The many usernames of SFF.SE

Question

What's the story behind your username?

If you are one of us folks whose username is not your actual name, what is the story behind it?

I'll go first.

Answer 1

Someone lay me down a sick beat. We goin' ham.

It's mid-2007, not too long ago,
when a little nerdy white boy and his buddies go,
and sign up for Xbox Live to play some videogames,
using Gears of War and Halo as a replacement for dames.

Well I'm sitting there just thinking, trying to choose a handle,
but my friends names are much better, mine can't hold a candle.
Take a look at my initials - D and R can make Doctor,
think about the wannabe gangsters I can mock-a.
Throwing round words and phrases, abusing dumbass slang,
my satirical skills will make their heads hang.

Like a flash of inspiration, the air begins to sizzle,
hammering my controller, I type "Dr D Rizzle".
But it turns out that was taken, so I go for second best,
"Dr R Dizzle" sounds just as stupid, I guess.

It's been nearly a decade now, the name was a bad choice,
but I kind of got used to it as my online voice.
If there's a lesson here, then the lesson is this;
'Don't choose an online name while trying to take the p*ss'.

Answer 2

I am named after the minor planet 14111 Kimamos which in turn is named after a science teacher in West Virginia and not the lady in Michigan who writes romance novels under that name. (Just kidding. Actually user14111 is my real name.)

Answer 3

I slammed my fists on the keyboard a few times until I got a result I liked.

Answer 4

I would give a whole detailed explanation for my username, but really just see the previous post, it's probably all explained over there. :)

Answer 5

Scooby-Doo → Scooby → skooby → SQB

Answer 6

"Slytherincess" is, unsurprisingly, a combo of "Slytherin" and "Princess".

I've had this online handle since 2002.

I first read Harry Potter fan fiction at a site called The Sugar Quill, and I participated in their forums. I basically liked their site, but it was very restrictive -- for example, the site would only archive fan fic with what they considered to be canon pairings -- Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, and Sirius/Remus (whom the site administrators considered a canon pairing). If you questioned their restrictions, even in light conversations on their forums, your post would disappear -- that kind of BS.

_{Oh, and, uh ... Slytherins were definitely not welcome there, and I had felt an affinity toward Slytherin since the first time I read the first book. Why? That's a whole 'nother story!}

So, yeah, things at the Sugar Quill were all around problematic. I knew I was going to have to leave the site. I hadn't yet registered at the Quill; I decided I would. I tried out a variety of Slytherin-themed names, but Slytherincess is the one that stuck. I left The Sugar Quill, but not before leaving silly, but harmless, messages in a few of the forums I had frequented, so I could splash my new moniker, because someone had to say it: SLYTHERIN WAS HERE! ;)

Because I got into Harry Potter fandom quite early on, I was able to scoop up my username in a variety of apps, most of which are obsolete now: Gmail (I still use my Gmail account); Yahoo; Livejournal; FictionAlley, AO3; Harry Potter conference sign-ups; Twitter; Facebook; Pinterest; Flickr; and, yes, Stack Exchange! :)

Here's the screen-saver for my iPhone (My iPhone is named "Malfoy", for anyone interested):

Answer 7

It is a clever disguise; my real name is Bason Schmaker

Answer 8

I just love cheese. That's it.

Answer 9

I joined this Stack Exchange to ask Wheel of Time questions. Rand al'Thor is the main character in the Wheel of Time series, and also someone I can identify with personally in many ways. Nobody else had taken that username (at the time, I didn't know usernames could be duplicated), so I used it. If it had already been in use, my second choice would have been Aragorn.

When the Last Battle comes to Stack Exchange, I will stand firm, my two closest friends at my side, to defend what is right against the dark forces of evil and the Shadow:

Long live the Dragon!

Answer 10

Organic marble! It's gluten free, absolutely no BPAs, non allergenic, and crunchy! Contains only trace amounts of uranium! Accept no substitutes for this all natural product!

Answer 11

1. My user name should show that I was male, so people wouldn't have to refer to me as "he, or she, I dunno". (My real name seems to have that effect; it sounds androgynous to native English speakers.)
2. I also like science fiction, and I wanted a name that reflected that. (It's a character from Red Dwarf, in case you're wondering. My avatar is the Red Dwarf itself.)
3. And I found I have rather a tendency to make lists of everything. No matter the question; if I answer anything, it's often in list form. So, that's what I do, I make lists.

