Online/Forum Nicks.

[Bill Dungsroman]

So like, the nicknames people use online have always fascinated me, because I find the reasons people pick them interesting and I have a lot of spare time on my hands these days.

This being a quasi-industry-related website/shrine to Thomasford Wesleyshintz Chickalasubramanian, I get using one's real name. I mean, it's an online world, and how will you be associated with your real-world, real life works if you don't log on as Gary Whitta if you are, indeed, Gary Whitta?

Now me, I don't use my real name because one day I'm going to kill all of you people who do, ha ha on you, Mr. Psh Nothing Ever Happens to People Who Use Their Real Names Online. Except Tom. Ok, I might just kill him last. And Angie, because she carries a giant knife and will sense me with her Satanic powers before I even get within 100 yards of her. Fuck that. And Jeff Green. He'll probably die of old age before I get to him anyway.

But I digress. There are precious few trends in naming one's self. IRL nicknames spill over, like fire and Rimbo. Cutesy-wootsy puns on literary terms or characters, dudes with female names, females with dude's names, random nouns and pulp culture refs, and my least favorite: l33tspeak or anyone who uses Lord or Darth or any other cheesy D&D/SW-type stupid adjective in their name. Grow up and put down the plastic katana, Darth Pickles.

But man, and no offense, but WTF with all you dudes who bust this out:

________frog/bear/big

where ________ = some noun or adjective. It's a bigass trend, a solid third behind actual IRL names and ones that make no sense whatsoever. You guys aren't all like furries, right? Nothing against those disgusting deviants who should be all run off a high cliff after a Bataan-style death march on the Trail of Tears, but if you are, please chop off your penises kthx.

I assume, though, none of you really are. So what gives? I'm genuinely intrigued.

Oh and, UnicornMcGriddle is exempt because unicorns have been extinct since the Crusades when the Catholics destroyed them all as demon steeds and so is Squirrel Killer, because his nick is funny. I don't make the rules, you know, I just enforce them.

[jpinard]

Now me, I don't use my real name because one day I'm going to kill all of you people who do,

hehehe. That cracked me up.

I came up with my nickname to throws the wholes Internets off. I'm really Stephen Colbert.

[arctangent]

"arctangent" is the first thing that popped into my head when I was signing up. I think I stole it from someone else on another board. I use different names on each board I'm registered with, because that way I can be an ass and not have it carry over somewhere else. :)

[Houngan]

When I started using the Intarnets on AOL, back in '093 or so, I was Taxman, for no other reason than I had used that on the CB.

I later went to Houngan strictly because I lurve Tim Powers, and On Stranger Tides is one of my favorite stories. Sadly Disney ripped off the entire thing for Pirates of the Caribbean, but I didn't really expect better out of them. It does have an unappealing D&D-ey flavor to it, but I can usually sign up for something without appending a bunch of letters to make it "unique", and I'm used to it now. I reckon I've been using it for about eleven years, now.


H.

edit: I'd be interested to see how you classify "Homosayswhat?" into the categories.

[FIDGAF]

I don't even want to know what he thinks about acronyms.

***Ducks***

[Bill Dungsroman]

I don't even want to know what he thinks about acronyms.

***Ducks***
Frickin' Idiot Douchebag, Gaming Age Forums?

[Jason McMaster]

I've been low-light and SEXECUTIONER(my favorite!) in Quakeworld Team Fortress when I was in BTEG (I guess I still am, for life and all). I was Bokonon for Planet Hate and Portal of Evil. I think I used Bokonon in Counter-Strike as well. Joe Christmas is my most recent one that I use when I don't want people to know it's me. I pretty much started using my real name so that people would recognize it when I asked for writing work.

Bill already knew most of that though. He also can't kill me since we inhabit the same body.

[Ephraim]

Ephraim is, quite simply, my Hebrew name.

I started using it in a MUSH, ages ago, when struggling to come up with a desert-warrior type character name. That's when I realized that the biblical Hebrews (from whence my name originates) were some pretty kick-ass desert warriors, and I made the obvious choice.

The funny thing is that I used to absolutely hate my Hebrew name, all the other kids made fun of the correct Hebrew pronunciation (Eh-fry-eem) in Hebrew school ("You fry them! You fry them!"). So I'm taking it back, like African Americans and the n-word, or gays and the q-word. Though I have to admit that when asked how to pronounce it, I usually just go with the English Ef-raym or even Ef-ram.

[Bill Dungsroman]

When I started using the Intarnets on AOL, back in '093 or so, I was Taxman, for no other reason than I had used that on the CB.

I later went to Houngan strictly because I lurve Tim Powers, and On Stranger Tides is one of my favorite stories. Sadly Disney ripped off the entire thing for Pirates of the Caribbean, but I didn't really expect better out of them. It does have an unappealing D&D-ey flavor to it, but I can usually sign up for something without appending a bunch of letters to make it "unique", and I'm used to it now. I reckon I've been using it for about eleven years, now.
I'd bring up some really really really old OMM stuff about you being notorious for switching your nicks, but maybe that was just spanky's paranoia.


edit: I'd be interested to see how you classify "Homosayswhat?" into the categories.
Subcategory: Retarded.

[Ed Solomon]

Interesting points Bill.

For awhile, I've been dividing user nicknames into two categories: true and false.

Take for example, Unicorn McGriddle. Can be ridden by non-virgins and is not part of a delicious breakfast. False.

Angrycoder. He codes and he's angry, he's angry and he codes, he's Angrycoder. Who knew bile was such an essential part of the programming process. True.

Not One of Us. Come on dude, you're posting on a gaming forum, you're definitely one of us. False.

Tom Chick. A guy. False.

Dave Long. 5' 6". False.

You get the idea.

[BobJustBob]

Bob was sort of a real life nickname, but far too generic to use as an online identity. So I was thinking about how I couldn't use just Bob, when AHA!

[Hawkeye Fierce]

My real name is suspiciously similar to a certain fictional army doctor, with the exception of that one pesky letter. I like my last name better anyway. Sometimes these things are easy.

[Fugitive]

The forums are an escape.

I don't really have much consistency when it comes to aliases, though. Sometimes this, sometimes the name of my old EQ character, sometimes a bit of nonsense culled from spam, sometimes a contraction of my real name, sometimes a real-sounding pseudonym...

[Nellie]

I've got big ears and a long trunk, hence Nellie. Now that the intarweb is popular, I'm occasionally tehNellie because I typoed it to begin with.

That and everyone calls me Nellie IRL anyway and I can't handle more than two names at the same time, I get confused.

[malphigian]

I've used a ton of handles, but settled on this one since it's basically a nonsense word (it's actually a mispelled bit of insect anatomy, but whatever), so I've always been able to get it even on popular forums and such.

This is also nice, since I've actually had people contact me in one game online that I met in another ("hey, you used to play foo right?"). It also abbreviates well (mal, malph).

I think the AdjectiveAnimalnoun is a similar thing, a standard way to generate a name that other people won't have.

[Brian Rucker]

I'm a real name sort here out of respect to the all powerful Tom Chick. I even remove my shoes before I post.

My main handle elsewhere is OddjobXL. Oddjob I picked up on a political BBS where I'd debate local folks for fun back in the day BBSes were the thing to do. One guy compared my style to the Oddjob character in the Bond films chopping the heads off statues with his razor-brimmed bowler hat. Being quite vain I was taken with the comment and promptly switched my handle. Once I hit the internets I found a population of other Oddjobs already out there so I just stuck an XL on the end.

[DeepT]

I started using this nick back in the days when IRC only allowed 8 character nicks (or something absurdly short), back when there was EFNet and ONLY EFNet. With that character limit, I needed to come up with a nick that was somehow representative of myself. It would have been "Deep Thought" but that was way beyond 8 characters. I also like the double meaning, where people would think it meant "Deep Throat".

At first I assumed they meant the sexual meaning of that phrase, but it seemed more people thought of the guy from X-Files (which I never had watched beyond a few episodes). Then there was the informer for the Watergate scandal too.

