My nick comes from my reading of H.P. Lovecraft, and my actually looking at bylines every so often. In some stories, a man named August Derleth collaborated with Lovecraft. I like the ring of Derleth, how it kind of slithers off the tongue. One pet peeve related to my handle: Nobody spells it correctly! I’ve seen Derlith as being the most common misspelling, most probably because it’s a phonetic spelling. But come on, people! Derleth really isn’t that tough!
Thank God I’m not erlidh on here or we’d all be here until sunset.
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My very first personal email account was punha@hotmail.com. I got punha from my first stuffed animal Paddington, which I pronounced Punha.
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After being disgusted by the level of security on hotmail (2 years ago, I think) I switched to other SNs . . . none of them important. Finally I figured this was a waste of my time and switched to netscape webmail.
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I wanted to be punha@netscape.net, but that was already taken, so I did iampunha (I am punha) instead.
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I like to keep things simple, so whenever possible I use either erlidh or iampunha as my SN. Erlidh, however, is another story.
Well, if you read any of my GQ posts, you’ll probably figure out that I’m a relativist, and am specifically obsessed with time (my ultimate career goal is to either develop time travel, or prove definatively that it’s impossible). Chronos is the Greco-Roman personification of Time, and specifically a character in Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series. Connection is obvious.
T.G.I.F. is Greek for “Kill The Keg”.
Actually they used amphorae, but who’s going to fault them now?
If my screen name confuses you, try to lie down a while.
You’re not getting enough blood to the top.
More cynical? How could that happen, sweetie? 
Mine came from a character I created for an old Virtual BBS storyline back in 1996. I couldn’t think of anything strange, so Juliana it was.
You’d think I’d get some respect from my wife, but NOOOO! 
I thought my name was a character in a book by Italo Calvino… however, when I tried to prove this to a friend, I discovered that the name in one on the stories was Pamela… not quite the same is it… Anyway, I can’t belive I pulled it out of my ass or something because I’m not quite that clever, but very close though. 
Still trying to figure it out though…
It has nothing to do with my appearance, or how I shuffle around with a shopping cart down the sidewalk, muttering to myself.
I have a Web site called the Travelite FAQ, where I teach people how to travel with just one carry-on bag. I end up reviewing and recommending bags, hence my nick.
Palmyra: ever been to upstate New York? There’s a town named Palmyra not far from Rochester. See this map.
I got my screen name from an extremely homophobic friend of mine from high school. He had a really big hangup with accusing all his friends of being gay (we are all straight, as far as I know), and as a result he called me Mr. Feely. When I needed a handle for a BBS, I couldn’t think of anything else, so Mr. Feely it was, and I’ve used it ever since. Ironically, but not surprisingly, my friend came out as gay a couple years after I graduated.
Oh well.
I’m a big fan of the Kevin Smith movies (a really big fan). I also look, and not on purpose, a lot like the Silent Bob character from his movies. I look enough like him that if I dress in an outfit that he would where, you’d have to look at me for a long time to make sure it wasn’t him. The nickname actually started when I went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween showing (my first) with a friend. He went as Jay and I as Silent Bob.
The nickname also stuck because of the irony of it. I tend to be more like a polite version of Jay (though not quite that bad). What can I say, I like crackin wise. Thus, it was also hard to shut my mouth for that entire Halloween night. Later all.
Also, I use the nick on the net all the time. So I didn’t really check to see if anyone else had a similar name. Sorry for the confusion.
One day in Junior year of high school, some friends and were eating in McDonald’s after school and, as we got up to leave, I noticed an organizer on the floor. It had a HIP card in it belonging to Mr. Varlos Z. Brathwaite. I thought that was the coolest name I’d ever heard, and the name became something of an in-joke with my circle. I returned the organizer to Mr. Brathwaite in exchange for the use of his name as a pseudonym, in perpituity. (sp?)
I just got my registration working, so I thought this forum would be the perfect place for my first post.
