wackhead_uk
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 352
Registered: 06-21-2004
IP: Logged

I doubt anyone would know where my username came from. Basically, you know when you need to sign up for email adresses and you can never have the name you want? well, I wanted wackhead for hotmail a few years ago, and it was taken, so I took the moniker wackhead_uk instead, and it has stuck. But my real name is Michael. So you know.

Where did yours come from?

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

When I was a student at the University of Waterloo, I was an avid pen&paper roleplayer (I would still be, if I had the time). I was in a White Wolf game playing a mage named Leonardo DiMono, and apparently I played him quite well. I had also never told anyone my last name, for no real good reason, and people started thinking my name was Chris DiMono. It just kind of stuck from then on, and I've been using it ever since.

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

krammer
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 904
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

Well, you spell my name backwards and you get Kram, but that sounds stupid, so I made it a bit longer.

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+++ Divide by Cucumber Error +++ Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot +++

"Oook!"

Doom
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3339
Registered: 07-05-2004
IP: Logged

Don't ask

ID software has propably something to do with it. I used to play Doom a lot and I've used name "Lostsoul" in a couple places. For no obvious reason, I've started to use "Stormwing" in a few other places recently. I really can't make up my mind...

If I registered somewhere right now, I'd propably use some kind of variations of my real name.

Watcher
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 902
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

My name doesn't mean anything. I just needed some nickname when I first registered on another forum years ago. I have no idea where it came from.

Later, I've started using the nickname Tau which is the one I use mostly now. It originally came about as a shortening of zero-tau, a term I took from the Night's Dawn trilogy which I was reading at the time. I shortened because my name kept being abbreviated, and I'd rather be called Tau than Zero. In addition, Tau is also a Greek letter, the name of the third class of elementary particles (the first two being electron and my), and an abbreviation of Taurus, my astrological sign.

Also, I have used the name BeethroBudkin on one occasion, for the Folding@Home project.

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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
IP: Logged

I used to have many different, complex and stupid names. Well, I was playing some other games (Pokemon and Super Monkey Ball).
I found that most of those games only let you use 3 letters as names, so I just changed to something short.

Tim sure sounded international enough

It also helped that most smart people I knew then(!), had that name as well.

Don't worry, I don't use this name on other forums. Probably because I don't post on other forums (yet)...

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The best way to lose customers is to let little kids running loose on a forum with too many mod points.

gamer_extreme_101
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1939
Registered: 03-07-2004
IP: Logged

A year ago I used to use my name for every forum/email that I signed up for. Nowadays, I just stick with either my name or with Kanadian89 (Culture, Year of Birth). Nowadays, I actually despise all of the underscores that are in my name, which is why my email is underscore-less. If I knew then what I know now...

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--That guy with a million different aliases since he doesn't like this name anymore.

RoboBob3000
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1982
Registered: 10-23-2003
IP: Logged

My real name is Ryan. When I was in 7th grade, I changed school districts, and didn't know anybody for a long time afterward. One day, somebody on the school bus wanted my attention, and he yelled up to me, "Hey, Bob!" I responded, and for the remainder of my middle and high school years, I had earned the moniker Bob.

RoboBob came around in 10th grade, when my World History professor encouraged that we e-mail assignments to him. I was forced to come up with a quick name to sign up for an e-mail account of my own. I've never seen Robocop, but for some reason, I thought it sounded good with Bob on the end. And I also like to claim that 3000 is the latest model number.

Hense, RoboBob3000.

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http://beepsandbloops.wordpress.com/

Fafnir
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 315
Registered: 11-05-2004
IP: Logged

It's a long story. A long time ago, I used the name "Foxman", as it's the literal translation of my name from Lithuanian to English. No, really. Anyway, when I decided to move from Hotmail to a mail provider that couldn't suck the entire space-time continuum through one of Brin's "tuned strings"*, it transpired that Foxman had already been taken. So I randomly thought of another word beginning with 'F' and containing two syllables, discarded my first choice on the grounds that I may eventually need to give the address to elderly relatives, and decided on "Fafnir" (I'd been reading Norse mythology at the time - it's the name of a dragon). Of course, that was taken already, as was the Hitchhiker's Guide-inspired fafnir_42 - but no-one had yet been desperate enough to take fafnir_43! So after that, I started signing up to forums as Fafnir, on the grounds that I might as well have a nick that resembled my e-mail address.