In any case, it was the reason I chose the nick.

[balut]

This is a picture of my nickname, which I've been using since '94 because I figured no one else would ever use it:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/balut76/balutshelled.jpg

Enjoy!

[EvilIdler]

For awhile, I've been dividing user nicknames into two categories: true and false.

I picked a good one, then.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Once I hit the intarweb I found a population of other Oddjobs already out there so I just stuck an XL on the end.

So you are a fat Oddjob?

Troy

[Brian Rucker]

Nope but I am a bald one!

[Elton]

But man, and no offense, but WTF with all you dudes who bust this out:

________frog/bear/big

Dude. If you're trying to pick a nick on a popular site, everything's taken. It took me so many attempts to get one that worked that didn't have a number in it. (On some other site, obviously.) And I wanted something with bear in it because I resemble a polar bear. And now I've used it in enough places, I'm just used to having it.

But I'd have never chosen it for qt3 if I'd known there was already a caesarbear here. Sometimes even I confuse us, especially since he's more contrary than I am. I find that I lend more credence to the opinions of posters with capitalized nicknames too. If I want to change my handle, do I need to bother Tom to do it?

[SlyFrog]

But man, and no offense, but WTF with all you dudes who bust this out:

________frog/bear/big

where ________ = some noun or adjective. It's a bigass trend, a solid third behind actual IRL names and ones that make no sense whatsoever. You guys aren't all like furries, right? Nothing against those disgusting deviants who should be all run off a high cliff after a Bataan-style death march on the Trail of Tears, but if you are, please chop off your penises kthx.

I have been using SlyFrog for about 20 years. Based on a 6th grade cartoon I drew starting Slyvanian T. Frog (who was, not surprisingly, a frog). Since then, whenever I have needed an anonymous name, etc., I have used some variant thereof, the most common being SlyFrog.

For example, in the very rare cases where I would get an arcade game high score back in the 80s, my initials would always be SLY.

[EvilIdler]

If I want to change my handle, do I need to bother Tom to do it?
That, and offer some sort of sacrifice, and a good reason why. Mostly the
good reason.

But if other bears are so contrary, you're a contrary bear, so it fits, right?

[FIDGAF]

Frickin' Idiot Douchebag, Gaming Age Forums?

Not exactly. This Nick is from my original AOL days when I used to hack a lot and write punters for the fun of seeing how bad we could break their system. There's no comma either but nice try.

Gez, that went better than I thought it would. I surely thought you were going to come up with something far worse but then again you didn't really get much time on it. You didn't let me down though, it was creative.

;)

[Slainte Mhath]

Slainte Mhath (pronounced "slawn-cha vah") is a Gaelic pub toast that means "Good health to you" loosely translated.

When I first started posting on internet message forums it was almost exclusively to Everquest sites back when that game first came out (1998 for the beta). My Barbarian Shaman in game was named Slainte Mhath (Shaman were healers/buffers for those unfamiliar with EQ). I've used that name ever since on most boards simply to provide continuity.

Slainte Mhath is also a band (Canadian I believe) that plays Gaelic-influenced folk and rock music, and Slainte Mhath is the name of a song by the progressive rock band Marillion who were popular in the UK and US in the late '80's. While I like both bands, especially early Marillion albums, my use of the name was inspired by the translated phrase, not any connection to either band.

I suppose I could come up with something more clever or creative, but Slainte Mhath is rarely in use on any board, and is pretty distinctive, so I never saw the need to deviate.

[Elton]

I'm actually not that contrary. The compound just comes off the tongue nicely. libertarianleaningyetsensiblebear probably breaks the forum software.

I'd rather be "Simon Orbit", which sounds nicely hammy and futuristic; George Jetson's mailman or something. The origin was when my girlfriend first heard about the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules but could never remember the name, and one time it came out like that.

[Lurb]

Well I've gone trough a few of them.
First one back when the Internet reached backwards Spain was "Axis", as the Axis&Allies box was besides my monitor first time I got prompted for a nick.

After that I was briefly "Takeda". I was studying japanese and flew mainly japanese aircraft in Aces High.

Somewhat later I joined Shadowclan and one of those automatic orc name generators spewed "Lurbuzh" after clicking about one hundred thousand times on it. It got shortened to Lurb by lazy guildmates and I've been using that at various places. I'm starting to dislike it after discovering that it is also a popular tardoteenspeak misspelling of "love".

More and more I tend to use "Catalan" my real 2nd last name (we use both in Spain). But tends to be a source of confusion: I'm from the totally not-catalan part of Spain, which makes for some awkward situations with both pro-catalan and anti-catalan stupid idiot asshole bigots.

And I now have busted my carefully nurtured multiple intardnet personality

[Lum]

It could be worse. You could pick a wicked-sounding moniker from Greyhawk D&D only to find out, much later, that it's actually much more well known as a cutesy anime character of the wrong gender that likes to dress up in tiger-striped bikinis.

[FIDGAF]

And what's wrong with that?

"That's MR. Super Bear Bikini Pants to you, thank you very much."

[EvilIdler]

a cutesy anime character of the wrong gender that likes to dress up in tiger-striped bikinis.
Sadly, that's exactly what I think of first ;)
(Watching all episodes in sequence is NOT good for your mental health)

[metta]

'Metta' was the name of my kobold Shadowblade in Dark Age of Camelot. It is also the name for the buddhist 'compassion' meditation and fit like a glove the character I was developing (yay! back when a roleplaying server had, you know, actual roleplaying).

I use it everywhere I need to register because it's short, easy to spell, and two syllables.

[Warning]

Warning is my last name. It also happens to sound cool, mysterious and ominous at the same time. Pretty much unlike me.

[Joel]

I am "Lev" in some communities, short for "Levendis," a character in a Harlan Ellison short story that I took to mean something not unlike carpe diem according to Ellison's definition, but later found out from an actual Greek that it literally means something more like "pimp" but is normally used pejoratively as we'd use the term "douchebag." Thanks, Harlan!

"Lev," however, has lots of nice double meanings, not the least of which is the Hebrew letter which can also mean "heart." Now in most games I use "joelev," which to me sounded vaguely Russian but is usually interpreted as "joe." I guess I'm pretty crappy at nicks, all told.

[Joel]

Warning is my last name. It also happens to sound cool, mysterious and ominous at the same time. Pretty much unlike me.

Nice. My GF's last name is "Stalker." If we ever have kids, they're getting her name.

[mouselock]

Slainte Mhath (pronounced "slawn-cha vah")

I love Gaelic. Such bizarre pronunciations compared to the way the rest of us use the alphabet.

[mouselock]

It could be worse. You could pick a wicked-sounding moniker from Greyhawk D&D only to find out, much later, that it's actually much more well known as a cutesy anime character of the wrong gender that likes to dress up in tiger-striped bikinis.

Dude! You didn't name yourself after the oni girl? I'm so disappointed. :(

FWIW, when the "other" (anime) Lum gets mad, it's a sight to behold. So LtM always made sense that way. (Plus the dichotomy is a bit amusing.)

[Old Man Gravy]

Ephraim is, quite simply, my Hebrew name.



My Hebrew name is Huncher McBigPole.

I used the old conventional "name of first pet" plus "name of street you live on" method to come up with it.

[Raife]

I used the old conventional "name of first pet" plus "name of street you live on" method to come up with it.

So was your first pet named Man Gravy, or do you live on Man Gravy Street?

[GregB]

I usually go by Capt. Donut. It came from my final video project in college where a Glazed Donut, an English Muffin, and a French Cruller save Europe from Germany in WWII by destroying their super secret V8 Rocket.

[Jason McMaster]

Did you glaze the donut yourself?

[Old Man Gravy]

So was your first pet named Man Gravy, or do you live on Man Gravy Street?

No, no, pet name + street is the Hebrew name generation method.

Old Man Gravy is my pornstar name. You get that by combining the first name of your current pet ("Old Blue") plus your preferred method for glazing donuts.

[FIDGAF]

Ouch...

