bbs2k, I thought…
Oh, wait. Never mind. Your secret’s safe with me.
But seriously, where did the original come from?
best uncommon alternative to whimsicle/off balance
I’m not always what I appear to be initially…that and I have red hair.
I’ve used this handle or some form of it online for many years.
Back in the day (aka my sophomore year of high school, only four years ago), one of my friends set up an RP and wanted me to join. I needed to name my character so I looked up baby names online. One of the websites claimed that “Reiko/Leiko” meant “arrogant” in Japanese. I modified the pronunciation to rhyme with Lekolite, as the character wasn’t Japanese, just arrogant- and I’m a theatre nerd.
Since I recycle names, Leiko ended up running a café in a small town in another RP. Then she was the snobby kid in a Hogwarts RP, making fun of Muggle-born Cyn (one of my other heavily reused names) and her robot monkey that only worked sporadically due to the magical interference with his circuitry. (Can’t remember his name, sadly, but if I ever write the evil mind-control closet story, he and a “sibling” night appear.)
Then I remembered that I didn’t actually like RP’ing that much, and didn’t have any unused plots for stories (that would never get finished but I always start) kicking around that needed female characters, so I grabbed the name from myself to use online- I wanted one that actually sounded like a real life name, as opposed to the screen name sound of my other two main screen names.
As a plus for when I’m on a privacy kick, it has a variety of not-me Google results, unlike one of my main internet names which is all-me results, or the other, which results in one third “me,” one third “could be me, but isn’t,” and one third “LJ profiles of people in an RP where one of the characters has the username I normally use.”
(With the Lekolite-rhyme, I sometimes get on a lighting theme. When I do play Puzzle Pirates, which isn’t often, my main character is Leiko, one of the alt characters on the account is Fresnel, and Fresnel’s rat is named Gobo. Leiko’s is named Rat, because I’m weird.)
No mystery here. I’m a Star Trek fan, so when I registered on my first message board, I wanted to name myself after one of the more eccentric ST characters - Reg Barclay. Unfortunately, the name Barclay was taken, so after more consideration, I named myself after Zefram Cochrane, who invented faster than light travel among the humans. Come to think of it, I’m pretty close to James Cromwell’s charicterization of Cochrane - antisocial, abrupt, and likes my booze and Roy Orbison music.
As a young woman I started internet dating this guy I really liked. We traded a couple emails, and he made me laugh and smile. We met on Craiglist and we both enjoyed Burger King. Neither of us had digital cameras, so we would just describe ourselves, and soon things got a little hot. One night, over IM we were talking about how much we missed each other and how much we wanted to be together, and after a powerful session of sex-chat he told me he was flying from Green Bay to Boston to finally spend the weekend with me.
I met him at the airport in Logan, I had his name on a sign and everything. Oh, he was just as he said he was, tall, a little nerdy, but cute. He walked up to me and looked confused.
“Are you… driving?”
“Josh!” I screamed as I kissed him for the first time.
Then there was a moment of silent beauty as we just gazed at each other
“Wait, you’re black?” he said.
So then, heart broken and looking for companionship I found this message board. The people were great, and supportive, but in my haste to join I may have made a poor choice in signing up as big bigots suck to kiss.
True story. Now shut up’a you!
Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to add that I love Br’er Lapin’s name. And once again I have fallen even more in love with our beautiful Nzinga, Seated.
The Maxx is a childhood favorite, and I own (and adore) the complete collection.
I guess my mom and dad were big fans of Winston Churchill. 
Started playing Avalon Hill wargames in 1974 and haven’t slowed down yet.
To be fair, S.O.'s brother gave him the name. I just informed him of the moniker.
As for mine, I’ve always claimed “I’m a little bit mad about about pansies, born in 64, yadda yadda, not very creative, kept using it.”
I have been informed that I must correct the story, or else. Apparently, my (now grown, ex-) stepdaughters gave me the nickname “mad pansy” because I’m “such a shy sweet little thing” most of the time, but you do not want to see me “get a mad on.” The born in '64, not creative, yadda yadda, part is accurate
I have to wonder what else I don’t know about myself, and also what the hell they were smoking to think I’m “sweet” at any time.
One day a friend of mine was getting on my nerves.
I turned to her and yelled, “Leave me alone evil woman of scorn!” It caught on and whenever she would write me notes(we were in highschool at the time) she’d call me that.
Camping nickname. Around the campfire one night, a young lady commented on the fine hair on my arms: “He’s a blond bear!” (I inadvertently spelled blond with an “e” when I registered, and didn’t bother to change it.)
Like the OP, mine was based on a beloved pet (sadly, mine passed on some years ago).
I have no kitteh photos to hand, but think of Sylvester from the Tweetybird cartoons and you’ve pretty much got my Magpie. He always wore a red collar, even before I read Terry Pratchett’s description of the ‘cartoon cat’.
It’s my handle pretty much everywhere on the net.
Not that it makes any difference, but I’ve seen it spelled both ways. I personally prefer Slythe, because y’s are cool.
Mine means “The Thief” in Irish and shouldn’t be mixed up with Na Gardaí which is Irish for “The Police”. I was meant to be helping a friend DJ years ago and I never got further than thinking up a DJ name.
Well, when I started writing fanfiction I was too shy to use my real name, and I was a fairly enthusiastic Animaniacs watcher at the time, so I used “Dot Warner” as a pen name. This evolved into using “dot-chan” as an IRC nick handle (the “-chan” being a Japanese suffix generally used as a term of endearment) and general online account username, except I dropped the dash on most of those accounts since it’s generally not considered a legal character.
Ahhh! I always thought your name was some kind of play on Sartre’s “No Exit”.
A cookie to whoever recognizes where my handle comes from. It’s not too obscure.
Here we go again.
Small, pink, check.
Dad was a Major, check.
Tiny sister, check.
(and Wintermute was taken)
All my usual were taken, so I just went with the first thing that came to mind. Of course, it just had to be one of those days when a certain little earworm was playing on the mental soundtrack…
One of ‘Zorak’s Beatnik Raps’ from **Space Ghost Caost to Coast **.
Don’t stare into the Sun…even if your eyeballs are cold.
Life’s a sandtrap ma, I’m on the green in two.
Mantis spelled backwards is Sitnam…sitnam.
Stupid I know, but nothing else came to mind at the time. I’ve been meaning to change it, but for good or ill I like to think I’m fostering some kind of reputation here that would be gone if I did.