I heard of Frank Zappa’s kids’ names and thought “Dweezil”??? That’s an awful name for a real person. But it’s a terrific pre-birth name for a fetus".
Then kid #2 was, naturally, Moon Unit. Both kids even had the courtesy to be of the appropriate genders.
So then when I started hanging at the SDMB, I took my name from their nicknames (kids are Moon Unit and Dweezil, so I must be their mama, right?).
I actually have never really listened to Frank Zappa’s music. I should remedy that.
Well, I totally guessed that wrong. I thought it had something to do with this:
http://www.unclebrutha.com/
It’s a product that’s based in the DC metro area, and for some reason I thought you were also DC-metro and had taken the name from the product. :smack:
Back on the RIME network, (yes, I am Olde) I went in search of Gaeilgoirs (people who speak the Irish language, Gaeilge). I ran into a great many of what we term the “Lucky-charms” Irish. It was very fashionable to claim one’s Irish roots back then, and so I got back a lot of “Oh, My Mother’s Grandmother’s sister married an Irish guy, and they just speak English over there, Gaelic is a dead language.” Grrrrrrrrrrr.
So, yeah, after a particularly scathing rant, someone nicknamed me “The One True Celt” to which I applied some humility, shortened, and then adopted.
You were angry a lot? 
Elendil was a great king in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. I’d be proud to be his descendant, if he’d actually existed.
Heh. Some high school buddies dubbed me Word Man when they realized I was the go-to guy for questions about grammar, spelling or derivation. It was like I was a superhero with very limited powers!
I’m pretty sure I’ve told this one before, but here’s my user name story. My last name is one of those intimidating-looking German things, and some friends in college shortened it to “Shoe”. (One college buddy took the opposite approach and turned it into a dozen-syllable even-more-unpronounceable monstrosity, but that’s another story.) One job that I worked during college had a softball team that I played on, and this was around the time that “Field Of Dreams” was originally released, so a teammate of mine decided to start calling me “Shoeless”, after Shoeless Joe Jackson. The nickname itself never really stuck but I used it for one of my first email addresses and it was my first choice when I signed up for the SDMB.
WOOKINPANUB I snorted aloud at that explanation - Nub it!
I was on a board where any profanity was discouraged (I’m so glad I found home here). To make a point about both being annoyed with someone; and the ridiculousness of adults unable to lob the odd hell or dammit - I said “what the heckity do you mean by that?” It kind of stuck.
To further fan the flames of my ire - those members thought it was “cute”. sigh
I had a fascination with exotic sounding history figures as a youngster and names like Tamerlane, Kublai Khan and Prestor John resonated with me for that reason, long before I started studying history seriously and was all that familiar with who exactly they were. So Tamerlane was a natural handle, though I’ve used others at times.
Cal Meacham is the name of the hero in a series of stories by Raymond F. Jones, beginning with "The Alien Machine. He later joined them together to make the novel This Island Earth. This was turned into a disappointing movie of the same name in 1955 (Two Years in the Making! screamed the ads). The movie featured the tall, dark, handsome, deep-voiced, and improbably aptly-named Rex Reason as hero scientist (and jet- and prop-plane pilot) Cal Meacham.
What can I say? Although I’m a scientist and engineer, I’m not tall, not that dark, not that handsome, and can’t fly any kind of plane. Obviously magical thinking, hoping that some of his glamour will rub off on me.
When I attended my first DopeFest, one of the other attendees made up name badges in what they thought were appropriate lettering. Apparently mistaking my cognomen for Cal Ripken, or knowing no other associations, they made my name badge in baseball-style lettering. “Cal Meacham” isn’t all that well known. (Although, if I google it, I find that other people have used it as a Board Name on other Boards)
Yeah - similar here; and since I am okay with the name it is fine. I haven’t added to the “what are your nicknames” thread that this thread spawned, but similar to your friends seeing you as the go-to guy for grammar, I get called a few other things like “Rainman” and “Idiot Savant” because of my ability to spout a seemingly endless stream of meaningless trivia at the drop of a hat…lord knows, those nick’s certainly are NOT derived from being introverted or socially low-key…
I like usernames where the changing of just a letter or two, or maybe a single phonetic sound, creates something amusing out of something majestic or pompous or scary or portentious. (The various incarnations of “Dorkness” are good examples.) At some point I noticed that “past” just needed one more letter to become “pasta”, so from there it was a quick step to my name. A haunted past is something dark and mysterious; haunted pasta is just a ridiculous concept, sort of like a stealth potato.
Not long after signing on a few months ago, I followed a link in a thread to a website of spooky short stories called Creepy Pasta. Apparently someone else had the same idea. I want to go on record as saying that I thought of my name independently and did NOT take it from the people at www.creepypasta.com. Those bastards.
I’m pleased to report that I knew the sources for WOOKINPANUB and Crotalus. All the rest are new and interesting to me.
Yep, but I don’t remember why. I definitely had an attitude about the world.
Is colibri the common name used for hummingbird?
I ask this because I was surprised to hear that the Spanish word for hummingbird is so different from the Portuguese beija-flor—then I looked up colibri in a Portuguese dictionary and found that it is also a Portuguese word, though I never heard a Brazilian call a hummingbird that.
My name reflects my Hockey prowess - didn’t start playing until later in life, never have got the knack for being all that smooth or skilled of a player, but I am big and slow, so the name sticks.
I’m a tournament chess player and formerly a chess coach. Chessic is an adjective meaning “of or like chess”. A strategic gem like “maintain the tension” could be called a chessic idea. When you play for a long time, certain moves just seem natural and obvious. You’re not sure exactly what will happen next, but certain moves just feel correct. When you’re in a tough position, and you’re thinking really hard but nothing comes to mind, sometimes you just have to go with your gut and trust your chessic sense
Mine is simply a descriptor…
It’s what my parents call me. It means the baby for those of you not fluent in Spanish. I’m 30 by the way and not an only child.
I was always one of those Rush geeks.
I hate that some think I’m talking about Rush Limbaugh.
If I was going to name myself after a film character then it would have been from the movie My Name is Nobody
First part is my given name, and I have an INQuiring MIND.