[Charlatan]

This is the name I typically use in RPGs for my character. I hit upon it when creating my party for one of the Xeen games, where I needed 6 names and I was using name variations for friends and family. It's one or two permutations off of my real first name, which should not be much of a mystery.

Old Man Gravy, my porn star name would then be :Nervous Crisco Fried" - gonna stick with Charlatan.

[fire]

The art department in my high school burned down one night. It smelled like love.

[Alan Au]

Ah yes, the story behind the whole "Itsatrap" thing; actually, it comes from the days when I used to play Titan (the old Avalon Hill game) a lot. I would tend to set these ambushes everywhere, and eventually the running joke was that every move I made was part of some elaborate trap. The Admiral Ackbar thing is just a happy coincidence. ...OR IS IT!

- Alan

[SqueakyFoo]

My name comes from the fact I wanted something to piss off all the l33t-kiddies in CS and TF way back in the day. Nothing more demeaning for a 12 year old that calls himself xXxLordDarthDethKillahzxXx to get beat down by a guy that calls himself SqueakyFoo.

More recently, the name generates much enjoyment on Xbox Live. Everyone I play with online has a tendancy to repeatedly call out my name "Squueeeekkkkyyy Foooooo!!!". Followed by intense giggling.

[Balasarius]

Balasarius is the name of a D&D Wizard (sorry - magic-user) I created, um, about 22 years ago. It only bears a small resemblance to the guy who created the A-Team on coincidence, I assure you.

When Quake (1) came out, Balasarius was far too big, so I went with Duncan (... McCleod). When I became l33t at Q1, I changed it Dunqan, with the cool Quake symbol in place of the "q".

Later, Balasarius was the name of my EQ1 mage. Almost 150 days played over 5 years. O.o

So yeah, I stick with it. A lot.

[Dave Long]

I use Grimrod in some games and played Quake under the name The Iron Fist. Both because of comic book characters...

...I'm not very creative when it comes to nicknames.

[AndrewM]

I decided to use something based on my name because I thought I'd feel a little ridiculous trotting around as cantankerousbrineshrimp or whatever, given all the people here who post under their real names, but that was before I realized that there are at least 2 other Andrew M's who post on this board, so I've pretty much doomed myself to being lost in the crowd unless I adopt some eccentricity that will help me stand out. Maybe I'll post in rhyme.

My original name choice was "Andrew", but Tom rightly suggested that might be confusing. Sadly, my new choice is also a little confusing.

[Patrick]

I've been "Patch" since I was a kid. I use it in games and other forums. But when I signed up for qt3 I noticed the place seemed alot more adult orientated, and some people were using thier real names. So I figured what the heck.

[Equis]

Equis is just the Latin version of my Chinese surname. I'm all cross-cultural yo... I'd have gone with Valiumaddict, which is the nick I use when I'm playing any online game. Thought it was a unique combination of words. Others I have used include theDolphinParadox, A Melancholic Penguin and Pretentious Poopiehead.

Hmmm, I wonder if Tom would let me change my nick here to Pretentious Poopiehead. No good reason, just because.

[Pogue Mahone]

I love Gaelic. Such bizarre pronunciations compared to the way the rest of us use the alphabet.

Speaking of which, might as well jump in to point out that my nick is gaelic for the considerably less polite 'kiss my ass.' And yeah, partly I chose it because of the juvenile little giggle I get seeing it pop up when I post, though it also happens to refer to a great band and one of their albums. It's the nick I have used online for like, ever, with the exception of when I played on Xbox live - then I was Wrathful Tick, though that's another story.

[mouselock]

Speaking of which, might as well jump in to point out that my nick is gaelic for the considerably less polite 'kiss my ass.'

Means squat without a proper pronunciation guide. Since I can't really infer anything from the Gaelic pronunciations I've seen before, I'm going to guess proper pronunciation is "Wallah Humpta". I imagine that's about as logically connected to the actual letters as most other Gaelic pronunciations I've seen.

[Moore]

moore is my last name. I did 'fulci zombi' for xbox live because I had to think something up, since I let my xbox 1 account lapse and couldnt gte it back and at this point there are a ton of moore12356's on live.

my first name is chris, but I'm not a fan of it.

[SlyFrog]

Ah yes, the story behind the whole "Itsatrap" thing; actually, it comes from the days when I used to play Titan (the old Avalon Hill game) a lot. I would tend to set these ambushes everywhere, and eventually the running joke was that every move I made was part of some elaborate trap. The Admiral Ackbar thing is just a happy coincidence. ...OR IS IT!

You've just become considerably cooler by letting us know that you play(ed) Titan. I assume you are aware of Colossus?

[Ephraim]

My Hebrew name is Huncher McBigPole.

I used the old conventional "name of first pet" plus "name of street you live on" method to come up with it.


What's your father's Hebrew name? Because during prayers for your health, or on your gravestone, we'll need the full lineage "Huncher McBigPole ben <fill in the blank>". I'm filling in the blank right now with "Ruthless von Scrotiasis".

[Pogue Mahone]

Means squat without a proper pronunciation guide. Since I can't really infer anything from the Gaelic pronunciations I've seen before, I'm going to guess proper pronunciation is "Wallah Humpta". I imagine that's about as logically connected to the actual letters as most other Gaelic pronunciations I've seen.

Actually, 'pogue mahone' would be the phoneticized version, how you would pronounce the phrase. Proper gaelic spelling would be 'pog mo thoin.' Use it in good health, cheers, pogue mahone.

[Squirrel Killer]

my first name is chris, but I'm not a fan of it.
Have you considered renaming yourself after a cartoon car?

[Sean Hargraves]

I first used Heung Wei Lo, and kept it for a long time, mostly because the spelling is unique enough where I could sign up for new accounts at various sites without having to attach a number at the end of it. I stopped using it when people on Counter-strike kept telling me to stop playing and go back to Korea to play StarCraft or Diablo II instead, nevermind that Heung Wei Lo wasn't my real name, and if it was, it would be more legitimate as a Chinese name. Ironically, I'm half-Korean.

Then I used Non Compos Mentis for awhile, but it proved to be too common a username.

Now, I use Sarcazmotron 3040 A.D. Spelling is unique enough to not be a problem when signing up for new accounts and it explains pretty much who I really am: A sarcastic robot from the future.

[ElGuapo]

Just for Bill:

http://oxyan.firepaw.com/gallery/albums/EFX/fursuiter01.sized.jpg
(Changed to an EVEN BETTER pic)


You'd be suprised how hard it is to find a picture of an obese guy dressed as a furry on the internet in order to make a furry joke. Hard techinically, and hard on the eyes.

You see things . . . that can't be unseen.

[Funkman]

The name I use in pretty much all my games and online is Funkman or some variation on the theme of funk. In real life, I'm probably not what one would consider funky, per se, but the word is just so flexible and fun to say that I've stuck with it this long.

[KaoFloppy]

Someone on USENET not too many years ago made me think of a new nickname THAT DAY, and suggested looking around my table for ideas. Seeing how I've thrown out all my Dysan floppies already...

I used to go by "the Battloid". (All hail Harmony Gold!) But that was only on BBSes.

[Rob_Merritt]

I use my real name here. Don't know why, just do. My handle, Baron Calamity, is the same handle I've used since the days of BBSes and Fidonet in the mid 80s.

[triggercut]

Dullest story ever incoming.

In 1995 or so, I was making the ISP switch from a local bbs that offered telnet access to a new service called "Earthlink". Earthlink at the time required me to apparently come up with a username that wasn't in use *anywhere* in usenet or some such nonsense, so after fishing around with a gajillion different versions of my real first and last names (I'm Chris, btw), I ran outta steam.

I decided I'd just use the first song on the first CD I grabbed out of my multi-disc changer as my earthlink handle. The CD I grabbed was "Slanted And Enchanted" by Pavement. The first song on that disc is "Summer Babe". Now, if you pick "Summer Babe" for a handle, you're basically saying "I'm a chick" or "I'm a twink." I'd also hoped to eventually own a few race horses, and always held out hope of naming a filly Summer Babe (or Velocity Girl, but that's a different story entirely) so that name was out. Second song on the disc is "Trigger Cut", and that was my earthlink handle....

