Author Topic: What does your name mean?  (Read 36758 times)

WhiteShadow

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 10
on: January 18, 2010, 12:45:15 AM
I've seen more than a couple rather interesting usernames on here.

For the sake of entertainment, explain where yours came from :)

"I'll live through this in a manner cursed at my own accord"
Coheed&Cambria


Swamp

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2230
    • Journey Into... podcast
Reply #1 on: January 18, 2010, 01:19:31 AM
Swamp comes from a joke nickname my uncle used to call me.  My real name is Marshal, and many friends/fam call me simply Marsh.  Marsh/Swamp.  Not really too creative, but my uncle really hams things up and makes anything fun. Of course that's from when I was a kid.  Later on I also included the avatar of the Man-Thing from Marvel comics and it stuck with me.

And, you should also share, WhiteShadow.

Facehuggers don't have heads!

Come with me and Journey Into... another fun podcast


WhiteShadow

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 10
Reply #2 on: January 18, 2010, 01:41:13 AM
Haha sorry, I suppose I should, seeing as I started the thread.

I'm very pale because no matter how hard I try I don't tan. I also study the Korean martial art Hapkido. One day I was swimming with a friend and when I got out of the pool he called me White Shadow and the name stuck. Thats about it  :)

"I'll live through this in a manner cursed at my own accord"
Coheed&Cambria


stePH

  • Actually has enough cowbell.
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 3906
  • Cool story, bro!
    • Thetatr0n on SoundCloud
Reply #3 on: January 18, 2010, 03:19:23 AM
My full given name is Stephen.

"I'm American, honey; our names don't mean shit." ;D

Though I've a bit of Native American ancestry (Cherokee), and if I had an Indian name I'd want to be "Stays Crispy in Milk".  Hey, it's better than "Two Dogs Fucking".  :P
« Last Edit: January 18, 2010, 03:23:21 AM by stePH »

"Nerdcore is like playing Halo while getting a blow-job from Hello Kitty."
-- some guy interviewed in Nerdcore Rising


Bdoomed

  • Pseudopod Tiger
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 5891
  • Mmm. Tiger.
Reply #4 on: January 18, 2010, 09:34:32 AM
Bdoomed comes from me wanting a better screenname than minimoose900... Which was an invader zim homage.  I still kinda kept the zim theme with the doom aspect... Anyways my name is Brian so bdoomed was kinda spawned out of about 5 minutes of brainstorming.  It's pronounced be doomed, so it kinda has a slight double meaning being both my initial and the verb sense of the word.  Also the name is always available everywhere so that's nice

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zorag

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 160
  • Well, kiss my...
    • Beef Beer And Poker
Reply #5 on: January 18, 2010, 01:55:26 PM
Mine is a throwback to D&D character naming.  It started out as Zobmie Emperor Zorag, Doombringer to the Sheeple.

I had used Zog before due to a caveman costume, but 3 letters is too short for most applications.  The misspelled Zobmie is an homage to Kingdom of Loathing. 

It's rarely, if ever taken, and I scooped up zorag.com and .net.

Come say hi over at the Beef Beer And Poker forum.


Talia

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 2682
  • Muahahahaha
Reply #6 on: January 18, 2010, 02:32:01 PM
Mine is a character I strongly identified with from a series of novels by Mercedes Lackey.



eytanz

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 6109
Reply #7 on: January 18, 2010, 03:02:45 PM
Mine is my real first name (Eytan) and last initial (Z).

Around when I turned 25 or so I decided I was too old for pseudonyms. I have since decided that that was a foolish decision, but I'm used to using my real name on forums by now.



lowky

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2717
  • from http://lovecraftismissing.com/?page_id=3142
Reply #8 on: January 18, 2010, 03:32:05 PM
Well I used to play everquest and my character was a Barbarian Rogue.  Since the Barbarians were Northmen, I figured I would combine The Norse god Loki--a trickster and thief, with the phrase Low Key something a rogue needs to be if he doesn't want to get caught stealing.  I tried for Lowkey but it said it wasn't available, so I dropped the E and became Lowky.  The name has just stuck with me.  I like the idea of Loki being a bringer of needed change, I usually handle chaos quite well so...


Zorag

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 160
  • Well, kiss my...
    • Beef Beer And Poker
Reply #9 on: January 18, 2010, 04:23:25 PM
Mine is my real first name (Eytan) and last initial (Z).

Around when I turned 25 or so I decided I was too old for pseudonyms. I have since decided that that was a foolish decision, but I'm used to using my real name on forums by now.

I don't know if it's sad or not, but some of my friends know me more as Zorag, or more commonly, "Z", than Jason.

Come say hi over at the Beef Beer And Poker forum.


