I’m just looking at some of the names on here… a few i can make out but most… well… most dont make any sence at all.
Take mine for example: My name on here is Upham. Why? because my name is Upham, it was my nickname all through high school andnow i seldom answer to anything but. My friends parents call me Upham, even some of my Upham relitives call me Upham.
So i call my self Upham. Now how the rest of you are going to explane your selves i have no idea
Upham
My handle Jomo Mojo is composed of the first syllable from each of my first & last names (even neater 'cause my mom’s maiden name starts with the same syllable as my dad’s last name!). Reduplicated in reverse. I have been using it since my college days. It honors my interest in things African: Jomo Kenyatta the hero of independence, and Mojo the magical-mystical life-force. I first came up with it when one night in 1980 I toked up and wrote a short story of speculative fiction, a little Weird Tale, and then for the byline it just appeared to me on a flaming pie, Your Name Is Jomo Mojo. Eureka! I submitted it to the Forest Park Food Co-op Newsletter, and they published it!
My old moniker, switched at the turn of the millennium, was ishmintingas – that’s Lithuanian for ‘wise guy’.
I love clever handles, despite not coming up with one myself. I feel smart when I can pull out an obscure reference, and lord knows I have few enough opportunities to feel smart.
Here’s some explanations to get you started:
Bumbazine was a boy in early comic books written by Walt Kelly. He was dropped as a character when Kelly started his Pogo comic strip, because according to Kelly “as a human he was somehow less believable.” Pogo went on to become arguably the greatest comic strip of all time.
Yojimbo was an Akira Kurasawa film, which was later remade into Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood, and even later into Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis.
Scylla was a female sea monster that figured prominently in Greek mythology. She is often paired with the Charybdis, a nearby whirlpool. Together they made the Strait of Messina pretty rough going. Being caught between Scylla and the Charybdis has roughly the same meaning as being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Despite your explanation, I still don’t really understand your handle. Is Upham your name or your nickname? If it’s your nickname, how did you come by it?
Mine comes from a Metallica song and the constellation Orion cause I like Metallica and astronomy. The numbers, of course, represent James Bond, cause he’s the man
Mine simply means “holly” (in Cymraeg/Welsh, tho’ I’m not Welsh.) There is no real story, and, having cut my right index finger (all for the sake of the damn cat!) I wouldn’t be able to type it if there were. (I can, however, share with you my great scientific discovery, namely that Rizla papers are useful substitutes for sticking plaster. So if I turn into something like Rizlaplast, you will all know why.)
Just to clear things up. Upham is my last name. Back in highschool many of us went by our last names and though many would flip flop back and forth between their first and last name, i’m pretty well universally known as Upham (it just suits me really well, it’s a weird name, i’m a weird guy)
SN: For the past year and a half, and some other non-consecutive semesters before that, I’ve worked at The State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University.
enc: I was Editor in Chief for the past year, which is said as Editor 'n Chief, abbreviated as enc. My term is up though, but the handle isn’t changing until I’m either away for a long time or established enough to where I can get away with such a thing.
punha – all this time I thought it was a word in Portuguese! You had me searching online Portuguese dictionaries. It means ‘placed, put’. The past tense of por ‘to place, to put’. It also means something in Marathi.