade. Still doesn't stop me from dabbling my fingers in various subjects, much to my dearest's chagrin....

Seemingly having a major mental block in maths algebra level and higher also nixed that for me. While I can grasp the concepts and understand it intuitively, I can't quite figure out the damn math behind the more mathematical sciences. Which saddens me, I quite enjoy astrophysics.

[Tentreto]

Mine was simply choosing a name for my charmander in pokemon red, which when I decided to start going online I decided to use because it was short enough for my goldfish memory.

[Strigon]

My personal favourite video game, Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.
Strigon Team is the squadron of aces that serve as your nemeses. Normally it's free, but recently I've run into a few websites where it's already taken.

[DigoDragon]

As far back as I can remember, anyone who didn't understand Spanish vowels tended to pronounce my name wrong, so friends came up with nick names that were easier. The most popular one is 'Digo' (Which is amusing as there is no 'G' in my actual name) and it has gained so much notoriety that even my parents call me Digo now. :smalltongue:

'Dragon' is because of a well-remembered character I used to RP as years back.

[SirKazum]

As far back as I can remember, anyone who didn't understand Spanish vowels tended to pronounce my name wrong, so friends came up with nick names that were easier. The most popular one is 'Digo' (Which is amusing as there is no 'G' in my actual name) and it has gained so much notoriety that even my parents call me Digo now. :smalltongue:

'Dragon' is because of a well-remembered character I used to RP as years back.

How does that work? I can't think of anything without a G that's pronounced like "Digo"...

[Ifni]

In David Brin's Uplift series (science fiction), Ifni is the goddess / personification of chance, destiny, mathematics and infinity - more or less. The concept was apparently left vague on purpose. Starfarers swear by her, and sometimes at her. The books are kind of old now, so the name is usually available :smallwink:

[Traab]

My first MMORPG was Everquest. In that game I had two main characters, a halfling druid named Dobbin. And a human monk named Traab Fellhammer. Since then I have made my screen names one or the other, leaning more heavily towards traab. Its actually been quite useful, as I have run into a few old friends in other MMO games that remember me. I joined a raiding guild in vanilla WoW that was made up primarily of old players from my everquest server. They knew that anyone capable of playing that game could handle a WoW level of raiding time requirements. :smallbiggrin:

[Rater202]

I used to be on Neopets.

The names I tried kept being taken.

So I hit random until I got a name that wasn't taken.

I've used that name for almost everything, ever since.

[wxdruid]

wx = weather, and I'm a weather forecaster
druid - because I enjoy playing D&D and my favorite class is Druid and they have some fabulous weather spells and an animal companion.

[FinnLassie]

Well, I am Finnish, hence the Finn, and I am a rough collie that saves the day! young lady, so lassie it is. Lassie comes from my love to all things Scots and to be fair I did live in Glasgow for a good while. Lady and YoungWoman wouldn't really look cool, either.

[Silhitii]

I used to have hermit crabs as pets, and for several years in elementary school/junior high I had a particularly beautiful and gentle one that I loved building mazes for and watching explore new places. I couldn't figure out a good name for her so I asked a friend what the translation was for a word into her first language. I'm pretty sure that language was Chinese and I used to think that the word I had translated was either 'beautiful' or 'colourful' (both of which described Silhitii perfectly), but try as I might I cannot find a synonym in either Chinese or Korean (in case I have confused which friend I asked) for either of those words that sounds at all like my no-doubt mangled version of what she told me. While I can speak a little bit of Chinese now, pronunciation of non-European languages was NOT something I was skilled at as a child, so most likely the true meaning of my hermit crab's name is lost to history. :smallfrown:

On the other hand, this screen name is never taken :smallbiggrin:

[Thrawn4]

Thrawn is a famous character in the Star Wars EU (justified imho, the novels are better written than most of the official material).
It was also my second screen name after Raynor (Starcraft 1) - another cool sci-fi character.
When I needed an email adress, Thrawn was already taken, so I needed something that was easy to remember. Thrawn2 was taken as well, so I figured 4 would be a safe bet. Also, I figured Thrawn might be interesting four many people. So there you go.

[Sian]

if i recall correctly Sian was in the beginning just a random name i used on 4ch (in ... 2006/07 i think) as i didn't want to use my then regular nickname there ... My then primary nick was Devilen, which came from me being a fan of Techno/Dance D-Devils, which i got 'baptized' after on a summer camp i went at for much of my youth, which i then failed hard at translating properly to English.

[TheEmerged]

This name started when I needed to create a handle to use on the HERO System boards. Before this I had always used the name of whatever character I was playing - I was AuntieShaynta on the old EverQuest boards for example - and I wanted something more permanent. Well, the longest-running HERO campaign I'd ever run was called The Emergence, a superheroic campaign where people with superpowers were called The Emerged and, well, there you go.

[dysprosium]

My favorite element is dysprosium.

It stems from back when I was in grade school. For a science project I wrote a quiz program (in BASIC on an Apple IIe)* and one of the questions was "What is the only element on the periodic chart that starts with the letter D?"

The answer is of course dysprosium but my science teacher who was taking the quiz totally blew the question and thought it was a ridiculous one at that. Mind you this is a 7th grade science project and I was having trouble coming up with questions that I thought were challenging enough for my class but not impossible.

I remember this exchange like it was yesterday:

He asked me what the right answer was and I said "dysprosium." I remember saying the answer in a "doesn't everyone know that" kind of way.

So he asks me what does it do? What is it used for? Why is it important?

The next day I started rattling off all of the facts about dysprosium that I could find.

Every chance I had I would find a way to put dysprosium into everyday conversation. It drove my teacher crazier than he already was.

Later in high school, I made "dysprosium rules" my own personal catch phrase.