Scattercat

  • Caution:
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 4904
  • Amateur wordsmith
    • Mirrorshards
Reply #10 on: January 18, 2010, 09:59:31 PM
Mine is actually from a Tad Williams novel.  In "The Dragonbone Chair," the daydreaming boy protagonist, Simon, spots a small gray cat on a roof where he is wont to go and escape from his chores.  The cat startles, and Simon begins shouting, "Scat, you cat!  Scatter, you catter!"

Later in the story, the same cat reappears in an oddly touching moment (and this is like eight hundred pages later, for reference) and is referred to as "the little gray scattercat."

I like playing with word sounds, I'm very much a cat person (in the sense that I enjoy keeping cats and in the sense that I'm lazy, curious, easily annoyed by changes in my surroundings, and prone to sleeping all day and waking up at night), and I loved that the cat ended up coming back into the story so long after its completely pointless and irrelevant introduction, so I started using it as my default username most places.  (My second choice is "The Feared Avocado," which really is just apropos of nothing.  I used to doodle up quotes from "The Book of the Avocado" which promised horrendous fates for those who did not adequately fear the tree-based object of awe and reverence.)



gelee

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 521
  • It's a missile, boy.
Reply #11 on: January 18, 2010, 10:21:59 PM
Mine is actually from a Tad Williams novel.  In "The Dragonbone Chair," the daydreaming boy protagonist, Simon, spots a small gray cat on a roof where he is wont to go and escape from his chores.  The cat startles, and Simon begins shouting, "Scat, you cat!  Scatter, you catter!"

Later in the story, the same cat reappears in an oddly touching moment (and this is like eight hundred pages later, for reference) and is referred to as "the little gray scattercat."

  Wow.  I actually remember that part.
I'm in the boat with Eytanz.  First and middle initial, plus last name.  G. E. Lee.



CryptoMe

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1146
Reply #12 on: January 18, 2010, 10:31:11 PM
I study cryptomare (hidden lava flows) on the Moon - yes really. My name is a play on words between that and the fact that a pseudonym hides who you are, so Crypto Me.



schmetterling

  • Guest
Reply #13 on: January 19, 2010, 07:54:58 AM
I wasn't sure what to use so I looked around my desk and saw a framed picture of a butterfly (formerly the front of a greeting card) and looked up different translations of the word butterfly.  French is papillon, Spanish is mariposa, but both of those are fairly common/well known, and everything else was in proprietary characters (Russian, Greek, Chinese, etc.) or too weird for me (farfalla, borboletta...), but German is Schmetterling.  I liked the sound of it, and I've always liked the group Iron Butterfly, so it stuck.



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #14 on: July 23, 2010, 07:57:41 PM
I originally signed up with the name "steffenwolf" which is what I've used pretty much everywhere else. 
I'm rather fond of that name because:
1.  it is very similar to Steppenwolf, a book I like by Herman Hesse.
2.  it is very similar to Steppenwolf, which is a band I enjoy.
3.  It includes my last name "Steffen" within it.
4.  It includes the word "wolf" in it.  I like wolves a lot, and in particular like the wolfbrother characters in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

I only signed up after making my first story sale ever, to Pseudopod.  Then I decided that maybe I should have a bit more separation between my real name and forum name.  I'd already begun commenting on story threads at that point, and started wondering if it was seen as bad form for one EA author to bitch about another EA author's story.  I don't remember where "Unblinking" came from, exactly.  I just wanted a vaguely horror-like name, and one I haven't seen used before, but one that was readable and understandable without obscure vocab.  "Unblinking" seemed to fit the bill, as it could work as the unblinking stare of a deer in the headlights, or of the ever-watchful Big Brother.

I long ago stopped bothering trying to maintain the separation, as you can see.  But I still use the name, because I like it, and it's what most of y'all are familiar with.  And, since there's lots of overlap in membership between here and the Drabblecast forums, I signed up over there with the same name.



Wilson Fowlie

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1475
    • The Maple Leaf Singers
Reply #15 on: July 23, 2010, 09:58:10 PM
I signed up around the time that I started doing narrations for Podcastle.

I wanted, if I happened to be commenting on a story I'd recorded, an easy way to give Full Disclosure that I was closer to that episode than most*, so I went with my real name.

Also (it occurs to me now), it allows for authors who want to ask me to do a recording for them to find me easily.  Not that that's happened yet...  :)





*Most people and most episodes.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


Listener

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 3187
  • I place things in locations which later elude me.
    • Various and Sundry Items of Interest
Reply #16 on: August 04, 2010, 02:52:29 PM
Main character of my first novel. (It sucked. I'm not letting you read it. I need to completely rewrite it, which I will do someday.)

"Farts are a hug you can smell." -Wil Wheaton

Blog || Quote Blog ||  Written and Audio Work || Twitter: @listener42


Heradel

  • Bill Peters, EP Assistant
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2938
  • Part-Time Psychopomp.
Reply #17 on: August 04, 2010, 06:40:34 PM
I signed up around the time that I started doing narrations for Podcastle.