Way back in college I was a dedicated subscriber to National Lampoon magazine. In one issue, there was an article suggesting names for rock bands (no doubt Dave Barry read this issue as well). One of the suggestions under the Country-Punk category was: Cowboy Bob and the Jackbatties. For some reason, this absolutely cracked me up. I’ve used the alias Jack Batty ever since (what is a jackbattie?).
P.S. - I have to say that WallyM7 is the reason I took a shine to this message board. Until recently I considered most message boards as havens for flame wars and dumb blond jokes. The first thing I read here was Wally’s cyber-sex rap; I haven’t stopped laughing and/or soiling myself since.
Jimpy > Jim P. > Jim Petty
This is obvious, but when a girl I liked but didn’t ***like ***started calling me this I resisted. However a girl I ***REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LIKED ***I took up the name, very, very quickly.
Officer Aeryn Sun is a character on Farscape. She’s beautiful, she kicks ass, she’s an atheist, and she gets to make out with Ben Browder. What more could a girl ask for?
I signed up for AOL when it started (who knew?) and have used Callina ever since. I have a distinctive real name (only 4 of us that I know of in the U.S.), but I wanted to hide from my students. So, I grabbed a book off the bookshelf and flipped it open. It so happens that I grabbed a Marion Zimmer Bradley novel about Darkover since, obviously, all of my fiction books are arranged alphabetical by author’s last name. From where I sit at the computer, I couldn’t reach the A’s and had to grab a book in the B’s. Callina was the first feminine name that I flipped to. Stuck to it all these years.
Mr. Feely, actually, after i posted, i started searching the net for clues, since i still couldn’t find the name in the damn book… I did find all those towns named Palmyra [NY, MN, PN, ME, and about 9 others, including Austrailia… i had no idea] It’s also an area in Syria that was once a VERY powerful state during Roman times… but i digress and bore the masses…
SO, i started flipping through my book again. Apparently i was remembering the wrong one of two stories… “Palmyra” was indeed a character in the book, albeit a small one, mentioned in flashback. The best thing is that i proved i wasn’t crazy to one of my friends, who thought i HAD pulled it out of my ass… BTW, the character i took my name from is a nun, Palmyra, who is kidnapped and taken to the middle east and sold into a harem, and renamed Azira. I didn’t have those details in memory when i chose the name.
ANYway, learning is fun, isn’t it children? Yes it is!
Back when I was registering with Bigfoot.com, I wanted an Astronomy moniker, but it seems every nerd with an Internet connection these days has become an amateur Astronomer (myself included). After poring over my starmap for hours, I finally came across the wonderful star Achernar (meaning “End of the River”) which is, unsurprisingly, the last and brightest star in the constellation Eridanus (meaning “River”). It’s one of the brightest stars in the sky, but because of our borealocentric world, and its close proximity to the South Celestial Pole, it’s largely overlooked. (I like to think that I’m liked that, bright but unappreciated, but whom am I kidding? :)) Put another way, you’d be hard-pressed ever to see Achernar from anywhere more North than Miami, and so, I never have, and fortunately, neither has most of the Internet population, because it’s usually free when I go to register for things like this Message Board. As an added bonus, I get placed at or near the top of alphabetical lists.
Well, my first name is Jay, and like a lot of Jays I was dubbed Jaybird practically at birth. It was a nickname I carried indifferently through most of my life. Recently, in my early twenties, Jaybird metamorphosized into Birdman (to the point where some people I know thought Birdman was actually my name). 12 was my uniform number on all the sports teams I ever played on, and eventually that also became something of an identifier. When I logged onto my first ISP, I discovered there was already a Birdman there, as well as a Birdman12, so I added my first initial J to the front of it.
In my younger days I was, how shall I put it…thinner, sexier, and quite egotistical. (not me, honestly)
My first AOL screen name(and still current one), was TheFab1. A short time later, my nick turned into God(with my family). Out of respect, I didn’t think “God” would be appropo, so rather than calling myself G_D, I changed it to GaWd. It’s been that way ever since.
You’ll also notice on my sig there’s an “ArchAngel”. THat’s my little bro. BTW, I also hung around with a guy named “Jesus” for a time
-Sam