Honestly I didn't think I would be able to use it as my screen name here. I figured it would have already be taken. You would be surprised at how many dysprosium or dysprosium66 screen names are in use for screen names across the internet.

On the plus side, it was really easy for me to find an appropriate avatar picture!

* and if that alone doesn't date me, I don't know what would.

[VincentTakeda]

I made it all the way through your entire post and every instance of your screen name I read as Dyzo Prezium... I must be tired.

One of these days I'm gonna be so not lazy that I look that up to see what its all about.

The bad news is that when I search for it, I'll be searching for dyzoprezium... Then I'll remember its the only one on the table with a D!

So thats quite helpful in fact...

But for now... Game threads!

[MrConsideration]

When I was about 14, we had to do a citizenship project where you designed your own country, its political system and its laws, which you then had to present to the rest of the class. This was clearly meant to instill in us an appreciation of civic values and gratitude for living under the Mother of Parliaments, but we were having none of it.

To throw a spanner in the works we designed a dystopian, fascist society dominated by arbitrary and meaningless diktats where even the most minor infraction was published by excessive violence. To present this to our less-than-impressed PCSHE teacher, we devised a group of sock-puppet figures who were present in all the propaganda put forward by our country, all named some variation of 'MrConsideration', 'MrPositivity' etc that were meant to enact the presentation. I started using MrConsideration as an online handle and it just stuck.

[Temotei]

http://i.imgur.com/vTnpBQe.jpg

In 2nd grade, a kid's mom came in and tried to translate all of our names into Japanese. Mum's called me Temotei since the day I brought this little bit of paper home.

[Peelee]

When I was about 14, we had to do a citizenship project where you designed your own country, its political system and its laws, which you then had to present to the rest of the class. This was clearly meant to instill in us an appreciation of civic values and gratitude for living under the Mother of Parliaments, but we were having none of it.

To throw a spanner in the works we designed a dystopian, fascist society dominated by arbitrary and meaningless diktats where even the most minor infraction was published by excessive violence. To present this to our less-than-impressed PCSHE teacher, we devised a group of sock-puppet figures who were present in all the propaganda put forward by our country, all named some variation of 'MrConsideration', 'MrPositivity' etc that were meant to enact the presentation. I started using MrConsideration as an online handle and it just stuck.

That's....that's dark, man. I like it. Even if you're from the wrong Birmingham.

[MrConsideration]

Even if you're from the wrong Birmingham.

You know what they say about sequels!

[Peelee]

You know what they say about sequels!

They're totally better than the originals (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044201/Birmingham-council-uses-picture-city-skyline-leaflet-encourage-civic-pride--Birmingham-Alabama.htmlhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1044201/Birmingham-council-uses-picture-city-skyline-leaflet-encourage-civic-pride--Birmingham-Alabama.html)?

I kid, I kid. Half the places in this state are named after England, apparently.
Also, the picture they have of Birmingham, UK looks pretty idyllic. Maybe I should switch Birminghams some day...

[Alent]

Mine's a Phantasy Star pun.

Years back, when a friend had me play Phantasy Star Online with her, I was doing the "make a bunch of characters to see what I liked" thing, and had more or less decided on a main, but ended up making a RAcaseal alt to try one last character. (for the uninitiated, that's agility type android gunner.) I'd ended up using up most of my interesting character names, and needed a new one, so I decided to look back to the real Phantasy Star games' naming conventions. In PS3 and PS4, there were two androids named Wren, which in the japanese versions of the games were named Shirren and Forren respectively. There were also a host of random android enemies in PS4 with various name variations on -rren. So I arrived at the pun "No Wren" which I wrote "Norren". It ended up being somewhat popular with my friends on there even though I spent most of my time on my RAmarl.

Some years later, when I quit playing MMOs I decided to retire the screen name that I'd used across all the different games as I didn't really want a constant reminder of all the drama and idiocy that happened during my WoW raid career. The next forum I went to register on I went to use the screen name I'd used prior to when I started playing MMOs, and for some reason I will never quite get, I ended up using Norren instead.

I've been using it ever since. Never have figured out why I prefer it to my old SN.

[Mx.Silver]

My first name is "Jay", and my last name starts with an "R".

Huh.
And here I thought that it was a 1980s pop-culture reference, given your location.


My favorite element is dysprosium.

Interesting choice.
Mine's carbon.

[Psyren]

I like psionics, and I like manga. Shortly before joining this forum, I came across a manga about psionics, where the main characters (well, two of them) are a male Wilder and a female Psychic Warrior.

The image in my extended sig comes from that manga.

[dysprosium]

Interesting choice.
Mine's carbon.

And I would have guessed silver for you. :smallwink:

[pita]

It's a type of bread.

[FinnLassie]

It's a type of bread.

Deliciously simplistic.

[DataNinja]

Well for ages I'd been shortening my name, Derrick (no, it's NOT spelled Derek, thank you very much everyone, ever...) down to DRK. What can I say, young and foolish and all that. Then when I went to play Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace (only Mega Man game I've ever played, sad to say), it was the first time I'd ever had to have a profile that could go online. So, I figured DRK would be too common (and I see that there's one on this very here forum...) so I tried to think of a second part. Looking at the box art, I was all "ooh, black cool armour", so thinking carefully for all of a nanosecond, I picked "Shadow" as the first thing that came to mind, which I use as my general name for Characters and stuff now. One day, I actually noticed that the letters DRK could be taken as a shortening for Dark.

So, yeah, moderate-long boring +3 exposition story. :smallbiggrin:

[paranoidbox]

You'd like to know what's in the box, would you? Is that what you're asking? What's in the box? Huh?
Well, maybe the box knows what's in you. Have you ever thought of that?
Maybe the box holds every dark secret you've ever had, scrutinizing and archiving everything you've ever done, collecting every last little bit of your life, and holding it in reserve for when it really needs it. For when you step out of line. For when it needs to put you down.
Do you still want to know what's in the box, huh? Do you?

