How did you pick your Username?

[Minch Ruwin]

I thought it would be fun to see how folks came about picking a username for the forum. There are a bunch of interesting names out there that makes one curious.

To get the ball rolling, mine is my "Star Wars" name. The first name is three letters of your last name, first two letters of your first. The surname is the combination of the first two letters of your mom's maiden name, and the first three of the city you were born in.

Fortunately for me.. mine turned out pretty cool. So I use it all over the place.

Later! Minch.

[torstan]

I always think those games are a little dangerous. Your mother's maiden name, the city you were born in, and your first pet are all names that come up a lot in bank security checks and common passwords. I believe the 'what's your striper name' originated as a scam to get hold of these words (in that case your first pet's name followed by your mother's maiden name).

Anyway, bank scams aside - my forum name came from a character in a game I DMed who was a pirate of the skies. I wanted something that sounded suitably viking.

[Minch Ruwin]

I agree! There were lots of folks foolish enough to put the names into the form on the webpage and let the tool figure it out for them.

I however did it the old fashioned way, and used my noggin. <carry the 1, take away three>

Later! Minch.

[plothos]

Ages ago, I set up a scenario for a friend of mine in a civil war strategy game. In the game, units would be under the command of various generals, who you could create. I got it into my head to give ridiculous fantasy-trope names to these bearded button-up union generals.

So I had guys like "Duke Borgrath" and "The Bloodmage of Iblia". And, of course, "Plothos the Cold".

Plothos or Lord Plothos has been a favorite nom de net ever since.

[Tuzon]

I have been a fan of Robert E. Howard's Kull of Atlantis Character since I could read. There is a recurring villain in his Kull, Conan, and Red Sonja books named Tuzun Thune. When I was introduced to D&D my very first character was a halfling thief villain inspired by the young Bilbo Baggins so I put a little shire in it and came up with the gaming handle that I still use 30 years later.

[dorpond]

I purposely pieced together random letters so that I could pick my usernames and e-mails without ever having to worry about someone else taking it or adding numbers to the end of it.

Dorpond? what in the heck does Dorpond mean? Nobody knows, including me, but I know I can use it for anything.

[neofax]

I picked mine after playing Faxanadu on the SNES or NES (IIRC). It is also a play on meanings. Neo = New and Fax = Copy. As I thought (not so much more now) there really is nothing new, just old respun in different ways.

[TheDuck]

I use TheDuck (no spaces) on every site I can.

The name started in the early 90's when I was at Uni. I was in a residential B&B for students in my first term - couldn't get anywhere else.

While I was watching an episode of X Files I was totally engrossed and had to concentrate due to not being able to hear very well - I had a really heavy cold at the time. Anyhow, the landlady was saying stuff to me for about 5 minutes but I never heard a word.

I went to Uni in Derby and a "term of endearment" there is "duck" and the landlady after finally getting frustrated I was not responding poked me in the ribs and said - very loudly - "Are you a little deaf, duck?"

It kinda stuck and you may see me about as TheDeafDuck ... I've shortened that to TheDuck but I didn't really think about it like Dorpond and wish I had. There are some sites I sign up for and TheDuck is already taken.

O well ... it wasn't taken here

[brad]

Hmmm... I guess I just picked mine at random.

Actually I just put in my name for fun, assuming it was taken. Normal names always are. But, it wasn't this time.

[thecyberwolfe]

Mid summer of 1991, using a Commodore 128 and a 1200baud modem, I dialed into an SCA BBS for the first time as Cyberwolfe. The name originates due to hanging out with a bunch of other wolves - Wolfen, NightWolf, ShadowWolf... there may have been another. Being the only real Techie in the troop, it seemed appropriate.

Some 9 years later, I was forced to add the "The" to the name due to copyca..err, copywolves. As far as I am concerned, if you see the name anywhere and it ain't me, it's an impostor

[DrVesuvius]

Vesuvius was an NPC nemesis name provided as part of a character background by a player in my early M&M campaign. I added the Dr, since I wanted more of a mastermind type of villain. Ironically that player had to drop out soon after Dr Vesuvius's first appearance in the game, however the good...erm I mean bad Doctor went on to be a major recurring villain until he was finally killed and his body hurled into an active volcano, never to be seen again.*

When Green Ronin moved their M&M forum to the current Atomic Think-Tank and we all had to re-register, I picked the nearest supers name I could remember, and have used it online ever since.


(*ha, yeah right. A villain with magma based powers thrown into a volcano, in a Superhero game? Like he's not gonna come back with a +5 PL boost one of these days.)

[Notsonoble]

I actually should use a different one, since mine is very much a play on my name...

I don't remember who first used it to describe me or why... but I do remember it being someone else's idea...

Oddly enough it gets broken down by others a lot... in several online games I played way back people broke it down to Notso, and Noble... and it was interesting to see that opposing teams like to use Notso, and teammates seem to use Noble...

[Natha]

My first name is Nathanael (Nathaniel) and as long as I can remember, my friends called me "Natha". Quite a boring story ...

[Jshock]

Jshock is a contraction of my full name - in hindsight probably not the best idea, but I'm in waaay to deep to change it now. If you see Jshock or Jshock_75 anywhere, that's me.

[CoveredInFish]

Mine is from a side character in a Neil Gaiman book. One of the new four riders of the apocalypse iirc. Just found it amazingly funny ...