My name. Short for Victoria.
Mine is from a character in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary. Der Trihs wore red ( he retired ) and tended to get shot, chopped or blown up a lot. His name is Red Shirt backwards, which of course refers to the notoriously casualty prone redshirts of the original Star Trek series.
I have absolutely zero artistic ability but really good with math and science. Discovery channel ran a show on alien hand syndrome, one of my friends in school referenced it saying my right side brain must not be attached and the name stuck.
If it’s any consolation (although I don’t know why it should be!), Kurtz Street is part of the route I take home from the grocery store. It is rare that I do not turn onto the street and think to myself, “Mr. Kurtz…he dead.” Oh, dang! You said you never finished the book! :smack: Well, now you don’t need to. 
As for me, as I have related in past threads on this topic, way back in the Chatty Cathy era (I’m in the “Get off my lawn, you damn kids!” group), I had a Casper the Friendly Ghost talking doll. You pulled the string, and he said various phrases from the cartoon show. From the day he came out of the box, one of the phrases was garbled. Instead of, “I’m a FRIEND-ly ghost,” said in a sing-song voice, he said something that sounded to my sisters and me like, “I’m a FRECK a free.”
So, I dunno. I just like the way it sounds. It has served as a username for me in various online communities.
As does mine, you fellow foolish person you. 
As in: behind the facade of every wise man is a fool dying to get out, and vice versa. Essentially it expresses my deep suspicion of labels and other such artificial & oversimplifying dualities (note the “di” part), as well as referencing a certain graphic novel…
Well, gee… I was trying for funny rather than cold, but maybe I missed the mark. Sorry Nori.
My own tale is more complex than entertaining. On a sports forum my handle was Hal Boutham, a pun on the common fan question, “How 'bout them Mets?” (Or Jets, Bulls, Packers, whatever.) It’s a phrase I like, both a question and a comment. The most basic of sports remarks.
Once during a discussion with another fan I felt the argument was repeating itself and posted my final response as Baal Houtham. An inversion of Hal Boutham and a slight pun on bailing out.
There was no rule on the board against multiple handles, and thereafter I’d switch between the two names. On SDMB Baal seemed more appropriate than Hal. (There was already a Hal here.)
Posted before, but since you ask:
The archetypal “old dark house” movie is called “The Old Dark House” (1932, believe). Roderick Femm is the ancient patriarch of the very disturbing Femm family, owners of said dark house. In this version, the part was actually played by a woman.
So I like the name for two reasons: implied androgyny for those in on this very obscure trivia fact; and further androgyny implied by the pronunciation of the family name.
Note: I really was drawn to the way that Ernst Thesiger introduced his character in the movie, “My name is Horace Femmmmmmmm.” And he is a lovely poncy git to boot. But I dislike the name Horace, so I picked papa Roderick instead.
Roddy
My favourite Peruvian dish (though it’s mostly done with chicken rather than hens)
I like hamsters. They have a quiet dignity about them. They’re good at keeping to themselves without being rude about it.
And I liked the image of being the ruler of a very small domain. So not king of everything, just king of the hamsters. It’s a combination of being very important and utterly trivial at the same time.
This is my umpteenth time posting this answer over the years, but I always go for these threads, because I’m curious what’s up with so many other enigmatic usernames. I took mine from Bob Dylan’s 1966 song “Visions of Johanna.” (And I pronounce it like Dylan does in that song: /dʒoʊˈhænə/.) For a while I was going to make it my real name IRL, but ultimately went with another one instead.
I was having really severe kidney pain the day I joined SDMB. Seemed like an appropriate name.
My kidney pain has since subsided, BTW.
Dude, you just sent me off on a 45 min trek of Eddie Izzard clips. Now I want to change my user name to Death Star Cantina
Mine is also a nickname from high school. My PE teacher told me I was so skinny I was just a rack of bones. Eventually it became just “bones” which kind of a cool nickname to have in high school. My PE teacher still calls me Bones. (I graduated in 1989.)
I used to play the bone.
I was born in Sandy Hook, Kentucky.
I have one name I tend to use everywhere, as it’s never taken. On one site I did something really embarrassing, and people took a long time to get over it. Changing my name seemed to help. I needed a name that I would immediately associate with myself, and BigT is something I’m called in real life, because I’m big, and my names starts with a T.
That establishes the name, but why did I use it here? I was linked to this board from another board and didn’t want everyone there to know I was here, so I decided it was best to use the new name. And it helped me get used to typing it.
When I first read this I got up in arms and huffy: How dare you make penis jokes about my user name… … Oh. :smack:
I’m a Canadian born New Zealander.
My hobbies are cooking, jazz guitar, and photography. When I signed up, cooking was the one that I had the most time for, so I wanted something related to cooking. I literally cook with gas, wouldn’t have it any other way, and it’s a sort of charming (IMHO) expression that predates me. Today I would have a different name, since I play guitar much more than I cook.
Mind if I call you Half Diminished for short? 
No secret – I was, at one time, a professional trickster (puzzle editor) – no longer a pro, but still reasonably tricky. Plus a Looney Tunes fan. I’m always twickster or have “twicks” in my username in some way.