[Wraith]

Ever since I've been out on the internet, aged about 17 or so, I have used the handle "The Illusionist".
Unsurprisingly it's taken just about as often as it's not, especially anywhere that's even vaguely connected to a fantasy theme - such as, for example, a D&D webcomic.

I then went to my second - and currently most preferred - choice "The Infernal Contraption" which, sadly, has hit the character limit as roughly "TheInfernalContrap" on every website other than the first one that I tried to use it, as it did on GitP, and that just won't do. I've managed to grab it only a small handful of times since.

My third choice was "DarkbladeWraith", which is also my Steam account, but because I was a little bit older and wiser when I joined GitP than Steam I wanted something a bit less.... teenage angst-y.
Thus; Wraith.

[Eldariel]

Once upon the time, I spent a lot of time on LotR and the elven languages. I like stars. Eldariel, which I used here, was written with a rather poor understanding of the Elven language; "El" means star, "-riel" is akin to "maiden". Nowadays I use "Gilalar", "starshine".

[Kiljori]

As far as I know, I made mine up. I love playing dwarves in DnD, LoTRO, and WoW, so I went with the most dwarven sounding name I could think of. So far it has worked out pretty well for me. So, nothing really funny or special, just me being a little creative and then sticking to it.

[cavalieredraghi]

I used to go by BiggestANTMAN, which is because when i first created a Xbox Live account, the name ANTMAN which is a common nickname for my real name, you guess what it is :smallwink:, was already taken. It gave me options for a differant name and BiggestANTMAN was the only one that did not have numbers. I eventually decided to change it, and I wanted something that was something I liked, but not in english. CavaliereDraghi, means Knight of Dragons. you figure out the language.

[Lord Raziere]

I made it up. I just experimented with letters until I found a word that sounded cool, slapped "lord" in front of it then used that as my screen name ever since.

....wish I didn't put "lord" in front of it now though....

[cavalieredraghi]

I made it up. I just experimented with letters until I found a word that sounded cool, slapped "lord" in front of it then used that as my screen name ever since.

....wish I didn't put "lord" in front of it now though....

you could request a Username Change.

[Lord Raziere]

you could request a Username Change.

I did. 10 months ago. I'm still waiting on that to take effect. Never got any word back on why it wasn't changed.

[cavalieredraghi]

I did. 10 months ago. I'm still waiting on that to take effect. Never got any word back on why it wasn't changed.

maybe ask the Mods what is going on.

[BannedInSchool]

Hmm, I could mention the other names I've used. My BBS days were "Thanatos" because I was a teenager who read Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse. Come to the Internet and that's not so unique. :smallsmile: I've used Infocom spell names in a variety of places. I spent some time studying the artificial language Lojban and used lojban words as names in a few places, likely not entirely correctly, heh. Oh, and in a reference to my less than common in the US Scandinavian last name I picked a Danish word for use in several related forums and in playing Civilization that I'm afraid is the wrong gender. :smallredface: Ha.

[rs2excelsior]

The "rs2" part is my first and last initial, and a reference to the "II" suffix on my name (my parents did that instead of "Junior" because they didn't want people calling me junior). "Excelsior" is both the name of my favorite Star Trek ship, and a really cool Latin word that I've kind of adopted as a personal motto--it means "ever upward." I can't remember exactly why I chose that combination specifically, but it was what I used when I made my first personal email account, and I've stuck with it ever since.

[IZ42]

This is actually my screen name from my minecraft account, since my alt. screen name was already taken, so I couldn't use it. My brother and I used to share the minecraft account, and created it together. The first two letters are our initials, and 42 should be rather obvious.

[Lentrax]

I always thought mine came from the old noggin, but one day I saw a thread for "Google your username." So I did, and found out Lentrax is actually an antibacterial suppository for animals. Which means I probably got it off a brochure at the pet store my friend used to work at back in high school.

[VincentTakeda]

Hmm, I could mention the other names I've used. My BBS days were "Thanatos" because I was a teenager who read Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse. Come to the Internet and that's not so unique. :smallsmile: I've used Infocom spell names in a variety of places. I spent some time studying the artificial language Lojban and used lojban words as names in a few places, likely not entirely correctly, heh. Oh, and in a reference to my less than common in the US Scandinavian last name I picked a Danish word for use in several related forums and in playing Civilization that I'm afraid is the wrong gender. :smallredface: Ha.

Some of my favorite books, those... Evil, then death, then war were my personal favorites.

[factotum]

Some of my favorite books, those... Evil, then death, then war were my personal favorites.

I always thought the Satan book was just an excuse for rewriting the major scenes from the other books from a different viewpoint, which is either a bit unimaginative or a writing challenge depending how you look at it. Certainly wasn't my favourite, that would probably be the Chronos (time) one.

[ghost_warlock]

I've been using my username in various places online since the late 90's or early 2000's.

Back in high school, I was basically a ghost - I was there but didn't participate tangibly.

Back in college, a bunch of friends took to calling me "warlock" because I looked like Julian Sands from the movie Warlock.

[VincentTakeda]

I always thought the Satan book was just an excuse for rewriting the major scenes from the other books from a different viewpoint, which is either a bit unimaginative or a writing challenge depending how you look at it. Certainly wasn't my favourite, that would probably be the Chronos (time) one.

I always felt like the entire series was an attempt to rewrite the whole thing from different viewpoints, which I quite enjoyed.

