What's in a username?

**PlaguedOne** · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject: What's in a username?

Every forum eventually has one of these "why did you pick your username?" threads. I would like to take that a little farther in resurrecting an old thread I had started previously.

To me, the name you choose online comes to represent who you are to people. For the most part, the people you talk to online will never really meet you in real life. For that reason, I feel that it is important to give yourself a username that is unique and reflects something about you. Furthermore, since your username is effectively your online identity, I think a person should stick to one username for any forums they are a part of (or at least variations on a common base nickname).

For example, I will tell you how I came to use "PlaguedOne" as my username. I play a tabletop miniatures wargame called Warhammer 40,000. Assembling the miniatures, painting them, and playing the game are all things that have kept me going with this hobby since I was in early junior high school. It was my first non-video game hobby, and pretty much doomed me to geekdom forever (hooray!). My army of choice are the Chaos Space Marines who are devoted to the Chaos Gods, either in general or in particular to one of them. I play the Death Guard Legion who happen to be loyal to the Chaos God called Nurgle. Nurgle is the Lord of Corruption, Pestilence, and Despair. This loyalty bloats their bodies and makes them immune to all forms of plague. To this end, when I signed up for my first forum, I went with a name that reflected this allegiance: PlaguedOne. The forum didn't allow spaces in usernames, and so "PlaguedOne" has always been spelled as all one word.

"PlaguedOne" doesn't really sound all that great, so within the last few years, I have started to go by a contraction of it; Pyo. This came from the fact that people would often just call me "PO", and smushing that together gets you "Pyo".

ピョ

Generally, I'm not fond of the idea of just picking a username based on a character unless it has a special meaning for you. That and I would avoid adding numbers to your username, unless they has a special significance.

So, that's why I go by PlaguedOne and some of my opinions on usernames in general. I invite you to contribute your own thoughts and if you want, to explain the origin of your own username as well.
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DrkXFuZion · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject:

My name was originally "Fuzionist" (with a "z" because an "s" is just boring) since I always found myself to be somewhat bipolar. Afterwards, I added on on "Dark" (without the vowel because vowels tend to be ugly. :D) because a while back, I used to be rather secretive (ironic...now I'll spill anything you ask. :D) and "X" because I considered myself to be oversexed in high school (don't ask. I live in North California. That's all you need to know). That makes "DrkXFuzion". However everyone kept mispelling it somehow...

....so in the end, I stick with "Drk-X". :/

(Yeah, I just pulled this all out of my ass and none of it makes any sense. You're welcome to sue me. :3)
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**Ryouko** · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:29 pm Post subject:

I picked Ryouko many years ago, when I saw my first anime film ever - Tenchi Muyo In Love. The Blockbuster box description misspelled Ryoko as Ryouko, but I didn't know any better. Thus, I started going by Ryouko online, and it's stuck ever since. The only other nick I've ever gone by has been Minako when I used to run SailorV.com, which is still what my old moonie friends call me.

Ryoko is still one of my most favourite characters ever. :P
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**Izumi** · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:38 pm Post subject:

Izumi, after Orimoto Izumi from Digimon Frontier. I picked the name on a whim when I couldn't use my regular nick in an IRC channel, after seeing the first couple of episodes of Frontier, and it stuck.
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Ming Yi · Nebula Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 562

"Ming Yi" is actually my Chinese name, using the characters for "bright" and "comfort." I thought it sounded unique and me-ish, so I used it since 2003 and it stuck.
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Roll Soul · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject:

At first glance, it may seem like my name only comes from the Double Soul. That's true, in part, but it goes a bit deeper than that. I've always been a healer of sorts, and into healing (physical or otherwise) for as long as I can remember, finding out all that I could and applying it wherever I could. It's probably why Roll became my favorite Navi when I got my first EXE exposure; that, and the fact that my personality is like hers in several ways. Besides, the actual unison appeals to my romantic side, besides my healer and Roll sides ;P. There are a couple other harder to explain bits, but that's the long and short of it. Thing is, even if the actual Double Soul didn't exist, I'd probably still be "Roll Soul", for one reason or another XD
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Rock Miyabi · Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:35 pm Post subject:

For being a long time lurker of REO who was apprehensive in joining any kind of online community, and for generally being a loner in many respects, who better suited me in Rockman terms than Miyabi? Plus my favorite classic Robot Master was always Shadowman, so it was an easy fit.