....and that was the handle I posted under on Usenet for a long, long, time. When I signed on to various forums, then, I just carried that handle over, and so there you have it.

[Rob_Merritt]

You'd be suprised how hard it is to find a picture of an obese guy dressed as a furry on the internet in order to make a furry joke. Hard techinically, and hard on the eyes.

You see things . . . that can't be unseen.

Searching for Yiffing?

[malphigian]

Speaking of which, might as well jump in to point out that my nick is gaelic for the considerably less polite 'kiss my ass.' And yeah, partly I chose it because of the juvenile little giggle I get seeing it pop up when

Well hell, that one I knew (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8-y-4bBTn4).

EDIT: Also knew this one :)
Dullest story ever incoming.

[dannimal]

Nothing special here.

Univ. of Mich. gives each faculty/staff/student a "uniquename" (ha! Because they're unique!). Back in the fall of 1991 when I started school I had found out that the paperwork filed over the summer had either gotten lost, or the system had blown up or something. My original uniquename request "dann" was gone, and I had to pick a new one (why? Can't remember. I'm sure I asked for "dann" again, but oh well).

At the time, the unix systems the uniquename was for were very new (the bulk of online stuff was done through Michigan Terminal System, MTS, which was an IBM 360 OS). We weren't aware of how the intarwebs would blow up, or that we'd be "stuck" with the uniquename as our e-mail address forever.

Anyway, I was pissed about this whole screwup (a Top 5 engineering school and they can't get this down?) and some other stuff (forget what) and I come stomping back to the dorm room. My roommate and a friend are there, drinking (at like 4pm. Roommate didn't make it through sophomore year, but is the source of some great tales). I slam the door, and the friend goes "Woah, the dannimal is on a rampage!". It was ridiculous enough to stick.

So now I get to go meet potential new customers (deparments on campus) and say "If you need any other details, just e-mail me: dannimal@<domain> which can be puzzled out but easier to not put a full e-mail addy on the web). I suppose I could change it, but I'm lazy. The U is much smarter about suggesting uniquenames now. At least I didn't have "eat" (english "Version" of Sigma Delta Tau).

It's weird going to a new site and finding out that someone else already has "dannimal". I'd think there aren't many people spelling Dann with 2 "n"s to begin with, then they go with the goofy nick. Although Dannon and their stupid yogurt doesn't help.

*shrug*

[Alan Au]

You've just become considerably cooler by letting us know that you play(ed) Titan. I assume you are aware of Colossus?
Yup, the Colossus (http://colossus.sourceforge.net/) project is very cool. There's also the Automated Card Tracking System (http://acts.warhorsesim.com/ttn.asp) if you're interested in PBEM, but I found PBEM Titan too slow for my tastes.

Also, those of you who have played Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic against me now have a better understanding of why I use so many of those pesky cloaked units. ("Don't worry, those two stacks of cloaked Prowlers sitting outside your capital are just, uh, very heavily armed scouts.")

- Alan

[MattKeil]

I usually use Keldroc as an alias, a name I made up for a universe-conquering villain in a story I wrote when I was 10, but I used my real name on Qt3 because I wanted Tom Chick to like me.

[Rob_Merritt]

I used my real name on Qt3 because I wanted Tom Chick to like me.

How is that working out for ya?

[Moore]

Have you considered renaming yourself after a cartoon car?

My middle name IS speedbuggy.

[Guido Jones]

This is my real name.

Okay, maybe not.

[Sidd_Budd]

I wanted an alias that was unlikely to be in use at boards, and had a short form that could be used informally. I ended up shortening two words associated with my faith:
Siddhartha Gautama, the historical founder of
Buddhism

I figured the spelling with a double d in each word would make it less likely to be in use.

[madkevin]

Mine's even more boring than triggercut's: I used to run a gaming cafe called The Mad Netter - clever, I know - so everybody who worked there just appended "mad" to their names for net handles. I used "madkevin" on Usenet afterwords, and it just sort of stuck.

Plus, in real life, I am often really angry.

[ElGuapo]

Searching for Yiffing?

Ok, I had to look that one up.

Truly, I agree with Bill D., these are possibily the dumbest people on the planet. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiff)

I love how the end of the article devolves into an esoteric debate about the artisit merits of furry porn. Bullets pleaze kthks.

[Hanzii]

I've been "Patch" since I was a kid. I use it in games and other forums. But when I signed up for qt3 I noticed the place seemed alot more adult orientated, and some people were using thier real names. So I figured what the heck.

Just be glad you didn't go with Patch... Bill Dungsroman would have eaten you alive.

I wanted to be Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm or just Brian Peter John St. George Le Baptiste De La Salle Eno but both were too long for that little box, so I went with Hanzii because it's a pseudonym I've written under before and I didn't notice that people here used real names, or I'd gone with that. Now I'm to attached to my postcount and afraid I wouldn't make the Banned Directory to change it.

In shooters I'm usually a variation on J. Alfred Prufrock (JAPrufrock on Live) or Mogens Amdi Peteresen (only fun on Danish servers. And not that much)

[Robert Sharp]

Bob was sort of a real life nickname, but far too generic to use as an online identity. So I was thinking about how I couldn't use just Bob, when AHA!

For people who know your real name, there must be more to this story. 'Bob' is not a normal nickname for you.

[Joel]

My original Trade Wars 2002 handle was "Captain Dude" of the good ship "Drizzt Do'urden."

[Jasper]

I have used a variety of nicknames, e.g. from RPG characters i've played. Find something unique enough, and nobody else ever has it.

I got burned once at university though, using the alias Pit Fiend (a nickname given by a gaming friend of mine), which the exchange student TA took to be my real name without a second thought. Took the prof a bit to connect the dots, with Jasper getting A's on all the tests, but never turning in any homework, and Pit getting all the homework right, but never showing up for tests...

I just use my real name now, and save fictional names for games. Besides, I rather like that people can find me easily, if they wish. The people you don't want to find you won't be stopped by an alias anyway, and it's nice to have old friends occasionally pop in.

[Ergo]

Like many others, I came up with my nick in an attempt to pick something that no one else would possibly use.

Wrong. On many sites (including Live) I use ErgoWill, which I believe will be safe for a long time to come.

[LesJarvis]

Les, as you may or may not know, is french for "the." Or at least someone once told me that. So my handle translates rougly into "The Jarvis," Or "TheJarvis" if you want to be technical.

[Fugitive]

Les, as you may or may not know, is french for "the." Or at least someone once told me that. So my handle translates rougly into "The Jarvis," Or "TheJarvis" if you want to be technical.
It's the plural form, so it's actually "TheJarvises". :)

[unbongwah]

You guys aren't all like furries, right?
Since Randy's spilled the beans, I'll let you in on it: they're all reincarnated lycanthropes (http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10252006.shtml), hiding in plain sight.

You could pick a wicked-sounding moniker from Greyhawk D&D only to find out, much later, that it's actually much more well known as a cutesy anime character of the wrong gender that likes to dress up in tiger-striped bikinis.
I'm not sure being mistaken for an anime nerd is that big of a come-down from "D&D dork."

[LesJarvis]

It's the plural form, so it's actually "TheJarvises". :)

You learn something new every day! We are legion, us Jarvises. Thanks :)

[Charles]

I started using my real name after the first time meeting people off the internet and being called out loud by a stupid nick (Nova). Oof. So now I just stick with Charles, and by default, if people meet me, no one has to deal with the awkwardness of calling someone a stupid nick.

For other things I made up a replacement nick some years back that's a bad programming reference/joke. It's also my gamertag (Null Actor).

[Naked]

Vaguely dull story...prior to my Evil Avatar migration, I used to go by Naked Exposition - derived from a screen writing professor's theory that lengthy expository dialog is much easier to pull off if you have one of the characters get naked as it ensues - but since that was a bit of a mouthful, and people tended to refer to me as Naked Explosion (which, to be honest, was far more exciting sounding), I reduced it to Naked.