I think if there were a character from that author that I more identify with than parry, it might possibly be Crombie. Just figured Parry and Crombie are not exactly cool sounding screen names, heheheh.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Name is the stage name of a current DnD character, a messianic kobold.:smallconfused:

He left the clutch to avoid being bullied to death for superior stats. Starving to death he lucked into a village of hobbits, probably the only being who wouldn't kill him on sight. He was bonded out to a sensei, trained to perform katas, staged fights, fire breathing, and acrobatics routines while wearing a ridiculous gold dragon costume and body paint. Kurt is a contraction of the Kobold gods' name, Kurageous for alliteration and the laziness of the sensei. The sensei actually refers to the kobold as "Worm," a disrespectful name perverted from "wyrm."

Kobolds generally don't live long enough to have a name, so Worm/Kurt has a limited concept of his name as well as everything else in the massively confusing humanoid social rules.

If you care, the first sensei died and was replaced by a kinder sensei who doesn't compel Kurt to perform anymore. He's currently a 5e LN L2 monk with a performer(gladiator) background who dreams of some day finding and reeducating his own god to stop kobolds from worshipping dragons, or preaching a new way to live to kobold tribes. He's still terrified of dragons, though.:smalleek:

[Gnome Alone]

I thought, "what's the dumbest possible vaguely fantasy-themed pun I can make?"

[Psyren]

I did. 10 months ago. I'm still waiting on that to take effect. Never got any word back on why it wasn't changed.

Roland and Rawhide moderate that subforum - I would PM one of them directly and (politely) point out the long timelag on your request. (One of them would have to process it anyway, unless I'm mistaken.)

[Fragenstein]

I always thought the Satan book was just an excuse for rewriting the major scenes from the other books from a different viewpoint, which is either a bit unimaginative or a writing challenge depending how you look at it. Certainly wasn't my favourite, that would probably be the Chronos (time) one.

To this day, I would kill to have a Sning. But I think I abandoned the series somewhere around Being a Green Mother. I'm not sure that I made it to For Love of Evil. But now I'll have to go back and start reading through again....

[Balain]

Years ago I played Everquest. My main character was named Balain Cobblpot. So Balain got used as my user name here and there.

[No brains]

I usually choose something bitter and disparaging towards myself for a screen name. It's funny to me.

[PallElendro]

Here in the Playground, I chose PallElendro to mash the phonetics of Pally for Paladin and Elendro, my first D&D character. Most everywhere else, I go with jhmgrose, which are my first three initials and my last name.

[StabbityRabbit]

I chose StabbityRabbit because I like bunnies, rabbits, and stabbity is fun to say. Somehow putting my favorite animal on the end made stabbity even more fun to say, and thus StabbityRabbit.

[AvatarVecna]

I chose this username for a number of sites I signed up with during my older teenage years; needless to say, using the anonymity of the internet to proclaim myself an aspect of the fairly-well-known D&D deity of Secrets (especially when necromancy magic and the undead have always fascinated my) seemed more than a hint of irony. Of course, in hindsight, it also shows how pitifully deluded I was on how awesome a name that was, but after using it for so many things, it's become my default username, and while I think its origin is kinda silly, that silliness is 100% a part of me, and I embrace it.

[Slingshot]

Everyone here refers to themselves with something other than their given name, a screen name that they pick out for themselves. But why do you call yourself what you do? Is there a funny story behind the name? Did it just sound cool and/or funny? Why? As you might have guessed, this is a thread for people to share their stories or reasons behind their screen names here on the forums.

In my case "Slingshot" is a nickname I was given by some friends when I first got into the Coast Guard because I was learning to be a Gunner's Mate (nickname for the job is "Guns") but since I wasn't a real one yet my buddies gave me the title of Slingshot.

[Thunderfist12]

My first character was a human fighter named Corin Thunderfist; he died at level 12 when the party cleric decided to detect evil on the party (*cough* *cough* metagamer *cough* *cough*).:smallannoyed:

So, put it all together and you get Thunderfist12.

Fun Fact 1: I stole the name of my character from Narnia Book III: The Horse and His Boy. You can find Corin Thunderfist mentioned on the last page (I think).

Fun Fact 2: I am not the only person who currently uses this username. For instance, the Thunderfist12 of... I think it's DeviantArt... is NOT me. The one on Nexus Forums, however, is.

[Thunderfist12]

You'd like to know what's in the box, would you? Is that what you're asking? What's in the box? Huh?
Well, maybe the box knows what's in you. Have you ever thought of that?
Maybe the box holds every dark secret you've ever had, scrutinizing and archiving everything you've ever done, collecting every last little bit of your life, and holding it in reserve for when it really needs it. For when you step out of line. For when it needs to put you down.
Do you still want to know what's in the box, huh? Do you?

I am using this quote at some point.

You know, if the topic of "what's in the box" comes up.:smallbiggrin:

[Meepo_]

Well, contrary to what some people might think about a certain MOBA, my name comes from the D&D 3.5 campaign Sunless Citadel. It was the first time I had played a real game of D&D with a rule book and everything, and so I rememebr lots about it. Including the annoying NPC kobold Meepo.

In case you couldn't figure it out, the name was taken so I added an underscore, which is hardly even noticeable on most posts in this site (at least in mobile version).

I think in the end we killed poor Meepo, or at least let him get killed by the baby white dragon he released.. This upset my dragon sorcerer, so I consider this name to be a tribute to him.

[Oneris]

Summer of 7th grade and I had just gotten into Maplestory and Little Apple Dolls, so naturally, I named my first Maplestory character after my favorite doll.

When I started doing fan art and writing fanfics about my character (bad ones), I pulled her out of the Maplestory universe into one of her own.

Over the years, and many alternate universes later, the character is completely different, but the name is unchanged, as a still point in an infinitely mutable multiverse. I still have a character called Oneris in every single game I play and every single world I build.