*And I moved to Yahoo. Greeeeat choice. Well, it's a step up!

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Stupidity kills.
Absolute stupidity
Kills absolutely.

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I love mycology (the study of mushrooms), so I thought that the most fitting username for me would be the genus name of a group of mushrooms, and "agaricus" just happened to be the one that came to mind first. I guess it may be partly because this genus contains some of the most famous edible mushrooms in the world, including the widely eaten Cultivated Mushroom (Agaricus bisporus).

The reason for the "5" attached to the end is because of the fact that when I tried to register for the Yahoo! DROD message board, someone else had "agaricus" as their username, so I had to attach a number to it. Somehow, 5 struck me as the nicest number, for whatever reason (maybe because it's equal to 10/2, so it's not too big or small) and I kept it in transferring to the DROD forum for consistency.

I use other mushroom genus names as usernames in other places, such as Amanita, Pleurotus (most recently on KoL), Lentinus and Coprinus, although I don't visit those places much now, so it's unlikely you'll see me there.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

My user name is a combination of the Nordic word "stig" which roughly translated means "ladder", and the English word "ant" which roughly translated means, well, "ant". Put them together and you get... oh who am I kidding? My last name is Stigant.

On a related subject:
The rest of my name is David ("Beloved of God") and Peter ("Rock of God"). So I'm the beloved pet rock of god. Or something to that effect.

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Progress Quest Progress

rowrow
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 432
Registered: 08-17-2004
IP: Logged

Hmm, should I keep everyone guessing or should I say where mine is from? It is really funny what people come up with. Row row row your boat. Or even a dog.row row.(don't ask)So back to the question.Should I tell everyone? It kinda doesn't make sence how you get to it but it was the best username I thought of.

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B'hakhgra Du S'tra Moth'ness Ti!

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

My username originates from the C64 scene. I just used my real name (Gerry) for a handle at first, but some time after I joined the group Triad, they asked me if I would mind changing it to something else. The reason was that the leader of Triad is called Jerry, and people were confusing us . I didn't mind, so I decided to change it.

Only question was, what should I change it to ?

1. I wanted it to be relatively short.

"Gerry" is short, I wanted my new handle to be equally short. One word, no extra digits tacked at the end.

2. It had to be unique.

The first couple of handles I thought of were already in use by several people within the scene, and even more outside it. That's not really a problem unless you're in the same group, but I'm picky. I wanted a handle I could call my own.

3. It would be nice if it had some sort of meaning that somehow could be said to fit me.

Not strictly necessary, but would be a bonus.

So, I went through a whole lot of different handles, and even asked others if they had any ideas, but the handles I came up with were either already in use by half the scene or they were too long and cumbersome, and didn't fit me at all.

What to do ?

Now, I was reading the Riftwar series by Raymond E Feist at the time, and... um, this may be spoiler-ish, so I'll put it in secret tags:

This little story reminded me of how some people were looking at some intros I'd made where I got the C64 to do things that should be impossible. I love doing that sort of thing, figure out how to stretch the limits as far as possible. To those who don't know how it's done it may look like magic, but there's really nothing special about it -- if you know how, anyone can do it. It's just... tricks.

I kinda liked that thought.

So, I thought about "trick". As I mentioned, I like doing these "tricks", and the philosophy is kinda nice, so it fits me. Also, it's a nice short name. Also, even though I searched a fair bit in scene history, I couldn't find any sceners, past or present, that had the handle "trick".

So there you go.

- Gerry

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

rowrow wrote:
Hmm, should I keep everyone guessing or should I say where mine is from? It is really funny what people come up with. Row row row your boat. Or even a dog.row row.(don't ask)So back to the question.Should I tell everyone? It kinda doesn't make sence how you get to it but it was the best username I thought of.

Ah, but if you're too coy about it, people will lose interest or at least pretend to. And then you'll be walking around desperately asking "hey you wanna know how I got my name? Do you? Please?" And everyone will be all noncommittal and apathetic, and you'll wish you had spoke forth the Legend when attention was at its peak.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

My name is "Erik" + abbreviated "Hermansen". The "2000" was chosen for similar reasons as RoboBob's "3000", but I liked the irony of choosing a modern-sounding date that has since past. And the practical reason for tacking on "2000" was that there were already 73 ErikH's (or something like that) on Yahoo. More impressive to be "ErikH2000" than "ErikH74".