Then I lurked, a lot...

[Lum]

I'm not sure being mistaken for an anime nerd is that big of a come-down from "D&D dork."

Well, it would have been better if the gender matched.

[nKoan]

I've been lucky enough to never run into a problem with my nickname. I guess not that many Buddhists get online these days. Or, at the very least not many join gaming and/or Subaru/Car forums.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan

Where does the n come from? There used to be a whole word infront of the koan, but I didn't really like it, so I shortened it. n is also my first initial, so that kind of works out there. I also use first initial, middle initial, last name (nmhansen) on forums from time to time. No real rhyme or reason to why I choose, its just based on how I'm feeling that day (or if there might be any associations carried over from other forums I might want to keep or break).

[snowcrash22]

When I first started playing Quake 2 online, I thought the book snowcrash was the bee's knees. Turns out a couple of other people did as well. So I figured that since Catch-22 was the cat's pajamas I would throw that number at the end.

And everytime I tried to play under a different nickname (Freak Box and Dogtoy had brief but miserable careers) it just never felt right.

[RickH]

Whenever I have to pick a name in a game, I pick Goob. Because that's what I play like online.

Except for Star Wars Battlefront, where I use Jizz Mangoo because it matches the Lucas Cadence.

And my gamertag is tenjackten bacause I own that domain.

[Kunikos]

Originally I used Lionheart during my high school years when I was frequenting BBS forums local to my home area. This was after Richard the Lionhearted, who was a giant man of over six feet tall (during medieval times no less) and wielded a claymore and was known to have cut men in twain. Yes, I enjoyed reading and learning about history of that period a LOT in my youth.

Eventually after I started gaming in a big way I changed my nickname to tetsuo, after the character of the same name from the anime Akira. Unfortunately, I ran into someone who had the same nickname who worked for Gamespy at a Beatdown LAN party and ended up mulling over what I should change my nick to. On a whim I changed it to Synic, and used that for a long while afterwards into my days in university.

A few years ago I decided I was tired of my nick being used by other people on IRC networks and on the more popular forums, and switched to Kunikos. I originally started on this forum as Synic, and racked up about 2,000 posts before switching to this nickname. Now this nickname is far more famous due to being temporarily banned and added to the Bananas and Nuts graphical chart.

Edit:

I should add that while Synic is pretty obvious to derive the inspiration (Sin + Cynic, a contradiction because the Cynics were virtually puritans and the antithesis to the Hedonist philosophers), Kunikos is a little more obscure. If you look up the dictionary entry for cynic, the etymology suggests that the Greek word Kunikos was the origin. This apparently means "dog-faced" and was a nickname for Diogenes of Sinope, who was the first Cynic philosopher and known for living in the streets and howling in the town square.

[Derwisch]

When I was in school after finishing a programming assignment we still had too much time left to do nothing so we started to prepend one of those shareware welcome screens to our "mathe-formel-zerstörer" which was really nothing more than a simple calculator. So we had all those "Thank you for using..."-phrases and had to come up with nicknames to make this whole assignment even more silly than it was. "Wishnu Ben Kenobi" was silly enough so it went in and later "kenobi" stuck with me(it was a reference to "Before the Dark Times. Before a phantom menace") for more than 10 years when an ex-girlfriend told me that this was way to nerdy and I had to get a better nick if I wanted to enjoy the pleasures of NWN with here. So I brilliantly came up with "derwisch" with "der" being one of if not the masculinest articles in german and "wisch" somehow having to do with my last name...and my, did I have some NWN afterwards! ;)

[Arioch]

Count me into the camp of fantasy literature nerds, Arioch being the name of Elric of Melniboné's patron godof Chaos. I always liked a god who would just show up and eat a beggar king if he likes. Stuck with it for the ten years since, although it is a little too close to the german word for asshole for my taste, phonetically speaking. Since I don't play games online, there is curerntly no need for another nick.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

BLOOD AND SOULS!

Fixed that for you.

[Athryn]

In the BBS world and such I was catseye for a pretty long time, my email address still reflects that. Don't know why I stopped using it, probably because there were too many others out there.

Switched to Athryn because it's the form of Athyn which is the name of a character in a series of really strange sci-fantasy novels written by Jim Morrison's widow. It's also part of the sound of my real name, Katherine.

I usually use it or Corenne (just completely made up) when making characters.

I did use Kate (my real nickname) for a while when I was being a TL for Mythic, which is where some people know me from.

[triggercut]

You learn something new every day! We are legion, us Jarvises. Thanks :)

Enough. Go have a Booche burger and a slice or three at Shakespeare's for me.

[Houngan]

I'd bring up some really really really old OMM stuff about you being notorious for switching your nicks, but maybe that was just spanky's paranoia.



Jesus, that's one of the big reasons I never went to Caltrops. I can't say if it was Spanky, Toulouse, or who, but all that shite was a variety of people making it seem as though I was nick-switching. Other than a few posts for the sake of a funny/topical name, it was never me, as best as I can recall.

The only "discussion" forum I post on is this one, simply because by internet standards, this is one of the smartest and least pissing-contest boards I've ever read. Messageboards with creepy cliques freak me out. Granted P&R gets warm, but by internet standards it's still a soft kiss from a cousin.

H.

[MattKeil]

How is that working out for ya?

Any day now.

[Qenan]

When I first joined Q23 (back when they used Discuss and Mark was pimping the site on usenet, attracting riff-raff like myself), some others were using nicknames, so I thought I should too. I picked my main EQ character (who was auto-named). Dumb but there it is.

Since then, it has occurred to me that advertising to future employers that I'd rather play games than work is maybe not the way to go. So I keep the nickname.

[nKoan]

I forgot, back in college, when I was trying to be anonymous, I would play games under the alias 'Constant', which surprisingly never had a clash for the 2 years I occasionally used it.

It was based off the character Malachi Constant from Kurt Vonnegut's book Sirens of Titan. I liked the name, but didn't want to use the whole thing (too obvious) or solely the name Malachi (because of potential name clashes with the Old Testament Angel).

[Aleck]

While I could post embarassing information about all the 733t handles I've used over the last 20 years (starting with running a BBS, then moving onto the intarweb and online gaming), the bottom line is somewhat of a let down. Aleck is my real name, and asjunk (my former handle on this board) is a combination of my initials and the word JUNK that I use for my hotmail account which I use for (wait for it...) junk email. I switched over in a moment of clarity when I realized that there were actually some grown-ups here on Qt3.

Oddly enough, my hotmail account (which has been around since hotmail was cool and not owned by MSFT) still gets lots of junk mail. Who'd've seen that happening.

And Bill, while I abhor you for hiding behind a handle, I love that I didn't realize your handle was a handle for the first dozen or so times that I read it. (Yeah, I'm not the sharpest knife...)

[tork]

It could be worse. You could pick a wicked-sounding moniker from Greyhawk D&D only to find out, much later, that it's actually much more well known as a cutesy anime character of the wrong gender that likes to dress up in tiger-striped bikinis.

Someone around here named themselves after the Apparatus of Kwalish?

[triggercut]

Someone around here named themselves after the Apparatus of Kwalish?

Yeah well. I'm lookin at you and wodering if "Dolenz" or "Nesmith" were taken...;)

[tork]

Yeah well. I'm lookin at you and wodering if "Dolenz" or "Nesmith" were taken...;)
You got me. My real name is Bob Rafelson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Rafelson)



Or not. Actually, Tork was the name of of my character in Mizar, the LPMUD that nearly flunked me, and several of my friends, out of college in '91. Embarrassingly enough, his full name was Tork, God of Physics. He was a dwarf, and a knight, until they nerfed the Knight Guild's improved Wimpy. That still rankles.

I've tended to use either Tork or Nurf (a character name from a college D&D campaign) for handles and email addresses, in part just because they were short and easy to type. I always used 'tork' email addresses for listserv subscriptions, which morphed into using it as my handle on internet fora.