[FLHerne]

Everyone here refers to themselves with something other than their given name, ...
I deny your assertion. :smallamused:

This is the nick I go by everywhere on the interblags and on IRC, but it's also my real one.

[Peelee]

Summer of 7th grade and I had just gotten into Maplestory

Hey, I know that game! My wife apparently loved it a while back, before she moved to Mabinogi and sucked me into it. They're doing a Maplestory event right now, as it happens.

[Oneris]

Hey, I know that game! My wife apparently loved it a while back, before she moved to Mabinogi and sucked me into it. They're doing a Maplestory event right now, as it happens.
Oooh, you play Mabi too? What server?

I've actually moved out of Maple into Mabi, but Mabi's burned me out as well with all its grindy skills. Still go back every once in a while when they have an event that releases new outfits though. I've given up trying to keep up in combat.

[An Enemy Spy]

I am an enemy spy and have found that if you loudly proclaim that, then people are less likely to believe you. It lets me do my subversive intel gathering away from prying eyes.

[Ornithologist]

I really like this thread.

An ornithologist is a scientist that studies birds. I on the other hand, barely tolerate them. I do like science though, and I think the word sounds amazing. It has followed me from steam, but I tend to use it more on sites that aren't rpg based.

I do have a list of recurring character names for MMO's and what have you, but that is a post for another time. And yes, I do view all my characters with the same name as multiverse versions of the same person.

[alaalba_123]

My screen name is Latin for White Wing, (followed by my favorite number.) I originally pulled it from a manga/anime I was really into when I was 12-14, and started using it as my username for pretty much everything. Now, I more frequently use the screen name alarubra, which means red wing, and is pulled from the same series, but I still use alaalba every now and then.

[Havelocke]

I had to think back to when I thought of this name, I have used several variations of it over the years as NPC's. I am frequently a DM, so when I do get the chance to play a PC, I try to make them as colorful and entertaining as possible for myself and the party. One day I created an amusing gnome warlock (4th ed DnD) who liked to talk to the fey spirit who gifted him with his powers. Most of the time the party thought that the little guy had multiple personalities or was just plain crazy (talking to himself, giggling for no reason, staring off into space...) When I had the idea solidified for him, I said "I have a 'lock" and it kinda stuck. Havelocke as a name has been used long before that however as NPC's for Shadowrun, Star Wars, and World of Darkness campaigns that I ran back in high school. Usually the poor guy met a grisly end at the hands of the party.

[DungeonMaster77]

Wow...I feel bad with all of these great backstories on their usernames...

Mine is really simple: I love being DM. And 77 is my favorite number in double. So, DungeonMaster77, though folks around here just use my short name: DM77.

[Peelee]

Wow...I feel bad with all of these great backstories on their usernames...

Mine is really simple: I love being DM. And 77 is my favorite number in double. So, DungeonMaster77, though folks around here just use my short name: DM77.

Hmmm... good to know. If we ever move up to Hunstville (I'd love to work at the NASA center there, but they're all like, "you need degrees" and stuff), I may try to see if we can't get a game together. Because good gaming groups can be hard to find.

[factotum]

Hmmm... good to know. If we ever move up to Hunstville (I'd love to work at the NASA center there, but they're all like, "you need degrees" and stuff), I may try to see if we can't get a game together. Because good gaming groups can be hard to find.

But Birmingham and Huntsville are only 100 miles apart! I thought that was tantamount to being in each other's back yards for you US-ian types? :smallsmile:

[DataNinja]

But Birmingham and Huntsville are only 100 miles apart! I thought that was tantamount to being in each other's back yards for you US-ian types? :smallsmile:

Depends what's in between... Like, I'm about 100k/70 miles from Seattle, but I don't consider that being backyard being as there's an ocean between us... :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

But Birmingham and Huntsville are only 100 miles apart! I thought that was tantamount to being in each other's back yards for you US-ian types? :smallsmile:

Eh, it's closer to 150 for me. More "across the road" than "in the backyard." And I'm too lazy to cross.

Also, "US-ian" is now my preferred name for us. I shall use it often.

[Jasdoif]

Several years ago, my boss was walking up to a server to log into it, and he tripped. He managed to catch himself on the keyboard, producing a series of jumbled letters...and right in the middle of the string, I saw this almost pronounceable substring...and I decided to adopt it a username. It may be noted that "jasdoif" is composed of letters from two contiguous groups of keys on a qwerty keyboard layout, "asdf" and "jio".


But Birmingham and Huntsville are only 100 miles apart! I thought that was tantamount to being in each other's back yards for you US-ian types? :smallsmile:Nah, there's a minimum of three county lines that'd have to be crossed to get from one to the other; I think adjacent counties is the upper limit for backyard-i-ness.

[Bobbybobby99]

Mine is terribly simple. My name is Bobby (in the "this is the name on my birth papers" rather than the nickname) and the number nine holds religious significance to me (I'm fairly certain that I can't get into the details). I'm also fond of doubles. So, namename, numbernumber. Bobbybobby99. I sometimes go by Ruppert1862, which is the name of my lizard (or it may be the other way around :smallwink:)

Strangely, everyone seems to think that I was born in 1999, when I'm most certainly did not. I suppose it's a logical conclusion, but it irks me none the less.

[William Bonney]

William Bonney was pseudonym of Billy the Kid (which was the nom de guerre of Henry McCarty).
Summer of 7th grade and I had just gotten into Maplestory and Little Apple Dolls, so naturally, I named my first Maplestory character after my favorite doll.

When I started doing fan art and writing fanfics about my character (bad ones), I pulled her out of the Maplestory universe into one of her own.

Over the years, and many alternate universes later, the character is completely different, but the name is unchanged, as a still point in an infinitely mutable multiverse. I still have a character called Oneris in every single game I play and every single world I build.