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

trick wrote:
My username originates from the C64 scene.

You are a young guy now (23), so Holee Jeebus, how old were you in your C64 demo-coding days? Because when C64s were the rage I was maybe 15. Were you coding up the demos in first grade? Or were you hacking 8-bit Commodores after everybody mostly moved on to Amigas, Macs, STs. The truth is sure to freak me out whatever it is.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

AlefBet
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 979
Registered: 07-16-2003
IP: Logged

In one of my classes, I was exposed to a lot of Greek cultural history and mythology. (Actually, it was English class in seventh grade; our teacher liked to push us really hard.) In my junior high and high school days, I was pretty heavily into math and physics, and I latched onto the Greek alphabet and memorized it. I thought it was interesting that the English word for "alphabet" came from the first two letters of the Greek one (Alpha + Beta).

I also became interested in Cantor's orders of infinity. He had apparently decided that the Roman and Greek letters were already used way too heavily, so his orders of infinity are denoted with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph. As a parallel to alpha-beta, I started calling myself AlephBeth (the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet) in online forums.

Unfortunately, that tended to cause people to mistake me for a girl (partly because "Beth" is a common girl's name in English, and also a common shortening of several other girl names), and give me a type of attention I didn't really have much use for. Eventually, I discovered that there was more than one way to spell several of the letters' transliterations, so I went for the alternate spelling of "AlefBet" which looks more gender neutral.

On the side: In forums where "AlefBet" is taken, I tend to go back to Greek and use "AlphaEtaPi" (my initials roughly transliterated), and if that is taken, "AlphaDeltaAlphaMu."

[Edited by AlefBet at Local Time:01-31-2005 at 12:47 AM]

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I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5203
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

And, as Adam so astutely pointed out one day, I chose this username from this guy I know named Mr. Imer.

Nah, just kidding.

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5203
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

However, on online games I customarily use the name of Timid. I got the name from an X-Pilot server admin that used the same name about ten years back. As I recall, he was a really good player, and starting out with one of those in-your-face names to boot, no one ever wanted to play against him online. So he changed his name to Timid. Then people would play with him. No one minded losing against someone who called himself that. And if he lost, no one would laugh at him because he sounded like such a meek guy in the first place.

[Edited by mrimer at Local Time:01-31-2005 at 02:43 AM]

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:

trick wrote:
My username originates from the C64 scene.

You are a young guy now (23), so Holee Jeebus, how old were you in your C64 demo-coding days? Because when C64s were the rage I was maybe 15. Were you coding up the demos in first grade? Or were you hacking 8-bit Commodores after everybody mostly moved on to Amigas, Macs, STs. The truth is sure to freak me out whatever it is.

-Erik

I'm 28 now, and I got my first C64 when I was 7. Since I wouldn't have gotten it if it wasn't at least a bit mainstream (my parents wouldn't spend a lot of money buying me something too cutting-edge), that means the C64 scene was around 21 years ago.

If Trick was coding C64 demos when he was 2, I'd be very impressed...



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I got my avatar back! Yay!

Watcher
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 902
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

stigant wrote:
My last name is Stigant.

That's all there is to it? The first time I saw your username, I was sure it was a pun on "instigant". For those unaware: "instigant" means "someone who deliberately stirs up trouble". Because "in-" sometimes is a negative prefix, "stigant" would be the opposite of "instigant". I thought it was a pretty cool screen name.

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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!

stigant
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1182
Registered: 08-19-2004
IP: Logged

Interesting... I've always used the form "instigator" and so never really drew a connection.

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Progress Quest Progress

cheese obsessive
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 219
Registered: 10-10-2004
IP: Logged

Ummmm....mine is self-explainable.

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

As is mine.

Well, there is a kind of story behind it. As a kid, the only comic book character that I really knew or liked was the Riddler, and so I used the handle "Enigma". I had self-esteem issues as a kid, you can tell.

It turned out that everyone else thought that was a perfect nickname as well, being a somewhat obscure word. After experimenting with alternate spellings, all of which had been thought of before, I ended up deciding that if I wanted an actual unique name, I was going to take the most obvious name I could that no-one else would try. Hence, Mattcrampy, my first and last name and an extra 'y'. I've also got Mattycramp and I_love_the_pollies on Yahoo.

