# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/161 "2004-08-18T04:32:56Z")
My username comes from my initals, A.F. “Foxtrot” is the International Phonetic Alphabet letter for F. “Agent” added intrigue – sort of a 007 or X-Files type of feel to the name. I dunno, I like it. 😃 Adam ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/162 "2004-08-18T19:43:37Z")
Boring. IRL I am a veterinarian whose last name is Bridge. I’ve been using this name for a loooong time. ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/163 "2004-08-18T21:00:58Z")
Like many, mine is deadly boring. It’s simply the Irish version of my ‘real’ first name, Joseph. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/164 "2004-08-19T18:22:36Z")
When I was a kid, one of my good friends was a huge Patrick Ewing fan (the Georgetown/NY Knicks basketball player). On one of Patrick’s early posters, his autograph looks more like “Pashnish Ewing”. So we always refered to Patrick as Pashnish. I wanted an original screen name, and there you have it. I think I’m the only Pashnish out there (my friend has since passed away). Certanly the only Pashnish Ewing. Pash ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2004, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/165 "2004-08-19T23:05:08Z")
Funny, I hardly interact with any of you! Guess that explains why I’m so late posting here… not that interested. Anyway, ever since I was 12 my nickname has been ‘Snake’ because I usta keep snakes for pets. I used to be able to pick up wild snakes and they wouldn’t bite me, but if other people picked them up, they’d get bit. So I got called “Snake.” Some doper was here before me and took that name, though, so I couldn’t get it. I tried modifying it with other things I’m interested in, numbers, different spellings, etc., and SnakeSpirit was the first thing that stuck. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/166 "2004-10-01T05:26:07Z")
When I bought my first steam-powered computer, I needed a name to log on to AOL. Being very dull and boring, I chose a shortened version of my real names. Have I read Mark Twain? Yep. Got all the works. Wish I could think/write like that. ---
**Author:** ![Headspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8491ac/32.png) [@Headspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Headspace)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/167 "2004-10-01T06:34:29Z")
I really wanted to use my favourite name of all time - “TheNonexistentHalfofErictheHalfabee” after the obvious MP song (“Housinge? Well, that’s how it was spelled on the van…” etc) but it wasn’t accepted Headspace came a distant second and I can’t really remember why I chose it - except it links well with my sig. Have asked mods to change from headspace but received no reply… any chance guys??? ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/168 "2004-10-01T07:14:46Z")
When I was president of our ski club back in high school, I arranged a 5 day trip to Mammoth Mountain, CA. On the first day of skiing, there with all of my ski clubbers, it was also the first time that I had started to ski again after my knee surgery 3 years earlier. I was quite hesitant at first about re-injuring my knee so sometimes I trudged through certain steep areas of the mountain to avoid the deep moguls that sometimes had formed from skiers on previous days. It had already started to snow heavily on that first day and the visibility was about 50 feet. My friends were just below me, watching me (6’3", 200+ lbs.) emerge from the blinding snow, trudging past some killer moguls and then one of them screamed…“OH MY GOD, IT’S THE YETI!” It stuck quite well. That nickname has stuck for the last 25 years…as time wore on, I was also called the “King of the Yetis” subsequently…but I discovered that the Latin form had special ring to it…(I know it sounds similar to “Oedipus Rex”, but with less ickyness attached to it), so I’ve used **Yeticus Rex** as a handle since the mid-80’s in college. I’ve worn it quite well… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/169 "2004-10-01T12:30:56Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > …a lotta stuff… That’s a really long way of saying “My Mom gave it to me”. 😉 Mine is pretty simple. I have red hair, and at the time I registered, I lived in the Northwest Territories in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![My\_Darn\_Snake\_Legs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f14d63/32.png) [@My\_Darn\_Snake\_Legs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/My_Darn_Snake_Legs)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/170 "2004-10-01T15:58:47Z")
I’ve posted this before, but I think this thread is far more recent. I think I’m the only Doper who took his name from graffiti. Yep. Illicit wall art. There was this overpass that I drove through every day when I went home and for about a month there was this picture spray-painted there of a guy with wiggly legs holding up a sign that said: “My Darn Snake Legs.” This cracked me up every day and my my life brighter every afternoon. Of course, when I went back to get a picture of it with my camera, it had been painted over. :mad: Anyway, that’s the story of My Darn Snake Legs. ---