Oneris is similar to the latin Oneiro, which means 'dream.' :) E.g., Oneiromancy.

[halcyonforever]

Wow, so flash back to 99 when I had to pick a username for the first time. I originally wanted Halcyon, I had a favorite song with that in the title, a book with a character using it as a pseduonym surname, and it was just such a cool nearly forgotten word.

But where ever I tried to register someone always had Halcyon taken!

So I just mashed together another word that seemed to fit.

hal·cy·on
1. denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

Sounds like something that would be nice to last forever so, bam Halcyonforever...

and I have used that one name for so long if you see it somewhere, it is probably me. Which is kind of nice to have a unique name when my real name is so common that there is another person at my job with the same first and last name.

Now if I can just get people to pronounce it

hal-see-on versus Hal-e-kon they keep reversing the sounds of the c and y.

[halcyonforever]

"Random" on TV Tropes

Best method ever.

[William Bonney]

Wow, so flash back to 99 when I had to pick a username for the first time. I originally wanted Halcyon, I had a favorite song with that in the title, a book with a character using it as a pseduonym surname, and it was just such a cool nearly forgotten word.

But where ever I tried to register someone always had Halcyon taken!

So I just mashed together another word that seemed to fit.

hal·cy·on
1. denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

Sounds like something that would be nice to last forever so, bam Halcyonforever...

and I have used that one name for so long if you see it somewhere, it is probably me. Which is kind of nice to have a unique name when my real name is so common that there is another person at my job with the same first and last name.

Now if I can just get people to pronounce it

hal-see-on versus Hal-e-kon they keep reversing the sounds of the c and y.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74

Heard that song? T'was in the 1995 movie 'Hackers' with Angelina Jolie, Jonny Lee Miller, and Matthew Lillard.

[Sparx MacGyver]

Used to watch MacGyver everyday growing up as a kid, kind of like a hero to me in a way. Everyone always called me Sparky instead of my name, so I figured they fit. Though Sparks sounds better than Sparky MacGyver, and swap it over to an X instead of a ks just to be extra special.

[Oneris]

William Bonney was pseudonym of Billy the Kid (which was the nom de guerre of Henry McCarty).

Oneris is similar to the latin Oneiro, which means 'dream.' :) E.g., Oneiromancy.

It actually comes from the genetive singular of the latin Onus meaning responsibility or burden, so a personal burden.

[DataNinja]

hal·cy·on
1. denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.

...

hal-see-on versus Hal-e-kon they keep reversing the sounds of the c and y.

Protip: People never seem to guess "halcyon" at hangman. (Or the word "hangman" for that matter...) :smallbiggrin:

[Yuki Akuma]

I thought it sounded cool when I was fourteen. I had no idea what it meant.

("Snow demon", more-or-less, for those interested.)

[halcyonforever]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74

Heard that song? T'was in the 1995 movie 'Hackers' with Angelina Jolie, Jonny Lee Miller, and Matthew Lillard.


That was the song. I actually got it right off the orbital album

[William Bonney]

Gangster album

[Darth Credence]

Darth because I'm a Star Wars fan, Credence because my initials are CCR. I have yet to find it in use anywhere else that isn't me, so if you see this name elsewhere, it is almost certainly me.

[Unuoctium]

My screen name comes from a time long ago, in a land far away. At least 10 minutes by car, far, far away.

I was creating my first account ever, for Youtube. This screen name was going to be something special. It was going to be unique and instantly recognizable. It was also going to be nerdy, because I was and still am an absolute nerd about the most random things. Two days of careful contemplation were spent on the subject of this powerful and meaningful thing, my screen name, before inspiration struck me. The periodic table! I would make myself the heaviest element on the table. I pulled out my old periodic table placemat (that my mom got for me when I was 3, no idea why on that one) and looked at what the thing read for the desired element. For all I could read it, it may as well have been Ununununoncotonicotikonum. Carefully reading it letter by letter, I was able to decipher "unu-oct-ium." Hammered the potential name into youtube, no one had taken the name yet. I could use the name as it was, or if I needed numbers I simply needed to add its element number: 118. Success!

Sort of. Some years later, I realized the actual correct spelling was "un-un-oct-ium," and my version was missing the second 'n.' At the same rate, though, that naive misspelling means that no one else on the face of the planet has my special name. Also, if both Unuoctium and Unuoctium118 are taken for some reason, I can use the name Unoctium since all the good usernames Argon.

[Talion]

Talion: From the Latin "Lex Talion", a legal term under which an offending party is punished in a corresponding manner to the manner of their trespass. More simply, "An Eye for an Eye". Which I naturally thought would make a good surname for a character (it ballooned into an entire family very quickly).

I haven't used it as a username before though.

[Half-Lord]

Tried to call myself "Halford" based on the hero of a short story a friend of mine wrote. But I screwed up the spelling and got Half Lord. I later added a dash for appearance's sake. So Half-Lord

[Kid Jake]

It's sort of a family handle. My grandfather used to troll people on the CB radio under the name of Uncle Jake. When my mom started doing the same it didn't matter what she tried to go by, everyone just called her Baby Jake. So, when it came time for me to carry on the family pastime of taunting strangers, neighbors and truckers I skipped the middleman and called myself Kid Jake.

I thought it sounded cool, so I stuck with it when I moved onto the interwebs.

[Peelee]

Tried to call myself "Halford" based on the hero of a short story a friend of mine wrote. But I screwed up the spelling and got Half Lord. I later added a dash for appearance's sake. So Half-Lord

I choose to believe this short story involved Judas Priest.