In other places, I've used Matthias (both the Greek to my Roman, and the name of a main character in a book I rather liked as a kid) and more recently Merus (which is apparantly Latin, although I've only seen it in a Latin piece once and no-one I know that knows Latin knows what it means, and neither do online dictionaries).

On AIM and MSN, I stick a random dragon reference on it at the end. Because you gotta.

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:
You are a young guy now (23), so Holee Jeebus, how old were you in your C64 demo-coding days? Because when C64s were the rage I was maybe 15. Were you coding up the demos in first grade? Or were you hacking 8-bit Commodores after everybody mostly moved on to Amigas, Macs, STs. The truth is sure to freak me out whatever it is.

Heh. I got my C64 in 1989 (which would make me 8). Or was it 1990 ? Fairly sure it was 1989, but not completely. Anyway, I didn't really start coding stuff until a few years later, when someone teached me assembly through lessons on swapped disks. Well, unless you count basic, which I started with right away (I remember I read through the basic manual several times the first couple of days, heh). So, yeah, I entered the C64 scene a little bit late. Oh, I badly wanted an Amiga*, but we couldn't really afford that... (Not that I'm complaining. The C64 is unique, and overcoming its limitations by tricks and blatant hardware bug/"feature" abuse is both challenging and really fun )

* Speaking of which, anyone want to buy me one of those new Amigas ? Also, a C-One!

- Gerry

[Edited by trick at Local Time:02-03-2005 at 09:59 PM]

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

trick wrote:
Heh. I got my C64 in 1989 (which would make me 8). Or was it 1990 ? Fairly sure it was 1989, but not completely. Anyway, I didn't really start coding stuff until a few years later, when someone teached me assembly through lessons on swapped disks. Well, unless you count basic, which I started with right away (I remember I read through the basic manual several times the first couple of days, heh). So, yeah, I entered the C64 scene a little bit late.

Yeah, you were coding really early too. I remember hearing all the time about this mythic "European demo scene" where all these young kids were coding up crazy demos way beyond my abilities. And I'd get vaguely jealous and threatened over it, like I needed to move to Germany or Norway or someplace in Europe to be around the genius intellects. Definitely I didn't want to be in Estacada, Oregon, where no kids did any programming--they just rode around on dirt bikes and put firecrackers in birds' mouths. But over there, you would be a supercool badass if you were a good programmer... I imagined in my nerdy little brain.

Oh, I badly wanted an Amiga*, but we couldn't really afford that... (Not that I'm complaining. The C64 is unique, and overcoming its limitations by tricks and blatant hardware bug/"feature" abuse is both challenging and really fun )

Yeah, I couldn't afford the Amiga either when it came out. I spent $100 on an Atari 800XL, and that was plenty good for me. I picked up an Amiga a few years after you got your C64, and sold it to pay rent one month. But I still got all my Amiga floppies. Hey, in theory, I could fire up an emulator and... oh, no, that would be so much time lost once I got started.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

NoahT
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1197
Registered: 06-17-2003
IP: Logged

I had a few ideas for more creative names than the one I use, but I decided to just stick with my first name plus last initial. That's all there is to it!

-Noah

____________________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

My stuff:

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5458
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I made a deal with the Schick razor company to use their company name as my username, and in return I would get $.23 for each post I made with the name. Unfortunately, I made a small typo when I was creating my account, and thus haven't recieved a single penny from them.

As luck would have it, my last name is Schikore, so it worked out pretty well.

I customarily use the name of Timid. I got the name from an X-Pilot server admin that used the same name about ten years back.

Whoa! I remember that guy! I used to play xpilot all the time. I was Schik there as well. Do you remember Blade, Ramoman, or Lardbottom? Ahhhh, the memories.

[Edited by Schik at Local Time:02-04-2005 at 02:38 PM]

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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

NoahT wrote:
I had a few ideas for more creative names than the one I use, but I decided to just stick with my first name plus last initial. That's all there is to it!

-Noah

Ditto.

____________________________
I got my avatar back! Yay!

Strabo
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 55
Registered: 12-27-2004
IP: Logged

What, or who, is Strabo:
1) An ancient greek historian.
2) The dragon in Terry Brook's Lanover novels.
3) The demigod of war in the novel I'm writing.
4) A really cool sounding name.