Answer 12

You might want to take a cup of coffee and sit down for this.

Well, it all started in 2007. The world was a much more innocent place, or was I younger and more innocent? Who's to tell?

Anyways, being on volunteer work in Haifa Israel, a bunch of my friends and I started calling each other "Freak", you know, in a cool way.

Hey Freak, how's it going?
...
Dude, you're such a Freak
...
etc.

Now a bunch of the girls I knew started a mini clique of their own called "The Freaks". Being that it was now the most exclusive club, I had to be in it (even though I was a guy). But they hesitated, it was really harsh for me, I felt that I was one of the founding members because I had originally in on the "Freak" naming. I had even looked up a Hebrew phrasebook and found the meaning of the word "Freak" which was:

Moozaroot - פריק

I was gutted, how could these girls exclude me in this little, random, meaningless but oh so exclusive club, when I was such a strong impetus of its creation? Yeah, na, I was having none of that.

So I spoke to my "sister" from the clique (who wasn't really my sister but looked exactly like me - weird huh, "freak"-y even, lol), so everyone called us siblings. After a long while we convinced them to let me into this clique (and I even owned my new moniker - "Freak Wannabe").

Now my sister and I started calling each other "Mooz" because it was just shorter and funnier sounding than "Moozaroot".

Since then, I've used Mooz, or a derivative of it, in:

• StackExchange
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Microsoft Live
• ASOIAF account
• And a myriad of online games
  • A few of my younger cousins and friends have taken the 'Mooz' post-fix to their usernames too. I've sort of got a mini clan going, tee hee.

And there you have it, a small narrative titled "Mooz".

so, the next time I act like a "freak", you will know that it's because I am.

---

Why 'Möoz'?
The 'umlaut mark' doesn't actually mean anything to me, it just looks cool AF!

Answer 13

I'm named after a far away moon. In the year 2293 of the Prime Timeline, I exploded due to over-mining. This caused an ecological disaster on my parent planet that led to two warring empires not really fighting anymore.

(TL;DR: I picked it because I like Star Trek.)

Answer 14

I’ve been a fan of The Lord of the Rings since before everybody had heard of it:

• I read it for the first time in the late 1960s.¹
  • I still have a very dog-eared and taped up copy that was printed in 1966.  Not a first edition, or anything, just old.
• I’ve read it cover-to-cover probably five or six times.  (I have bought a newer copy; the old one is falling apart.)
  • Yes, I know there are people who read it every year.
• Every now and then I pick it up and just read a chapter or two.

So I wanted my user name to reflect that.

Also, I grew up in an area where peregrine falcons are indigenous, and I wanted to pay homage to them.  And, of course, Pippin’s real name is Peregrin Took.  And, of course, a “rook” is a kind of bird.  So it all fell into place.

Also, I like chess, although I’m absolutely no good at it.
________
¹ Yes, I remember when telephones had “dials”.  And, yes, we did ride dinosaurs to school.

Answer 15

I stack, therefore I am. I build Lego for public display. My builder's name is Major Stackings and denotes the utter importance of each and every creation I put together. ;) Although I build whatever captures my interest, I'm mainly into micro scale & miniland scale MOCs (M.O.C.s, in Lego language means my own creation(s)), so, to me, the name Major Stackings is pretty funny. I use it here, because, you know, Stack Exchange sounds like a Lego swap meet.

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Here are a couple of the links from BrickCon 2015: Three theme coordinators (myself included) get interviewed http://www.breakingdads.com/all-sorted/as-pod/brickcon-2015-interviews-part-2/ and the BreakingDads.com guys explore some of the displays on video http://www.breakingdads.com/all-sorted/video/brickcon-2015/

Answer 16

I am a competitive ballroom dancer and have a serious passion for all three types of tango, which is Argentine, American, and International. I was originally TangoOversway since, when I first logged on, the system wouldn't let me use Tango, but found later I could change it.

In American tango, there is a move at the lower ability level (Bronze) called the Oversway. It is, for that level, a particularly challenging move, but looks awesome if you get it right. So combining that with the dance name seemed a good choice.