**Author:** ![Bin-Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@Bin-Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bin-Gay)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/171 "2004-10-01T21:03:07Z")
I think my name says it all. I was a card-carrying member of the lesbian community for 25 years! Then I fell in love with a man :eek: Does that mean I have to give the toaster oven back? 😃 He also got me started on the SDMB. My, how my world has changed!! ---
**Author:** ![Chotii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Chotii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chotii)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/172 "2004-10-01T21:12:10Z")
In about 1991 I worked for a company called WinEstimator (they’re still around). They were a startup then, and the boss-man wasn’t very good at keeping me, the secretary/receptionist, busy. So I read a lot of construction magazines. Well, one of them had a story about a lake in South Africa called Lake Chotiari (‘Lake’ in Afrikaans apparently is ‘chott’?) which was going to be drained, and of course the article was about the engineering behind this feat. I loved the name and used it for a RPG character on the text-based AmberMUSH game (based on the Zelazny Amber series, plug plug). I also used it as my user name on TooMUSH, but shortened to ‘Choti’. TooMUSH had ‘theme name days’ so some days I was ‘Chotiarius’ (dinosaur day) and ‘Chotii’ (plural day) etc. It stuck. I pronounce it ‘CHO-tee-aye’. It turns out that the word ‘chotii’ is a real word - in Hindi. It means ‘small’ or ‘little’, and it also refers to some kind of food made from garbanzo beans, which is ironic because I am 4’10" tall (though not made of garbanzo beans). But I didn’t know that then. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/173 "2004-10-03T03:44:04Z")
[A brief explanation of my handle.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105572&highlight=brief+explanation+handle) ---
**Author:** ![Shrinking\_Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/174 "2004-10-03T17:57:38Z")
Before coming here, my user names all over the Net had always been versions of my real name. But when I signed up here, I wanted to be a little more anonymous … because I just _knew_ I’d make a fool of myself in front of all you smart, intelligent people. 🙂 So, I tacked a reference to the fact I was losing weight at the time, onto my favourite colour. Voila! The fact that I’m also a “shrinking violet” IRL was pure coincidence. 😉 If I were signing up today, I’d probably have to be “Ballooning Teal”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nahuman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e68b1a/32.png) [@Nahuman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nahuman)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/175 "2004-10-03T20:07:57Z")
Allright. This one’s easy-peasy… First of all, **Nahuman** becomes **Nahu** **man**. Then you twirl **Nahu** to **Hanu** and get **Hanuman** , who _naturally_ is the god of monkeys. Where do monkeys come into this, you ask? Well, I was born in the year of the Monkey. Also, **Hanu** is very close to my real name so it all fits, right? Right. Then, getting back to **Nahuman** , it’s phonetically close to not human which just sounds _cool_, dontchaknow. 😃 OK, so it was just a tad tortured. ---
**Author:** ![PigBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@PigBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigBoy)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/176 "2004-10-03T21:50:01Z")
I am literally a pig. But seriously… several years ago I was playing canasta, I believe, with my cousin and sister, and I took the pile of cards and it was huge, so my cousin called me a “greedy pig boy.” The nickname stuck and I have since used Pig Boy for just about every online user name, and I even have real life friends who regularly address me as Pig Boy. Incidentally, during Cincinnati’s “Big Pig Gig” a couple years ago, there was a [Pig Boy](http://www.bigpiggig.com/pigs/pig_detail.php?id=228). Having already taken that nickname, I made sure to go see it. ---
**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:** [October 4, 2004, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/177 "2004-10-04T18:49:10Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > That’s a really long way of saying “My Mom gave it to me”. 😉 Well, yeah, if you want the _boring_ version 😃 Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/178 "2004-10-04T20:03:28Z")
I’d just like to say what a wonderful group of posters you have here and what a great job everyone here is doing. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/179 "2004-10-04T20:43:13Z")
This is a really interesting thread. Everyone’s so creative that it makes me want to change my name… but as I only get one, I will wait until something really creative presents itself! ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958/180 "2004-10-05T05:05:45Z")
[How the kfl got her name](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3038303&postcount=155). And if you’re really lucky, maybe someday I will tell you the story of how Mrs. kung fu, **Upside\_Down\_Amber** , got her name (and no, it’s not because her name is Amber and she walks on her hands). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-meaning-of-or-why-did-you-choose-your-doper-name/258958.md?page=10)