[Insane Trystane]

My first DnD character was going to be a Human female warlock named Trystane the Insane. I didn't end up playing her because I opted to DM instead, but when I made an account for this site, it seemed fitting. (Of course, now I identify more strongly as a Paladin than a Warlock, but the name just kinda stuck. :P )

[Douche]

I was gonna make my name "Douchely Maximus" but then, surprisingly just "Douche" wasn't taken, so I used that

[Fri]

My screen name comes from a time long ago, in a land far away. At least 10 minutes by car, far, far away.

I was creating my first account ever, for Youtube. This screen name was going to be something special. It was going to be unique and instantly recognizable. It was also going to be nerdy, because I was and still am an absolute nerd about the most random things. Two days of careful contemplation were spent on the subject of this powerful and meaningful thing, my screen name, before inspiration struck me. The periodic table! I would make myself the heaviest element on the table. I pulled out my old periodic table placemat (that my mom got for me when I was 3, no idea why on that one) and looked at what the thing read for the desired element. For all I could read it, it may as well have been Ununununoncotonicotikonum. Carefully reading it letter by letter, I was able to decipher "unu-oct-ium." Hammered the potential name into youtube, no one had taken the name yet. I could use the name as it was, or if I needed numbers I simply needed to add its element number: 118. Success!

Sort of. Some years later, I realized the actual correct spelling was "un-un-oct-ium," and my version was missing the second 'n.' At the same rate, though, that naive misspelling means that no one else on the face of the planet has my special name. Also, if both Unuoctium and Unuoctium118 are taken for some reason, I can use the name Unoctium since all the good usernames Argon.

*clap*

Bravo.

[The Fury]

My brain's full of joke answers for this. Here's some of my favorite ones:

I was a Russian Cosmonaut once.

I woke up one morning and I was so mad at everything.

I am actually not a person, but in fact a self-repairing vintage automobile.

I took a level in Barbarian, but thanks to my Lawful Alignment I can't use my rage class feature. This makes me so MAD!

[8BitNinja]

Although my favorite class of all time is a Paladin, my name is named after my YouTube channel, 8 Bit Ninja. I named my account that because it was something that sounded retro, memorable, and included Ninjas, which are awesome. The 8 Bit part is also the fact that I mostly play NES games and I love retro gaming

That stuff is hardcore

[AlHazred]

I can't tell you the origin of my screen name.

Seriously, it's not meant for Men to know!

[Âmesang]

I should preface this by saying I can't speak French (yet), but I initially chose it as the last name for a vampire character I started (poorly) drawing eleven years ago, Denise Âmesang, primarily because, at the time, I had two American-ish characters already and apparently the name "Denise" was quite popular in France so I thought, "…why not?" If I remember correctly, it should roughly translate as "blood soul," which sounded fitting to my younger, angsty, more gothic mindset back then. I've since decided that this was a name the character chose for herself as a means of helping her disown her past.

I want to say I started using it as my online handle 'round 2006 when I signed up for YouTube, wanting a name that'd be fairly unique but also short, simple, and easy to remember. I've seen used it for a number of other websites/forums, as well as the likes of Xbox LIVE, Skype, and Pokémon: Black Version.

(An exception is the forum for Adventure Quest where my username is that of my primary character, "Valentine." Surprised that hadn't been taken already.)

[TechnOkami]

There's not much to say with my case.

I liked Techno, once upon a time.

Okami is one of my all-out favorite games, ever.

They share a letter at the beginning and the end.

FUSIONSHAWWWWW

Funny thing though, I don't like techno anymore. I do like edm though. I never bothered to change the user name, and honestly I like it too much to want to change it.

[Red Planet]

and honestly I like it too much to want to change it.
I don't blame you, it's brilliant!

Mine came from the fact that at the time I signed up I was reading (and thoroughly enjoying) one of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books.

[Rockphed]

I can't tell you the origin of my screen name.

Seriously, it's not meant for Men to know!

I'm a pint sized Dragon and we have some eldrich horrors around. Can't we know the origin? I promise not to tell any humans.

[SirKazum]

I'm a pint sized Dragon and we have some eldrich horrors around. Can't we know the origin? I promise not to tell any humans.

That's the name of the Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred (sic), who supposedly wrote the Necronomicon, according to H. P. Lovecraft.

edit: those who know a little Arabic will notice there's an "al" too many in the name, hence the "sic" :smallbiggrin:

[Peelee]

edit: those who know a little Arabic will notice there's an "al" too many in the name, hence the "sic" :smallbiggrin:

That intrigues me more than the name origin. Care to give me a crash course in why, via PM?

[Kol Korran]

When I got back to gaming in my late twenties (After a long break), I came upon the Eberron setting, and quite liked it. I really loved the soudn of the deities of the Sovereign Host from there. Just the sound. The GiTP was the first internet forum I joined, and when I was asked for a screen name, I was quite surprised, and just used this one.

At first this got me some problem comments, due to beign from Israel, and Kol="Voice of" in hebrew, and Korran got mistaken for Koran. People thoguht I was tryign to make soem sort of a religious stand or soemthing (Despite NOTHING I've ever written had any rreal world religious or political onctent in it). So I looked for the pic (Coin symbol of Kol Korran) to try and explain it.

Doesn't really work anymore, but meh... got used to it. :smallconfused:

[Fri]

That intrigues me more than the name origin. Care to give me a crash course in why, via PM?

Basically Abdul Alhazred isn't an actual arabic name, since Abdul is a transliteration of Abd-al which basically means servant of (as in, sevant of god). So Abdul Alhazred is servant of of hazred. It should've been either Abdul Hazred or Al-hazred. So it's (sic) because Abdul Alhazred is what lovecraft name him, eventhough it's wrong.