Oddly enough, the only place I consistently used my real name was Usenet. Go figure.

[triggercut]

Anyone who can drop a Bob Rafelson ref is aces in my book. So many people have no idea that The Monkees were his idea....

[Nathan]

My "game name" is IgnatzMouse, but that's out of a then-recently-found appreciation for Krazy Kat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krazy_kat), and not some furry thing.

[caesarbear]

So what gives? I'm genuinely intrigued.
Do you and Unicorn still IRC about this and giggle?

Anyway, I'm caesarbear everywhere I post. It was originally a creative personification and isn't a contrivance of thing+animal that became popular on the internet. I look like neither a bear nor a Roman, and it's kinda sorta stolen, so it is not personally applicable, but turns outs, habitable. It works well as an iMe, rare and often misspelled, so it's stuck. No relation to contrarybear or any other *bear.

In gaming I usually come up with different names depending on genre. Wolfblitzed was an online FPS name that started with DoD, where I wanted a name that worked on both Allied and Axis. Strangely it also has an animal name in it, but has nothing to do with the wolf and everything to do with the scandalous drunken CNN anchor.

Maybe I should reserve the alt of Koonstler Roman?

[Ed Solomon]

My decision to not use Sgt._Kabuki_Bear as my forum name is looking increasingly sound.

[shift6]

On the BBSs, my name was "infinite googleplex". That last about six months and I changed it to "voltaic" sometime in 1994, which is an adjective meaning "electric". Then when I was unbanned on QT3, I picked "shift6", which was the keystroke in the Renegade BBS software to delete a user. Which, now that I think about it, is somehow ironic.

[VegasRobb]

Signing up for EQ, I needed to enter a username. Figured, I'd use a couple of memory aids.

Prior to that I was Arch, ArchBishop, Bishop Don in various games.

After my friends convinced me to give up the keyboard and play Quake with a mouse I was "learningmlook" or something like that.

[Sparky]

It was originally a creative personification and isn't a contrivance of thing+animal that became popular on the internet. I look like neither a bear nor a Roman, and it's kinda sorta stolen, so it is not personally applicable, but turns outs, habitable.
Oh please..."caesarbear" is adorably snuggl-wugglicious, with just a hint of megalomania. It's meant to appeal to the LADIES, no? And besides, I found this on your Myspace:

http://www.phobe.com/crap/spqbear.jpg

[Justin Fletcher]

In 9th gradezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry. In 9th grade, we studied mythology and one of our assignments was to create a god. Being a huge trivia nerd, I created Enigmus, god of, yes, trivia. I used that as my user name on a few boards until I screwed up my account on the old CGM Forums. I then re-registered using my real name and have used it ever since.

However, Engimus survived as my Xbox Live name until fairly recently. I changed it for three reasons:

1) I was finally sick of it.

2) Nobody knew who the hell I was when on Live.

3) People had the unfortunate habit of shortening it to "Nig," which always made me slightly uncomfortable.

[Jojo]

In real life, my name is Jo. 2 characters is usually too short to use on messageboards and in games, so I use Jojo, which some friends call me anyway. Dull eh. Its frequently taken by the time I arrive anywhere, but somehow Qt3 hadn't had a Jojo yet. Its one benefit is that its gender-indeterminate, so I don't get harrassed by anyone.

[DennyA]

Yeah, shortening a name can be an issue... When I went for a new Xbox Live nick, I considered SYS65802 until Trixie pointed out that people would call me "Sis." So I went with "Editer," which is a statement of my job and my success in performing it.

The other nick I've used is "Mittius." I used "Mitty" in flight sims, but the other CGW guys pointed out it didn't fit well for Age of Empires. So I went with the more Roman-sounding Mittius.

As for using DennyA on discussion boards, I started online in the early BBS days (1979/80) in high school and nobody made up goofy nicknames for themselves back then...

[caesarbear]

Oh please..."caesarbear" is adorably snuggl-wugglicious, with just a hint of megalomania. It's meant to appeal to the LADIES, no?
Why of course.

http://www.phobe.com/crap/spqbear.jpg
Cute, did you make that for something or find it?

[Sparky]

I made it just for YOU, buddy!

"Savillum" is actually a kind of Roman cake...I suppose it should have been "crustum dulce" for cookie. Eh, it's been a long, long time since Latin class.

[caesarbear]

Nice and quick work. I'll treasure it always. :)

[mono]

Mono is spanish for monkey. Who doesn't like monkeys? I worked in a kitchen about 14 years ago, and would spend all my nights bantering with a buddy and all the cooks in spanish. Later when that friend and I both had jobs in IT, monkey was never not appropriate, and I ended up using it as my Doom 2/Quake/online gaming/Internet forum/ad nauseum handle.

My real name is Joshua Marshall, and I always get confused for the Talking Points blogger of the same name. Living in the same town as him doesn't help matters. I just had a voicemail on my machine asking me if I was interested in doing a piece for this weekend's Washington Post about Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton "Is this country more afraid of a woman or black president?" So if you see it in the paper in a few days, you heard it here first, but I didn't write it.

[Brendan]

I'm plain boring old Brendan simply because I lack imagination and simply can't be arsed to think of a clever nick. I refuse to call myself something like MegaDethKillMonkey666!!! since I'm pretty harmless and whenever I see some 55kg scrawny, pimplefaces nerd trying to sound and act hardcore at lans I generally burst out laughing.

If I had to choose a nick it would probably be LePetitBonCherie.

[wildpokerman]

I was sad the day I realized Bill Dungsroman wasn't a real name.

[Lazy Shiftless Bastard]

As I told Tom Chick when registering, my name is an accurate description of myself. It's also pretty uncommon.

Then Tom called me cagey.

[shang]

shang was my username on my university's unix cluster (comes from Sami Hangaslammi) and from there it spilled over to IRC and I eventually started using it everywhere.

The weird thing is that after some time, the IRC nick ended up being my real life nickname, and now almost everyone calls me "shang" (including some co-workers). I've even gotten snail mail addressed to "shang" once.

[Jasper]

Woa, that's wacky... I recognize you from the pygame mailing list! Now I wonder how many of the rest of you I'd recognize without the aliases...

[Kareem]

My nickname when I started fragging friends in Counterstrike LAN parties was Erotica, which I thought was actually pretty cool. There was no specific reason I picked it up, it just sprung to mind as a funny nickname to have when I started LAN gaming. Then I switched it for a while to Misery, which was also the nickname I used in my short online Warcraft III adventure, which I picked up from reading the Stephen King book with the same title.

I was into astronomy for a long time since I was about 7 or 8 years old until quite recently and I chose my forum nick from the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon. I debated picking Clavius instead but settled on Tranquility because I've been using it as my MSN nickname for ages.

[John Sansker]

The art department in my high school burned down one night. It smelled like love.
Here I thought it had somethin to do with that smokin hot gluteus maximus of yours. :P

[Brendan]

Here I thought it had somethin to do with that smokin hot gluteus maximus of yours. :P

I've got a smokin hot gluteus maximus if you don't mind fur. Why don't I get adoring fans like Fire does?

I object.

[John Sansker]

I've got a smokin hot gluteus maximus if you don't mind fur. Why don't I get adoring fans like Fire does?

I object.

I've seen no pictures to support your claim.

[foogla]

Jesus, that's one of the big reasons I never went to Caltrops. I can't say if it was Spanky, Toulouse, or who, but all that shite was a variety of people making it seem as though I was nick-switching. Other than a few posts for the sake of a funny/topical name, it was never me, as best as I can recall.


Funny story: spanky and Stepto hate Caltrops. They never post there.

My nick doesn't mean anything. If you see somebody with -oogla say hi from me to them.

What I hate are nicks that are not so clever disguised german words.

[AaronSofaer]

When I'm elsewhere on the internet I'm Embryo, which is a nick that originated in Savage.

When I started Savage I was kinda bad, so Mike (as in, MikeSofaer) suggested that I use Embryo as my nick. Cute, I thought, so I did, and it stuck for Savage and Guild Wars.