As for the different kinds of tango, my favorite (and my fiancée's, as well) is Argentine tango, which doesn't have an oversway and generally is not used in competition. Argentine tango is just a beautiful, passionate, and sensual dance. International tango is used mostly for competition and American tango is used for competitive ballroom, but also used for social ballroom.

What can I say? I just love to tango!

Answer 17

Back when online gaming meant telnet, I was younger. And stupider. I may have just repeated myself.

I was just discovering the internet when I heard about online role playing. Friends liked MUDs, but I found myself drawn to MUSHes, which had less numbers and involved less killing harmless level 1 critters for an hour. The biggest MUSH I found was Elendor, and it was based around Lord of the Rings (big enough that it may even still be around, I haven't checked). So I registered an account, thinking thoughts of being Gandalf.

Everyone has those thoughts. There's a big sign that says "book characters are reserved, don't try to make one" for a reason. Naturally, being young (and denied), I took umbrage and for the next infinity of fifteen minutes tried to think of a character minor enough to sneak in as. I finally came up with a name that worked to my delight.

It worked because I'd misspelled it. I'd been aiming for Haldir. I'd typed Hildar. (I later turned the character into a dwarf, for amusement)

Remembering my silliness, in a later RPG that year I just rearranged the letters again, to create Radhil. Almost by accident, I also created a character that knew many stories and how to draw the wisdom from them, something I rather desperately wanted to emulate at the time and until that moment hadn't realized or figured out how to put words to it. It took more years still, but I did learn the trick, and still am.

So twenty years on, I still use the name. It reminds me I can be silly and stupid at times, and also that I can learn.

Answer 18

If you can't figure out my real name, I'm not going to tell you. It's pretty obvious. If you're having trouble figuring it out, Google the word "spoonerism".

Answer 19

Sadly, I didn't have any strong convictions about a user name before I joined. I happened to be in the process of watching Avatar at the exact moment I signed up, and I ended up typing in avatar_sully. I'd like to say it's some sort of high-browed life imitating art thing (my user account being an avatar of me), but...no. It was just extreme laziness.

And the silly thing is, I don't even really like Avatar.

I've thought about changing my user name, planning it out in my mind that I would go to my profile page and click that Edit button. But I'm just to lazy to move the mouse there.

It seems right that I should be punished for my laziness by being condemned to live out my online life with not the user name I need, but the one I deserve.

Answer 20

The first online community I heavily participated in was a Kingdom Hearts forum, and sometime after Kingdom Hearts 2 came out there was a thread where everyone posted their Organization XIII names. For those unfamiliar with the game, the Nobodies in Organization XIII created their names by taking the names they had back when they were human, rearranging the letters and adding an X. So my real life name of "Eric" became "Ixrec".

I quickly realized that this would make a good username as it was fairly short, distinctive and had essentially zero google hits, so I've been using it consistently on every other site and community I've joined since then.

Answer 21

In "Heaven Sent," the 11th episode of the 9th season of the reboot of Doctor Who, the Doctor quotes the tale of the shepherd-boy, from the Brothers Grimm:

There’s this emperor, and he asks the shepherd’s boy: How many seconds in eternity? And the shepherd’s boy says, ‘There’s this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.’

The Doctor's mountain of pure diamond is my profile picture:

Adamant is an archaic word for (among other things) diamond, as seen in a few versions of "The Shepherd's Boy":

"The third question," said the King, "is: How many seconds in eternity?"

—To this the little shepherd-boy replied, In a remote district of Pomerania there is a mountain of adamant.

Answer 22

I actually hadn't really realized I was using my actual name for my display name, so I modified it to my preferred handle :)

Originally, I went around the Internet as Broseidon, which I stole. However, that name was reletively common and I need to be a special snowflake.

So, I took Premier Romanov from Red Alert 2 and added a B to make it BROmanov. Because I'm very clever. I grew up with the Command and Conquer series, so it was only natural.

After 3-4 years of having my own unique handle, I've found it stolen by another steam user and now I weep every night.

