(Not sure if here or GQ or someplace is is the best place for this, mods can move if they want)
I’m sure there’s been a thread on this, but I couldn’t find one, nonetheless this could be very helpful for those new to the board such as myself.
Almost everyone here uses a username that, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t related to their real name at all. (I of course, being an odd man out, as my username is merely my first and middle initials, followed by my last name). I’m wondering what is the story behind your user name, and why did you choose it? (There’s several interesting sounding ones out there I’m dying to know about!)
Well, mine is boring, but just to get things started:
In August 2003 I had just relocated, was miserable, and lonely. So I bought The Sims Online (TSO).
I created my first character, and having no idea what cool names were, I decided I wanted something that pointed out that I loved music. So I named my character Melody Harmonius.
Of course, I spelled “harmonius” wrong at first - but since you couldn’t edit names and I didn’t want to delete my character and start over, it stayed that way.
Soon I created an email account for it, and used it on message boards, and it just morphed from there.
I haven’t played TSO for like 4 years (I am a World of Warcraft player, if anything) but since most of my online friends are just used to calling me Mel - I’ve never bothered to change it. Now I usually always call myself some version of that - even in WoW, my character is Melodyn.
I went to UIUC to do a PhD in History (which I didn’t finish, but hey). I spent a good deal of time in lit. and anth. reading groups and such. When referring to me, people would often say “Stu, you know, the history guy”. When my old email got spam-ridden, I seized on the phrase as something that no one else would call themselves. I’ve since used it as a username in multiple groups and forums.
I have a holiday home in southern Italy, near a town called San Vito Dei Normannii. Next year I’m selling the house, so the hinted glamour in the name will be rather faded.
I’m a musician, and while I play and teach all styles, my first love is bluegrass and old-time Americana. In those styles players are often referred to as pickers. Plus it’s available as a username most everywhere except specific bluegrass and instrumental websites.
Mine’s not terribly interesting. My current alias is simply a name I chose back around 1998 under which I wanted to write my music. However, it was taken as a band name (multiple times, I might add, by bands in the US and Ireland, plus a song by Prodigy, though I didn’t know that at the time) so I ended up going with a different band name instead. I kept this one as an alias instead.
I’m only Epimetheus on this board. I thought I was being clever by picking a gods name, since intellectually this board could be said to contain gods. Anyway, I’m not nearly as intelligent (probably on any scale) as many of the users on this board so I thought I’d poke fun at myself a bit with the name.
For those unaware, Epimetheus means “hindsight” and was depicted as being foolish. Seemed to fit somebody that had the foresight to know that he would be wrong more often than not, and would probably not be able to run with the big dogs.
And the worst part about it? Since I’m loooking foolish for not finding a fairly recent thread, and I’m lacking hindsight because of this … I can’t even use the name Epimetheus because it’s taken!
I like C S Lewis. “Malacandra” is from Out of the Silent Planet and is both the Martians’ own name for their planet and the personal name of the oyarsa or archangel who runs the place. (The other Martians just call him Oyarsa as he is the only one there, but every other planet also has an oyarsa of its own.) It wasn’t my first choice - elsewhere I have called myself Diogenes, but that was already taken; since registering here I have used Malacandra on several other fora too, but I am not the only one out there.