Prior to that, I was Elyezer BenYehudah in Dark Ages of Camelot for a while, and before that Nyrana/Caput for no real reason.

[Squirrel Killer]

I've seen no pictures to support your claim.
I'd like to vote that we keep it that way.

What I hate are nicks that are not so clever disguised german words.
I guess I better not mention my alt nick.

[Odysseus]

I went with Odysseus because "Tom Chick" was already taken.

[EvilIdler]

I didn't notice that people here used real names, or I'd gone with that.
I have many "real" names, but I collect them under one nick ;)
(Better protection against potential employers googling my wibble, anyway)

[Bill Dungsroman]

Funny story: spanky and Stepto hate Caltrops. They never post there.

My nick doesn't mean anything. If you see somebody with -oogla say hi from me to them.

What I hate are nicks that are not so clever disguised german words.
WELL I HATE GIBBERISH NICKS hai hai foogla ^__^

[Deadbuffalo]

Deadbuffalo is the interwebs name I've been using since 95. I've never had a name recognition/uniqueness problem when using it so I haven't given it up . As close as it was between Gandalf99699 and SuperMetsfan360, a recent trip to Yellowstone had a good impression on me and so I went with Deadbuffalo. I'm not sure why the ___ had to be dead, probably because I had read several accounts of buffalo goring tourists during the same trip.

As for why its become such a trend I don't know, but it makes me a trend setter, Yeehaw! Oh, and I can say yeehaw more because I'm cowboy-esque.

[Rimbo]

... and Slainte Mhath is the name of a song by the progressive rock band Marillion who were popular in the UK and US in the late '80's.

This is the story so far.

And you listen with a tear in you eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is Slainte Mhath



I've been using "Rimbo" as an online nick since my first year in college ('91), and it was a nick my friends used for me before that.

It's a long story.

[nijimeijer]

nijimeijer was the name of a fake reviewer from the book The Collected Blurtings of Baxter. I thought it looked amusing, and it became my online handle back in maybe '97 or '98. I've been using it ever since. That's pretty much it.

[RichVR]

Bill, if that is your... aw nevermind. You have a fine thread here. Way to go man.

I have used the name Discord since Q-Link on my Commodore 64 with a 300 baud plug-in modem. It was a great choice back then, I had just read the Illuminatus! Trilogy and was deep into chaos crap. The name stuck though and so I used it a lot. Then I started to find the name taken on various online games and forums so I changed to Splunge from Monty Python.

The thing is, with online games, if you pick some kind of long name you are making it harder for people to speak to you. Discord can be shortened to Disc. Splunge won't be shortened cause Splu sounds wrong.

Anyway, my name is Richard, V and R are my middle and last initials. OTOH, when I use this name on a few forums some people ask if VR stands for virtual reality. Yeah, sure... I'm a hologram.

So Bill, what was your real name again?

[Bill Dungsroman]

So Bill, what was your real name again?
Fensmarck Terwilliger Chatsworthington III, but you can call me Fensy.

[RichVR]

Why thanks, Fensy. That's just swell of you!

[Cold Blooded]

As advertised.

[walTer]

Walter...now walTer...was the weird guy that worked in the Shell Station by our house. He had a total crush on my mother...and you have no idea how sick and disgusting that is.

Anyway, it is now walTer on just about everything...and it is very difficult to get people to call me something other than Walter when we meet irl or do something strange....like talk on the phone.

If we do speak or meet- it is Mike, and not Walter.

[RichVR]

Now I'm interested in a different issue. How does one change their nick here in QT3 land? I'm thinking of a certain Tim guy. Do you ask nicely? And why does it happen? Because you leave and come back? Not that I want to, but how does that happen? Or is this a non-issue as in shut up or be "touched"?

[shift6]

PM Tom and ask. He doesn't whack people for asking questions.

[Not One Of Us]

'comes from the Peter Gabriel song of the same name.

[JMR]

After the collapse of the only gaming forum on the planet for children with severe cleft pallet, Gone Gold, I came here seeking a forum free of Derek Smart PhD and his followers/sock puppets.

Reading Tom's intro to QT3 along with a brief perusal of the forums left me with the impression that this place was a bit on the stuffy side with Mensa elites word wrestling in multi page debates that only unemployed, master's educated (English/Art History/Obese Militant Lesbianism) would give two shits about. So in playing it safe I chose something inoffensive and innocuous like 3 letters from the alphabet so as to not arouse the ire of the Old English scholars of QT3.

Two years later I realize that was a grave mistake. In retrospect I should've went with the name I wanted in the first place, and that was Mindy Cohn's Regurgitated Bolus.

[Guido Jones]

Now I'm interested in a different issue. How does one change their nick here in QT3 land? I'm thinking of a certain Tim guy. Do you ask nicely? And why does it happen? Because you leave and come back? Not that I want to, but how does that happen? Or is this a non-issue as in shut up or be "touched"?

Tim just keeps signing up for new names, he's not changing his previous account usernames.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I have only been Bill Dungsroman on KYOO TEE THUREE because isn't one of me more than enough already?

Back on OMM I was Homosayswhat? because I used to be angrier than Met_K with a side order of Theodore Rex fries and I used to sign all my posts with "What?" which is so painfully unfunny it hurts to admit it.

When caltrops formed I ditched the moniker (and many say I ditched all of my awesome edginess that somehow is elusive when I looked at the old posts on wayback) and became Bill Dungsroman, which I love dearly because aren't we all on our own special little journey of growth? I think so. Plus, it's awesome when internet dudes don't get the stupid pun and attempt to clown on my "last name." Plus, folkses can address me as Bill, which is easily and polite. They called me BDR on caltrops, I guess because I went by HSW on OMM and 3 letters sounds better, or something. I was also Editor in Chief HAHAHAHAHAsorry ahem on caltrops and as a joke I used to post as the EiC under the nick Dick Clownshoes, itself an invention of another crazy old OMM alum.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I approve of stupid puns.

[Greedo]

When I registered for QT3, I realized I didn't really have a nickname in mind.

So the 1st thing I laid eyes on was the Greedo action figure on my desk . . . and there you have it.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

If we do speak or meet- it is Mike, and not Walter.

But EVERYONE'S named Mike here. Thirty percent at least.

[quatoria]

I've been using this name for over a decade. It's meaningless. My only attachments to it are sentimentality and continuity. If I had it to do over again, I'd have picked something much better.

edit: I've also gone as, chronologically starting at age 11 or thereabouts, so these will run from most embarassing to least, Dracoliche, Demento, Brother Grimm, Michael695, Aryl Decart, Ainslaye Aramis, Jimmy the Hand, Quatoria, and, finally, mike.

[Fugitive]

Tim just keeps signing up for new names, he's not changing his previous account usernames.
Some people do get their names changed though, which leads to things like seeing "Originally Posted By Soandso..." quotes, but the original post now has NotSoandso,Honest as an author.

[quatoria]

We weren't aware of how the intarwebs would blow up, or that we'd be "stuck" with the uniquename as our e-mail address forever.

FUCKING EXACTLY. The mistakes you made at the dawn of the internet stay with you forever and ever and ever. Thus, quatoria. Forever. I feel your pain, dan.

[Nick Walter]

Walter...now walTer...was the weird guy that worked in the Shell Station by our house. He had a total crush on my mother...and you have no idea how sick and disgusting that is.



Crap, that was your mom?

Your mom is hot.

[unbongwah]

I was sad the day I realized Bill Dungsroman wasn't a real name.
Me too. :-(

[Jason McMaster]

I was slightly depressed when I sold his real name to the feds, but I got over it when they gave me a nutty bar.

[Guido Jones]

Some people do get their names changed though, which leads to things like seeing "Originally Posted By Soandso..." quotes, but the original post now has NotSoandso,Honest as an author.

I didn't say that wasn't true, just pointing out how Tim was doing it.

[IkeVandergraaf]

Ike Vandergraaf is my stripper name.

