# What is the origin of your SDMB screen name?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 2, 2024, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131 "2024-08-02T02:17:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/21 "2024-08-02T03:21:07Z")
Drunken bet many years ago while I was still a Moderator.
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### Author:  [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/22 "2024-08-02T03:27:26Z")
Kitap is Turkish for book. It’s short and I am a bookworm plus I took 4 semesters of Turkish in college. I used it at the old snopes message board, then decided to keep it when I moved over here.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/23 "2024-08-02T03:27:29Z")
Had a very smart house cat named Dallas. She died after about 22 years. Jones, because she had no last name and I didn’t want to use Dallas Smith.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/24 "2024-08-02T03:31:30Z")
_Seilenos (Silenus) was depicted as a jovial old man, hairy and balding, with a pot-belly, snub-nose, and the ears and tail of an ass. He rode in the train of Dionysos seated on the back of a donkey._
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/25 "2024-08-02T03:32:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I happened to be reading a collection of _Little Nemo in Slumberland_ strips the week I picked this screen name.
I had recently seen an exhibition of William Hogarth prints when I picked my board name.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/26 "2024-08-02T03:34:36Z")
I coach high school track and cross-country.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/27 "2024-08-02T03:36:29Z")
Now I want to invent a reason.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/28 "2024-08-02T03:39:43Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#):
>
> It’s my actual initials/lastname
Yep, I thought that was how it was done. Kay (Keith) Aker at your service.
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### Author:  [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/29 "2024-08-02T03:39:55Z")
I started out as Elf\_\_kin as Hot mail and on the snopes message board. I messed something up on snopes a loooonnnggg time ago. I thought I’d lost my screen name, but I probably just goofed up. So I changed to Sylvanz after Tolkeins’s Sylvan Elves. Hot mail suddenly decided I needed all sorts of info I didn’t have to log in so I dumped them. So I used it when I made an account here.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/30 "2024-08-02T03:45:31Z")
Two reasons, both of which were picked _specifically_ for SDMB after lurking for years/decade prior to Covid forcing me to come out to the board due to a _drastic_ lack of interaction during lockdown.
1. Parallel lines eventually meet hypothesis. Because so often as a lurker, I’d see arguments where both (or more) sides were arguing along the same rails, but would not bend, compromise, or acknowledge any points from the other. Threads hundreds of posts long, and only with curved space would they ever meet.
2. A humerous take on said theory, by Emo Phillips:
> I almost didn’t make it here. I made the mistake of driving. I’m on 2nd Avenue and I have to get 8th Avenue. And I thought. “What street to I take to get from 2nd to 8th?” Then I remembered Einstein postulating that parallel lines eventually meet. So they’re dredging the car right now.
Which also sometimes happens during said long, and drawn out arguments, where the whole thread ends up underwater. 🤣
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/31 "2024-08-02T03:46:09Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#):
>
> I love the smell.
When we return from vacation at the beach, my gf always sets aside some clothes that she doesn’t wash, which she uses like you would potpourri.
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/32 "2024-08-02T04:10:19Z")
My avatar is of one lonely, desolate, dark, gaseous rock.
But the name originates from the family property in the Riverina (south eastern Australia) called Thule, named figuratively like that dark rock from the Norse Ultima Thule, the end of the known world.
My parents property adjoined to the east (notionally the civilised side) hence … 🙃
When the Thule run was originally claimed in the early 1800s it was the triangular area formed between the Murray River and it’s anabranch the Edwards River, roughly 80 miles along each side. Making the property comparable in scale, though a little smaller, to Yellowstone NP. Following more than a century of subdivision it’s now less than 1% of that original squatters claim but self-delusion is a powerful thing.
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### Author:  [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/33 "2024-08-02T04:21:08Z")
Despite early dreams of being a globetrotter, I’ve barely left the U.S. at all. And I’ve lived in only three states: NY, VA and AK.
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### Author:  [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/34 "2024-08-02T04:23:06Z")
It’s so stupid…
Years ago, I huffed off from another messageboard because I got my widdle feelings hurt. Some time after I’d done that, a friend of mine referred to me there and a newbie asked, “Who’s that?” He told her, “She’s an internet legend who used to be a moderator here.” When I (inevitably) went back, around the same time I first joined the SDMB, I adopted that as my definitely ironic username in both places, explaining that I’m an internet legend in the same way a story about alligators in the sewer is an urban legend.
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### Author:  [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/35 "2024-08-02T04:25:27Z")
Short for The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man, from “Supper’s Ready” by Genesis.
When I signed up, I went with the abbreviation because I didn’t want to have to type all that in whenever I logged in. If I’d known that I would stay logged in for years on end, I would have went with the full name. But since the move to Discourse, I’m glad I didn’t. It would be really ugly with all the underscores.
My avatar goes along with my username. That’s Peter Gabriel wearing a crown of thorns, performing “Supper’s Ready.”
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### Author:  [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/36 "2024-08-02T04:25:30Z")
Shortened version of a character’s name from a (likely terrible) fantasy novel I was trying to write in high school.
It’s now been my _nom de internet_ for so long that there are more people who regularly refer to me IRL as “Kron” than my given name…
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### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/37 "2024-08-02T04:47:30Z")
At my work at the time, user names could be up to eight letters long with no spaces or punctuation. I had just started reading **Atlas Shrugged** at the same time I needed a user name. So the first line _Who is John Galt?_ gave me the name.
I later finished the book, came to hate it and John Galt’s long, boring speech. But I’ve never changed the name.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/38 "2024-08-02T04:54:50Z")
I play the spoons. Musically, that is; they go nicely with traditional folk tunes: Appalachian, Bluegrass, Maritime, British Isles, and so on. Yes, I’ve appeared on stage with various bands. Mostly pub bands, but also with a few big names in those genres.
I’ve played spoons for decades, and was known as “Spoons” long before signing up here. So when I signed up here, what better username to use than the one I’ve been known by for years?
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/39 "2024-08-02T05:17:39Z")
Mine’s pretty self-explanatory.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2024, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-origin-of-your-sdmb-screen-name/1005131/40 "2024-08-02T05:20:20Z")
Watch the 1932 version of the movie The Old Dark House, you will see the character Roderick Femm in one scene. He is the very old and ill patriarch of the nutty family that owns the house (actually Sir Roderick, but I thought that was too much). The part was actually played by a woman actor who was in the credits with a male name. All of this I thought was suitably queer for a screen name. Anyway, watch the movie, it has a great cast – Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas, Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger, and Charles Laughton – and it’s only 71 minutes long. It is an archetype.
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