[SirKazum]

Basically Abdul Alhazred isn't an actual arabic name, since Abdul is a transliteration of Abd-al which basically means servant of (as in, sevant of god). So Abdul Alhazred is servant of of hazred. It should've been either Abdul Hazred or Al-hazred. So it's (sic) because Abdul Alhazred is what lovecraft name him, eventhough it's wrong.

yeah, that's what I replied via PM... basically the "ul" in Abdul is the same definite article "al" as in Alhazred (and in any Arabic name beginning with "al"), with its vowel changed for grammatical reasons. Which is why the name as Lovecraft wrote it is redundant. Also, "Abdul" by itself is meaningless, it's always just the first half of a name, yet people assume it's a given name all the time...

[Peelee]

Amusingly, the only reason I asked for it to be PMed was to avoid a minor derailment, since I tend to be pretty bad about that.

[Southern Cross]

I get my screen name from my frequently rebuilt 5th Edition Hero System character, Southern Cross.

[Lt Gravemind]

Derived my name during the Halo 2 days as the Gravemind was my favorite villain. The Lt part was added so to be distinctive enough not to clash with anyone and recognizable for myself.

[SkipSandwich]

I tend to reference video games

Skip Sandwich is a reference to an item from Earthbound/Mother 2, one of my favorite Console RPGS and on my list of "Best Games of all Time".

My alternate handle for where Skip Sandwich is taken is Alkaiser009, in reference to the character Alkaiser from the game Saga Frontier, another favorite game of mine, and one which i finally 100% completed earlier this year (all character scenarios completed on a single save, all Final Bosses completed with a single party via the 2ndDev bonus room)


There was a brief period in the 90's where I went by TechnoDeChocobo

[YourWaifu]

Well this is going to make me sound so weeby, but here I go!

So my username is derived from the term Waifu, basically meaning a fictional wife-girlfriend sort of a thing. If you're a weeb, you have a waifu. That's just how it works. So, I decided one day that I wanted to be someone's waifu. That...didn't work. So I just said, "If I can't be one person's waifu, then I'll be everyone's waifu!"

I mean the username is also just adorable and I think it's hilarious, but I'm weird and my sense of humor is weird too, so I wouldn't trust that.

[Skeppio]

Well this is going to make me sound so weeby, but here I go!

So my username is derived from the term Waifu, basically meaning a fictional wife-girlfriend sort of a thing. If you're a weeb, you have a waifu. That's just how it works. So, I decided one day that I wanted to be someone's waifu. That...didn't work. So I just said, "If I can't be one person's waifu, then I'll be everyone's waifu!"

I mean the username is also just adorable and I think it's hilarious, but I'm weird and my sense of humor is weird too, so I wouldn't trust that.

Now you just need to find a user called Senpai or something, so they can notice you. ;)
Gotta say, that username made me smile!

[8BitNinja]

Now you just need to find a user called Senpai or something, so they can notice you. ;)
Gotta say, that username made me smile!

If you are a ninja, would you want senpai to notice you?

No one notices a ninja

If a ninja is noticed they are not a ninja

[noblegasXenon]

I've changed several times but this one is most likely my last
So noblegasXenon, eh?
Well I'm a big fan of the Periodic Table and an even bigger fan of the Noble Gases.
Xenon is probably because of name originating from the Greek word "Xenos" meaning 'Stranger'.

People tend to call me Xenon because of it.

[illazrion]

My name comes from a favorite D&D wizard I played some years back.

[T'ehk]

T'ehk Bloodfeather is just a name I came up with to fit my character. This was my first time playing D&D and I'm playing a wood elf archer arctic ranger beastmaster / moon druid with a native American scout feel to him. I obsessed over the right name and I'm happy with it. I've also played a forest gnome Kangolian shadow monk named Link Shatterbone and my next character will be a deep gnome map making warlock named Melkian Copperpot.

[Florian]

I simply use my given name.

[Somensjev]

but one day I saw a thread for "Google your username."

i was reading through this thread and stumbled upon this, so i decided to do a quick google search of my username.. you only get results about me, since i use this username on a number of different sites. i don't know if i feel achieved or not :smallconfused::smallbiggrin:


in more relevant news: i originally had the name "Chaotic Stupid" (though, i probably didn't capitalise it, since i'm terrible at that). i came up with that name since i'd just been introduced to dnd not long before hand, i played many CN characters when first starting, and i was in highschool, so, chaotic stupid just appealed to me :smallredface:

i later changed it to "Somensjev".
the story of somensjev, is that while i was in high school, my friends and i were really into memes, such as "like a boss" and other things. i have a friend in norway who i sometimes talked to on skype, so, i said like a boss one day, for some reason or another, and she said it back in norwegian, which, now googling it is actually "som en sjef", but i swear, it sounded like a "v" not an "f", though, i may have just heard incorrectly. but, i really enjoyed the sound of that phrase.
so, this amusing misspelling of a stupid phrase translated into another language, has become my name on a number of different websites

[Blackhawk748]

I got my username from my first DnD Character, Aramil Blackhawk, Human Ranger. I have had several characters who use that last name in other games too.

[Beany]

When I was in middle school I had a bully. She would call me mean names and pull my hair. Well I had a collection of beanie babies and they are filled with these little beads. I use to catapult them at my brother. So I knew they hit hard. I decided to take one to school and waited for said bully to start her crap. When she did I took that little critter and swung it on her face so fast she didn't relize she was picking herself up off the floor of the bus. The highschoolers called me Beany from then on and 15 years later I'm still called it by everyone including family and people who just meet me.

[Daygone]

it was the name of the first, still favorite and one of my most memorable tabletop RPG characters i made years ago, i have been using the name for every online account i make some times with small variations because its being used already.

[Gopher Wizard]

I like playing spellcasters, and gophers are silly animals. I wish there was a school of wizardry called "gophermancy."

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Well, in 2006 i was reading Transmetropolitan for the first time. It stuck in my head and I needed a username.

It's still my favorite comic book to this date, along with Preacher and The Invisibles, so there's that.