[walTer]

Crap, that was your mom?

Your mom is hot.


Sorry but that comment makes you a SICK individual....!

[Kunikos]

At least he isn't chasing your grandma anymore!

[Nick Walter]

At least he isn't chasing your grandma anymore!

It's not really sporting unless I have a walker too.

[Kunikos]

Well, it's kinda hard to chase his grandma these days if you don't have a shovel and a crowbar.

[madkevin]

"I'm sorry I broke your hip."

"It was worth it."

[Nick Walter]

Well, it's kinda hard to chase his grandma these days if you don't have a shovel and a crowbar.

That's even less sporting.

[Kunikos]

"I'm sorry I broke your hip."

"It was worth it."

You've been watching Blue Iris again, haven't you.

[Shadari]

Shadari was the name of my Diablo II amazon. I guess it's loosely derivative of my wife's old thief character in Ultima Online named 'Shandrel.'

[playingwithknives]

playingwithknives is the name of a old school hardcore record by Bizarre Inc. It's also a phrase that just kind of... works.

I have many more nicks I use, this isn't my main monicker. I won't list them as they could all lead to my real life name, and I troll too often in political forums to want to do that. (with regards to employer checks etc)

[Flowers]

I usually pick the name, "Lord Fauntleroy." For reasons similar to those stated by SqueakyFoo. There is nothing like kicking the shit out of people on Xbox Live in the identity of an effete British orphaned noble transplant. I also use the name Flowers because it was on Scrubs, and I think it's funny to be so terribly vulgar and crass with such a pleasant name.

Prior to these names, I used the name of a minor Liberian Warlord from the mid-1990's. We called ourselves "Butt Naked."

[barstein]

Was that the same General Butt Naked and his army of naked psychic child warriors? Their enemies were supposedly terrified of their magic.

[Robert Sharp]

Sorry but that comment makes you a SICK individual....!

Really? As sick as naming yourself after a guy who has the hots for your mom?

[Flowers]

Was that the same General Butt Naked and his army of naked psychic child warriors? Their enemies were supposedly terrified of their magic.

The Butt Naked brigade was comprised of drug addled children in drag. Yes, their magic was feared and enemies would sometimes kill themselves when faced with the savagery of the Brigade.

[Morkilus]

Mine's from an old D&D campaign I've used now and then since 1988 or so. No regrets, though I still get the random "Mork and Mindy" jokes on IRC. Damn you, Nickelodeon.

I was very excited when I found out the name translates to "Dark Wanderer" in Tolkien Elvish or whatever.

[curst]

I actually did not get my nick from Planescape:Torment. It was a real surprise to find that city in there. Rather it's just a stupid combo of parts of my first and last names because I'm lazy. I should probably think of something different at some point, but I'm too lazy to do so.

I did have to use something different for Starcraft. Wish I could remember what it was because it was likely better. All I remember is that I briefly thought about then thankfully decided not to use Good Will Cunting or Stool Moe Dee.

[Pogue Mahone]

I did have to use something different for Starcraft. Wish I could remember what it was because it was likely better. All I remember is that I briefly thought about then thankfully decided not to use Good Will Cunting or Stool Moe Dee.

Which reminds me of the boundless joy I felt when, upon firing up my copy of Diablo for the first time, that I could finally apply the name for a black wizard I had been saving: Rasta Far-eye.

[spiffy]

Mine's from really enjoying the Spaceman Spiff character in Calvin and Hobbes, but not wanting to be one of those people who went about defining themselves with pop culture, I went for a variant defined by 'smart in appearance' . Most people think I'm a girl.

[Rimbo]

My original Trade Wars 2002 handle was "Captain Dude" of the good ship "Drizzt Do'urden."

OT: Can you imagine how Drizzt's parents must feel about him? I imagine it's not too dissimilar from the way my transsexual friend's evangelical minister father and deeply religious mother feel.

[Rimbo]

I was thinking of changing my nickname to "Patch Adams," because I admire him and think he's done more for medicine than even Michael DeBakey.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

OT: Can you imagine how Drizzt's parents must feel about him? I imagine it's not too dissimilar from the way my transsexual friend's evangelical minister father and deeply religious mother feel.

His parents are DEEEEAD!

[Bad Neighbor]

When I was in college, the dorm adopted a stray cat. I was holding a balloon sword in one hand (it was mardi gras) and the cat in the other. Someone walked by and yelled, "All hail, the Cat Master!" It stuck.

When playing games, I use the name Bad Neighbor after the trebuchet.

[BrewersDroop]

I can't get it up after a bottle of wine.

[Steve Canyon]

I can't get it up after a bottle of wine.

LOL. I still like that picture of the trash can extarbags posted with the word "extar bags" scribbled across it, but this is close second.

[Steve Canyon]

Now I'm interested in a different issue. How does one change their nick here in QT3 land? I'm thinking of a certain Tim guy. Do you ask nicely? And why does it happen? Because you leave and come back? Not that I want to, but how does that happen? Or is this a non-issue as in shut up or be "touched"?

I signed up for most of my nicks when they were easier to get. I did have to have one vetted by Tom. He wouldn't let me in until I added a real email address to the account!

[Steve Canyon]

I like that Steve Canyon feels like a real name. I also like that not many people are familiar with the strip (by that I mean, I never read it). From what I know, the comic character was an old Korean era fighter pilot who looked like a bit of a tight ass. I don't think of myself as a tight ass, but I am an old man and was passionate about flight sims for a long time. Now I am just an even older man who likes to kick trick or treaters off the lawn.

[mystery]

I used to remember what my alias meant, but now it's just a ...

[Cosmic Hippo]

I made this nick purely for Qt3 since I was tired of the one I'd been using as it was stupid and esoteric and I'd thought it up drinking after taking a Quantum Exam (it was Bremsstrahlung). My current nick is a pure ripoff from an early Bela Fleck and the Flecktones album:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7f/FlecktonesFOTCH.jpg

[FIDGAF]

That would explain a lot of things...
;)

[Saxman_72]

I picked this incredibly awesome and most certainly rare nickname because I am a man who plays the saxophone.

No, really.

As for the number part of it, well, let's just say that I've made use of such an incredibly complicated system of genius that I'm sure that none of you could even comprehend how to figure out what it means. So don't even try.

[Nathan Phoenix]

My nick isn't too exciting. When I first signed on to a local BBS, I was stumped for what to use as a handle. I had recently played Rock N Roll Racing on the SNES and picked Locust, after Locust Jump Jets, a piece of gear you could get on your cars in that game. I never ran into issues with that name being unavalable for a long time... then in everquest, Locust couldn't be used because it was a mob name... so I did Lokust instead, and that's what it's been since.

[Jazar]

My name is Javier Azaret.

Now you figure it out.

[madkevin]

Cosmic, I love that album - funny that I never picked up on that reference. I saw The Flecktones live a couple of times in the late 80s / early 90s, and they were one of the best live acts I've ever seen.

[Robert Sharp]

Cosmic, I love that album - funny that I never picked up on that reference. I saw The Flecktones live a couple of times in the late 80s / early 90s, and they were one of the best live acts I've ever seen.

They had a bass player...what was his name...Victor Wooten, I think. That guy was incredible...is, I guess.

[Cosmic Hippo]

When I first got into them a couple of years ago I made a point to try out their early music first, because I'd heard that they've actually changed it up quite a bit over the years.

No question that they're absolutely fantastic live - if you want to relive it, head on over to The Live Music Archive (http://www.archive.org/details/etree) where there are a metric ton of live performances for (legal) download dating back to the early 90's. You can also peruse their new material, which is also great.

Robert, you've got the bassist name right. He's still renowned in jazz circles as a premier master bassist. And Bela Fleck can somehow prompt people to say "that's one rockin' banjo!"

[LesJarvis]

Victor Wooten is god.

[Old Man Gravy]

My name is Javier Azaret.

Now you figure it out.

WHAT THE...?
How'm I supposed to figure that out???

I'm an American dammit. Everything about you French frightens and confuses me.