I made mine up. It is a nickname for my cat Bo.
OK, so mine isn’t so cool. I have played the Tuba since 1991 when I was in the sixth grade. There aren’t many tuba players that are female out there. When I got my first email address in 1994 (with hotmail) I got tubagirl bcause that is what all the kids in school refrenced me as.
“that girl who plays the tuba.” or “that tuba girl”
Courtesy of my parents, Muffin has been my nickname since my birth.
Well…the first part of mine is the first half of my last name…not to mention the nickname my last baseball coach gave me because he couldn’t remember my whole name…and after you get that far, the ‘saur’ portion just sort of fits.
I use a few other nicknames for my other internet needs, though…Beren, on IRC, for example
Speaking of IRC, what server is #straightdope located upon?
Punha is the name of my first stuffed animal, Paddington Bear.
A while ago I changed email and wanted to be punha, but that was taken. So now I’m iampunha . . . I am Punha. Get it?
It has nothing to do with puns or has.
Mine, of course, is from the old Bugs Bunny/King Arthur take off which featured knights known as Sir Rhosis of Liver and Sir Loin of Beef. There may have been more; it was one of the first puns that I actively grasped, being around nine or ten when I saw the cartoon for the first time.
The sig, if anyone cares, is from a line in “The Real Life,” a song by John Mellencamp:
“Something happens when you reach a certain age
Particularly to those ones that are young at heart
It’s a lonely proposition when you realize
That there’s less days in front of the horse
Than riding in the back of this cart”
Sir
Mine is take from a character in a Mercedes Lackey novel.
Is that the Winds trilogy? I have that…I read the first one and half of the second one…(I read so many books at one time it’s impossible to finish a lot of them.)
Mine’s a pun on Snoop Doggy Dog. Most people don’t catch it, though.
When i came to college, i was just plain old Nicole. but then one day, completely out of the blue, and the fact that i was doing bird calls and drawing a picture of a bird, one girl started calling me Birdie. and it stuck, because everyone said, hey, y’know, you look like a Birdie. i hope that’s a good thing…
<3 Birdie, the girl formerly known as Nicole
Siochain
Gaelic for Peace
Just thought it was appropriately ironic when I started using it back in the days of original Quake fragging fun.
I’ve also used Narxic, Betrayer, and WAY back (early 80’s) went by Dracula 
Not original, I know. But hey, I was YOUNG
Tengu are half-man-half-bird creatures from Japanese myth. Except, not always. Sometimes they’re ‘Yamabushi’ - long nosed mountain priests.
This leads to them often being considered shape changers.
They’re tricksters. They can be outright cruel, or kind of nice, depending on thier moods.
They’re exceptional martial artists.
All in all they’re really cool.
I also use, on IRC, when I can’t get Tengu, Tanuki. They’re also shape-changers in Japanese myth, but they’re real creatures. Canids that look kind of like Raccoons…thus they’re sometimes called Raccoon Dogs.
If I can’t get Tanuki, either, I move on to Torin, a Role Play character of mine.
I’m also interested in Kitsune, yet another Japanese shape-changer! Foxes, this time. I don’t use that as a name, however, as the Kitsune are invariably feminine (Even the boy-Kitsune.), and I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. (Hell, even with Torin and Tanuki
A friend of mine told me a joke and I didn’t get it… his reply… “Silly Rabbit”
It just stuck, I guess
ITAI! Forgot to finish my post!
AHEM - Even with Torin and Tanuki, which I think sound quite masculine (and if you’ve ever read a description of Tanuki, you’d think the same way on them) I get mistaken for a girl a lot more than I really care to. Imagine taking an actual feminine name!
In Russia, where my brother lived for a good while, it was popular during the “cold war” to name children after technological advances made by the state. “blastfurnace” was very popular, along with “nuclear reactor” and “spacestation”.
Also, I’m very shy and reserved IRL and I thought it was the opposite of my personality.
And “blast” sounds like a character from Flash Gordon, and how cool is that?
The sig line refers, of course, to the original Godzilla cartoon. I don’t really like Godzuki all that much, but I loved the theme song:
"Up from the depths,
30 stories high,
breathing fire,
(i don’t know the words)
GODZILLA! GODZILLA! GODZILLA!
and godzuuuuuuuuukkkiiiii."
I think anyone can see the pure brilliance in THAT.
Slack, as many of you also know, is a Subgenius concept. It is a notion of which I am quite fond, thus the prying from my cold, dead fingers part.
ps…
Well, I agree completely if you don’t include Haus der Luege which is their really best album.
One day I was hungry. I went to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard. All that was there was a box of crackers. 
Not really. Actually, it was the name of a cat that I no longer own.
Mr. Golf is alive and kicking although the only time I get to see him is when the sun has gone down or its raining. Hence “GolfWidow.”
BTW, I’m only 35, so its really sad to be a “widow.”
beagledave
** Ashley Tarquin **
Ashtar
It’s a nice, convenient abbreviation. It reminds me of something a Unix programmer would do. Or maybe not. A Unix programmer would probably abbreviate it to ‘at’. lowercase.
My mind is wandering…
Hmmm… I take it everyone is finally clear about where my username was derived?