I wanted, if I happened to be commenting on a story I'd recorded, an easy way to give Full Disclosure that I was closer to that episode than most*, so I went with my real name.

I'm kind of having the same process in reverse. I started out as Heradel (Heretic + Infidel (do not ask where 'a' came from, because it is a long story involving a rabbit, two golf balls, and a sudden coronal ejection)), but with my involvement in EP I've added my real-world-name under the handle and have even been considering flipping the two. Only reason I haven't is remembering the Palimpsest confusion when Rachel changed hers way back when and a overly sentimental attachment to Heradel as a handle.

I Twitter. I also occasionally blog on the Escape Pod blog, which if you're here you shouldn't have much trouble finding.


DKT

  • Friendly Neighborhood
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 4980
  • PodCastle is my Co-Pilot
    • Psalms & Hymns & Spiritual Noir
Reply #18 on: August 04, 2010, 06:55:44 PM
I signed up around the time that I started doing narrations for Podcastle.

I wanted, if I happened to be commenting on a story I'd recorded, an easy way to give Full Disclosure that I was closer to that episode than most*, so I went with my real name.

I'm kind of having the same process in reverse. I started out as Heradel (Heretic + Infidel (do not ask where 'a' came from, because it is a long story involving a rabbit, two golf balls, and a sudden coronal ejection)), but with my involvement in EP I've added my real-world-name under the handle and have even been considering flipping the two. Only reason I haven't is remembering the Palimpsest confusion when Rachel changed hers way back when and a overly sentimental attachment to Heradel as a handle.

I thought about going from DKT to Dave Thompson when I started working at PC.

I decided not to do it, though, because I like the feel of "DKT" and also, figured people could figure it out and call me "Dave" if they want.

(I would miss Heradel, personally. But just to say - I hear what you're saying and it's worth thinking about.)


Wilson Fowlie

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1475
    • The Maple Leaf Singers
Reply #19 on: August 04, 2010, 07:08:17 PM
I like Heradel's solution of putting his name under his handle.  Best of both worlds.

As I recall, Dave, when you starting introducing stories, I believe Rachel(?) made a point of stating that you were "DKT" on the forums.  And I think it's been mentioned at least once since then, probably more than that.

I like people keeping their handles.  I know Scattercat is really Nathaniel Lee and that Unblinking is David Steffen, but we know them by their handles, and are comfortable with that.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


Bdoomed

  • Pseudopod Tiger
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 5891
  • Mmm. Tiger.
Reply #20 on: August 04, 2010, 07:46:28 PM
Yeah, I like my handle, and definitely make no effort to hide my name.  I think a few people know it, but it doesn't matter to me.  I am Bdoomed on the internet, and I can just as easily be Bdoomed in real life too, I would respond to it (of course I would then introduce myself as Brian).  I know my name was said on PodCastle when I read Tio Gilberto, and on Air Out My Shorts a few times... anyways I'm quite fond of my handle, I've had it for about 6 years now. *goes and checks... yep made the gmail account in 04*

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zorag

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 160
  • Well, kiss my...
    • Beef Beer And Poker
Reply #21 on: August 04, 2010, 08:37:49 PM
I, due to my internet poker affiliations, am probably called Zorag, Zo or Z nearly as much as Jason.  Other than family or business dealings, my last name is used more than my first, but my time in the Army is partially to blame there.  It seems to me that long time user names become as much a part of a person as a qirth name.

Come say hi over at the Beef Beer And Poker forum.


Boggled Coriander

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 545
    • Balancing Frogs
Reply #22 on: August 05, 2010, 05:24:42 AM
Hooray!  A question I can't answer!

I became Boggled Coriander through a rather impulsive decision.  Other than BC being my actual initials, I'm not sure I can fully explain it.  I can't say I'm feeling much buyer's remorse though.  I like the feel of it and it's easily shortened to Coriander if you feel it's too big and unwieldy.

(Well, my pick would be Coriander, but it seems most prefer to shorten it to Boggled instead.  *shrug*  Works for me.)

"The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater." -  The Lyttle Lytton contest


Faraway Ray

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 340
  • "I loved it!" "So? You also loved World War II!"
Reply #23 on: August 12, 2010, 01:52:22 AM
Just part of a weird tendency to go for names that suggest travel, or names having to do with feet.


A story of lust, violence and jelly.

Well, Here I Am. My little slice of the blaggin' world.


FireTurtle

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 898
Reply #24 on: August 12, 2010, 03:12:37 AM
A very silly moniker that was given to me by a friend and fellow nerd. ( loosely based on a pin I was wearing). I wore a name tag all day that said "Hello, my name is....Fireturtle" it was silly and very "subversive" (ha! My adult self laughs). Anyway, it sort of stuck with me as a sort of weird personality descriptor. No reference to Gamera was actually ever intended.

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”
Ursula K. LeGuin