It just so happened that nobody had taken any sort of similar username, so I knew I was gonna take that in some form. But I know I am in no way a dark kind of person, despite never really wanting to be a big part of the crowd. So, in sticking with the 4 letters before Miyabi deal, I chose Rock instead. That part has multiple meanings. It is part of my last name (in grade school, occasionallya few girls would mix up my first name, Rob, with that and call me Rock or Rocky. Not really a constant nickname, but it happened quite a bit). There's the cool factor of having the first name Rock, like actor Rock Hudson...or K.O.F.'s Rock Howard...or the wrestler "The Rock." Ok, I'm stretching it there. My dog's name is Rocky, Rock for short. My favorite musical style is rock. I am a Rockman fan, prefering that over the American "Mega," etc. And as you know from my randomly altering avy, it lent itself to a little cosplay pic idea. But since most people nicked me more as Miyabi, rather than Rock or RM (which also is a common Rockman abbreviation), etc, I've been using just Miyabi more and more.
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**Malik** · Local Prinny Deity Age: 34 Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 1179

MMmm... Man, this has so many lead intos.

Back when I was a general fanbrat, I came across this fanart of Yuugi from Yuugiou as a cat-boy. And bajesus, I was so stupid, I decided to be "YugiKitty" from that moment on, disregarding all over names I had on Neopets. And then, I became a sprite reader and was browsing through Psyguy's subcomics and one of the descriptions of Tails described him as a kitsune (and the description of a kitsune was "multi-tailed fox" rather than fox). And by that time, I believe one of my best friends gave my phone number to someone I never met who claims to have met me on Neopets and lived in North Dakota. My mom told me to be more careful and I had to adopt a separate personality to lead off from being one kid. Diving into fanfiction, I had the penname "YugiKity" turned into "YugiKitty and co" and eventually "YugiKitty and MalikKitsune." I led that lie on even when I joined REO for the first time as MalikKitsune in what, January 27th 2003? Sometime close to that because I was twelve and still lied about being 13 since I was going to be 13 soon anyway. Eventually, I began to trust everyone and I dropped the persona that I identified less with, which was YugiKitty. From that, MalikKitsune got too long, so until the first hacking, I was Malik-chan, and then simply Malik.

To this day, I use Malik, MalikKitsune, or Malik Kitsu. Some places, I have different names, like Judas on CN and Makky with the Arbolitas. Judas was just to see if anyone would connect that blasted first avatar with my sig here and Makky is a shorter yet long story.
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X · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:45 am Post subject:

I've went from name to name, starting online with Sidewinder-X (the missile, not the crappy joystick from microsoft, mind you), which became just X later on, and while I was in charge of another board, I used to take on the nick Zhentarim_X, when 1 lettered nicks weren't allowed. And after a while, I think it was Izumi who said Zhen-Chan once, and I stuck to that one. and still am, actually Surprised

I'm not sure actually why I still stick with the nick X here on the boards....even after the reset last year. Probably to clear confusion of having another X on the boards, while I'm using my regular nick? Oh well :3c

X.
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Cloud-kun · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:54 am Post subject:

My nick has altered far more times than I care to list, but inevitably, on these forums, it ended up turning to Cloud.EXE (after four previous names, back when name changing was possible without moderatory assistance), primarily because I like the word "Cloud", and I had a fan character by the name at the time. (Suffixed .EXE, not just "Cloud")

It's often mistaken for some form of FFVII fanboyism, but though I did enjoy the game, it's really got very little to do with it. The only link between the two would be that FFVII was the first time I'd ever seen the word "Cloud" used as someone's name. After a while, Izumi added "-kun" to my name in place of .EXE for my birthday one year, and that stuck. It's not the name I go by anywhere else, and few people still actually call me by it.

The Edge · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:03 am Post subject:

The Edge is U2's guitar player.

I am a U2 fan.

HeatShadow · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:48 am Post subject:

Waaay back when I first joined the community at the MM:AU forums, I was easily one of the only BN fans around, so I took the name MegaManExe to display to everyone which series my opinion represented. (And that sounds so much more sophisticated than it actually is) Of course, when MM:AU went belly-up and I ended up here, I wasn't alone anymore, was I? BN 3 had been released around that time, and since I had recently made myself an avatar out of a picture of the Heat Shadow style, I decided to go with that as my name as well. Conviently enough, it also represents my two favorite elements: fire and darkness.

