# What's the meaning of, or why did you choose, your Doper name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 9, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958 "2004-08-09T01:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/21 "2004-08-09T03:11:29Z")
I work in a machine shop IRL, and spend most of my time there working on an industrial mill. Hence, Miller. When I was trying to think up a SN, I also happened to be reading _The Canterbury Tales_, and particularly enjoyed “The Miller’s Tale,” so there was some synchronicity there, too. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/22 "2004-08-09T03:23:47Z")
_Originally plural (Sileni), but later mentioned as one_\* Silenus\*\*, faithful companion of the wine-god Dionysus. A notorious consumer of wine, he is usually totally drunk and is supported by satyrs or carried by a donkey. He has much wisdom and if captured by mortals he can reveal important secrets. Silenus is usually portrayed as a plump jovial old man with a long beard and stump nose, bald and with a horse’s tail. \* My wife’s name is the female for of Dionysus. My beard is short, though. And as my wife often has occasion to note…“You may not have a horse’s tail, but you certainly are a horse’s ass!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/23 "2004-08-09T03:47:17Z")
Mine’s related to the work I was doing back when I first joined up, with NEC in their submarine cable division. Undersea -\> sub-, fibre optics -\> -light. I use the same name pretty much everywhere I go on the net. Of course, I changed jobs less than a month after that, rendering my name irrelevant, but that’s the way it goes. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/24 "2004-08-09T04:09:12Z")
I don’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/25 "2004-08-09T04:15:59Z")
I think I was in the old thread. _Krokodil_ was the name of a popular humor magazine in the Soviet Union. Supposedly, Lenin was an editor of it at one point. ---
**Author:** ![misstee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@misstee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misstee)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/26 "2004-08-09T04:29:12Z")
My user name is my real name, just spelled a little different. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cockatiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cockatiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cockatiel)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/27 "2004-08-09T04:32:33Z")
Well, I love birds. And I have two cockatiels. That might be why. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/28 "2004-08-09T04:42:44Z")
Zev is a word that comes from the ancient Aramaic. When taken in it’s past-perfect infinative form, it has the root meaning “to blave,” which we all know means to bluff. However, when it is not capitalized (as in my username), it takes on a meaning in the Hindi-Mongolian dialect of Urdu where the word “zev” means "one who spouts a lot of hot air as a balloon which rises up over the earth. Steinhardt is from an Asiatic-Austrailian derivate of Latin. “Stei” is an imperative form of the verb “Stui-” meaning “to get one’s fingers caught in a meatgrinder.” “Nha” is a common slang expression for guano and “rdt” is a suffix usually meaning “chowderhead” or “nincompoop,” but when the word is preceeded by an underscore (as in my username) it then takes on the meaning of the New Zealand strain of Latin where “rdt” means “one who gets another finger stuck in a meatgrinder.” Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/29 "2004-08-09T04:50:13Z")
I was trying to come up with a user name based on a favorite song. I had settled on “Kitchen Blue” by David Wilcox. As I was typing it one day, my then-new kitten kept jumping up and walking across the keyboard. As I’m telling her to “get down, kitten” I’m trying to type kitchen, but typed kitten instead. And liked it better. ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/30 "2004-08-09T04:56:17Z")
A knockoff from my screen name Flamingpenguins. I liked the ‘flaming’ thing, and I think I was eating a banana at the time. Hence, flamingbananas. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/31 "2004-08-09T05:01:10Z")
I chose this because it’s the same as my yahoo ID, which of course explains nothing of its origin. I chose the yahoo ID because it’s about as close as I could get to my old usenet sig “electrical engineer, computer geek (er, programmer) and no talent bum musician”, which I think sums me up about as well as a one line sig can. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/32 "2004-08-09T05:05:59Z")
It’s not very clever, I’m sorry to say. Ruby is my favorite gemstone. Red is my favorite color. OK, it seemed good at the time! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/33 "2004-08-09T05:15:35Z")
My username is the name of the protagonist from the Thorne Smith novel _The Night Life of the Gods_. He’s an antisocial bastard who likes alcohol and the Kai Lung stories by Ernest Bramah, so it was an obvious match. Unlike the Hunter Hawk of the book, however, I have so far been completely unable to pick up hot mythological chicks. Truth be told, I’m not all that fond of the name, but I haven’t come up with anything that really strikes my fancy. ---
**Author:** ![Maxxxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f14d63/32.png) [@Maxxxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maxxxie)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/34 "2004-08-09T05:21:10Z")
I really like the name Maxine. I first heard it in “Maxine”, a song by Sharon O’Neill. The line, “Maxine… you’re not the only one… to take the whole world on…” really appeals to me. I identify with it. So, Maxine was my screen name of choice, until some other bastard on IRC was already using it. Hence I became Maxine2. Many eons later, all my friends would call me Max, short for Maxine. Except my volleyball mates, who would holler “Maxxxxxiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeee!!” from three courts over. I decided to go with Maxxxie as my nick. And for those who care, it’s with three X’s, because I’m triple-X rated, baby! 😉 Max 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Emperor\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Emperor\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emperor_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/35 "2004-08-09T05:26:50Z")
I got mine, not from the bird, but from the title a **Tragically Hip** song, which happens to mention the bird. My first pick, **Bobcaygeon** , was taken. Again, another **Hip** song. Yes I am I fan. My old nick **Corvus** , was taken after a bird though, _Corvus Corax_, or as you may know it, the Raven. They are just really cool birds. Smart as the dickens, and a bit of an underdog character. Most people don’t like crows or ravens. I think they’re pretty dang charming though. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/36 "2004-08-09T06:02:33Z")
Mine comes from the name of a character in the book The Neverending Story, a book that I loved when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/37 "2004-08-09T06:11:27Z")
I was born in May. Disappointingly simple, I suppose! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/38 "2004-08-09T06:26:15Z")
> [@C3](#): > > Huh, I’d wondered where you went. “Joel” always drew my attention because it’s my brother’s name. Wow, somebody else with that name, cool. Yet, another example of how my name is becoming [more and more common](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268798) > [@](#): > > I’m C3 because those are my initials…C.C.C. Pretty boring, I know. I don’t know, having all three names start with the same letter seems kind of cool to me. If my grandmother on my mother’s side went by her maiden name, her intials would be M.M.M. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/39 "2004-08-09T06:36:39Z")
Gouda and Edamer used to be my favourite species of cheese. Until I discovered _aged_ gouda. Edamer was thereafter relegated to a slightly distant second. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/40 "2004-08-09T06:43:28Z")
> [@Atreyu](#): > > Mine comes from the name of a character in the book The Neverending Story, a book that I loved when I was a kid. So, did the [band](http://www.atreyurock.com/) steal their name from you or the movie? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958.md?page=3)