Answer 23

My first handle was SonOfSam, which I picked because:

1. "Sam" was the first (non-gibberish) output a random-name generator I made years ago came up with, and
2. Mad Max had recently released and I like alliteration, so I thought it sounded similar and cool

I had no idea that that was also the name of a famed serial killer(!), and I felt bad about unknowingly parading myself around as a fan of his. So I did some research on him, and found out that there are two officers who are credited for arresting the Son of Sam: William Gardella, and Timothy Dowd.

Gardella went on to give presentations where he'd go over general serial killer stuff and then describe the Son of Sam case specifically.

Dowd received an almost unheard of two promotions for his investigative work that brought down the Son-o-Sam, going from deputy inspector to deputy chief (DCOP). He retired a year later, and from what I can tell, led a pretty normal and quiet life until he passed away at the ripe age of 99.

Seeing as I'm more of the introvert type and not a stranger to rising more than one rank at a time (ladies ;)), I chose the one who wasn't putting themselves out in the spotlight, therefore,

DCOPTimDowd.

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Since I don't think I'm capable of giving an answer without any kind of cited source, here's more info on Mr. Dowd for those curious enough.

I also like giving pictures apparently, so here's one of Dowd working on the Son of Sam case back in 1977. Pretty handsome dude, actually.

Anyway, that's my story.

Answer 24

Way back when, when xbox live was first becoming a thing. Me and my older brother wanted to play online. We spent the night setting up the router and such (Old model even for 2005-7 or whenever it was) so we didn't actually get online that night. I go to school the next day and just come home to him playing online on some random named account and i ask why it isn't with my account. It was my account but my name was taken and so he decided in his infinite wisdom to random name generate a new account name for me. Needless to say I wasn't happen but it has long since grown on me and spread to every corner of my internet ID. Crazy. It's actually really good considering how unique it is, it has only ever previously existed once. Stupid twitter.

Also I'm apparently some fruit with a seed in the center or something, who knew!

Answer 25

I was looking for an obscure nickname for one online messaging board or another. I was playing a game called Waku Waku 7 at the time, which featured a character called Politank-Z, which was a walking tank piloted by a Mario-like character and his dog. It fit my criteria at the time: absurd, obscure (the only web search references I found to it were to the video game), and non-identifying. I have stuck with it, for the most part, since.

Answer 26

I play world of warcraft, it has a random name generator, it gave me himarm, read as him arm, not hi marm. thank you

Answer 27

Like the pine trees lining the winding road,
I've got a name, I've got a name;
Like the singing bird and the croaking toad,
I've got a name, I've got a name.
And I carry it with me like my daddy did,
But I'm living the dream that he kept hid...

That's about it.

Answer 28

My username is user13267 because it has these properties

And I promise I didn't just google it up

Answer 29

Long story short, it's the combination of old nicknames, newer coined ones, and the difficulty of securing a unique username on most sites.

In my Freshman year of college, I joined a group named The Fuzzies run by Father Matt Komescher at the University of Dayton. We had blue buttons with the word "Fuzzy" on them and membership cards. We'd pledged to make the world a better place by being nice to people and "giving at least one warm fuzzy a day". Because I wore the pin every day, I quickly became nicknamed "Fuzzy". When I started my first job after college, I still wore the pin, but one of my co-workers kept adding to the nickname until he finally settled on a simplification of FuzzyBoots because I also occasionally wore into work a set of bright yellow Caterpillar boots.

Being a common name, Fuzzy was a difficult username to secure, so I started using FuzzyBoots on many sites.

Up until today, I was just using my name, Sean Duggan, on the site, but I figure I ought to embrace the idea of a proper alias. ^_^

Answer 30

In case you were wondering, my username is "Often Right". Now, if you're a Trekkie and you don't know who this is then leave this site now - just joking!

Often Right is an obscure reference for Dr Noonien Soong - don't trust Memory Alpha, trust me - his name is Noonien. Lore says he was known as 'Often Wrong', but I didn't like that name, so I'm changing it to 'Often Right'

Now, the important question: why did I choose this handle? Well, there are a few reasons:

1. There is actually a striking resemblance between the real me and the character of Noonien Soong, not so much in appearance but in characteristics
2. I'm also fascinated by concepts of artificial intelligence and robotics
3. He's my favourite character from Star Trek