And in case anyone is interested, I also go by the name of Arkon Darksoul, mainly in Warcraft communities. One of the first strategy games I ever played was Disciples for the PC. While the game itself wasn't terribly advanced, it had a good sense of style and creativity that I really enjoyed. My favorite race to play as was the Undead Hordes, a brutal army who carried out the will of Mortis, the skeletal goddess of death. The game had you recruit hero units to lead your armies, with my favorite hero unit being the Death Knight, an ominous and ruthless heavily armored warrior leader who also happened to be rather soft-spoken. In the game's main campaign, the hero you start off with has a unique name, unlike the randomly generated names of heros in other modes. And the Undead hero's name? Arkon Darksoul. The name became even more fitting when I started playing Warcraft, and my chosen race and hero were once again the Undead and the Death Knight.
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Midnight · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:01 am Post subject:

**Sketch** · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:42 am Post subject:

And now we call you Middy. \o\~

My name was created by a very good friend of mine. We were in a phase where we wanted to give nicknames to each other...I was given the name Sketch, due to my artistic happenings.

Of course...that never stuck, we went back to our original names, I never used it...until I needed my name changed here. I had been using Sketch for my name...so I made my name Sketch.
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Shakai · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:34 am Post subject:

Essentially, it is my last name with an H. Because certain people like to call me by my last name and have a terrible habit of adding the SH sound to S.

And somehow that stuck.

Don't ask me how xD
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Pyroman.EXE · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:44 am Post subject:

I have many names. This one is from long ago, back when I started to seriously go online frequently... I chose it because I thought it was cool and, at the time, unique.

Over time, I've switched my name a lot, but now I think I've finally found one to stick with, Raeone. Many people identify me with it now, due to being a GM at an MMZ-based forum-RPG, and the name has stuck. It has no meaning whatsoever, I came up with it by choosing random syllables and smashing them together. I came up with Ray-own, and seeing as how that looked stupid, I switched the lettering, and got what I have now.

If there's ever a memberlist wipe due to hacking, that's what I will be after it. For now, though, I guess I'm stuck with this. n_n;

neogamer1234 · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:59 am Post subject:

xgamer1234 was something I came up with for GFaqs many years ago... Up until last year, I had a habit of adding "1234" to ALL of my names... "xgamer" back then was a compression of one of my favorite gaming magazines, Xpertgamer.

Then as I went on with life, I wanted a "new" name... hence "neogamer"

Nowadays... I want my old screennames to change to one that I use everwhere since it sticks with me... "DJ Azure"

All of my convention hopping friends know me as that (It's on 3/4 of my anime convention badges). "DJ" is my actual nickname in real life (Dustin Joseph is my first name) so all of you whiners about me stealing names should just shut up, same with the calling of "neo" towards me. "Azure" came from me realizing a few years back what the exact color of the sky was... Okay okay... It's really because of my semi-fanboyism of Balmung from .hack//
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Yuko · Net Battler Age: 33 Joined: 25 Nov 2005 Posts: 76

My username just popped into my head when I was trying to think of a name I can be called by online. First I thought of Yoko Kanno.. and that's where Yuko came in. :)

**Tabby** · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:34 pm Post subject:

I feel like I'm the most boring person alive, because my real name IS my "username" XD
Tabbies for the win?
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Nenji · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:42 pm Post subject:

Well, now that my name has changed I have another story to tell, don't I?

I've changed usernames since IRC channel regulars now know me as Nenji instead of HiKaizer, so it was convenient to change it with all that's gone on anyway.

As for why I'm Nenji, well that's easy to say. One of my first GBA games was Rockman EXE, or rather it's English version, Megaman Battle Network. Around the time I got the fourth game in the series the Anime reached here and I decided to check out any online websites I could to learn more about the series. By this stage I had learnt that MMBN was called Rockman EXE in Japanese and so I searched that and REO naturally was highly listed in the search. While looking through the list of good guys I saw Nenji and like I have with several other characters, decided I liked him on the basis of his character design. After realising I liked the personality as well from watching a few episodes, the obsession grew from there.

HiKaizer, my previous, original and most common alias is a portmanteau of Hi, for High and Kaizer, which was a bad translation of the Kaiser Dragon from the Breath of Fire series.
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