usernames :: where do they come from?

[client32]

I thought I remembered a thread that covered why people used their usernames.  My feable attempts at a search provided me fruitless.

Was there such a thread here in the begining days of APS?  Do you know where it is?

If not, why did you choose the username you use?

[cosine]

It's the first thing that came into my head when I started registering for forums. Not very creative, I'm afraid.

[Marnoot]

I created mine out of thin-air back in the BBS days. I'd always choose a username and find someone else had already used it. To eliminate having multiple usernames among different BBS's, I finally decided to come up with my own that was unlikely to be duplicated by anyone else. Much to my surprise though, a recent Google search revealed that Marnoot is also a Thai surname.

[Brad Johnson]

Not sure where mine came from, I'll have to call Mom and ask.

Brad

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Mine is a fusion of the two I use elsewhere on the web.

Fignozzle is used in 90% of my online identity, including TFL.  It's been explained before.

Felonious Monk (with apologies to the originator of bebop jazz, Thelonious Monk) is used in the other 10%, including THR.

Hence, Felonious Fig.

[wingnutx]

My surname begins with 'wing', and first day of bootcamp my cc starts calling me wingnut. It followed me for the past 18 years, and pretty much replaced my actual name while I was on active duty.

I added the 'x' on the end when some jerkface on irc started using the same nickname.

Now I use it everywhere.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Mine is a reference to an old Warren Zevon song, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner".  It's a cool song, one that any gun nut would appreciate.  I figured it was appropriate.

[Perd Hapley]

Mine's from a Clint Eastwood movie.

Wingnut, you're not Vietnamese, by chance?

[Declaration Day]

Mine came from a patriotic song by the band Iced Earth.

[AJ Dual]

A nickname a co-worker gave me way back in '92 when I sold PC's wholesale to mom-n-pop computer stores in the metro area.

When going over specs of the PC's with clients, I said "dual floppies", or "dual 5.1.4 & 3 1/2 floppies" etc, and my co-worker thought it was funny.

The AJ part came in because he assumed that everyone with the first name of "Andrew" had the middle name of Jackson after the president. So I became "AJ Dual" in our inter-office banter.

I used to post under my name like some others, however, my last name is your typical SE WI/Milwaukee Polish "Alphabet soup" to most people, so I picked that as it was the only given nickname I could recall that wasn't completely nonsensical or obscene.

AJ Dual kind of brings up subconscious connotations of "Dueling" or perhaps a gunfighter with a two-gun "dual" rig I suppose, so I've stuck with it.

[wingnutx]

Britton Wingfield, which is a Saxon name, although I am an adopted guido

[client32]

Felonious Monk (with apologies to the originator of bebop jazz, Thelonious Monk) is used in the other 10%, including THR.

I have a friend that uses blue monk as a screen due to that is his favorite jazz tune.

Mine came out a of a day of frustration.  I used to manage a computer lab with ~300 PCs running Windows 9x and a Novell 4.x server.  I kept having problems with the novell client (aka client32) one day.  At the end of the day we fired up quake (I don't remember which version) in one of the rooms.  Due to my frustration from the day I used client32.  It stuck and have found out there aren't many other people using it.

I'll have to call Mom and ask.

My mom swears my name came from a book.  I still maintain it was from a TV show.

[ilbob]

Ironically my name is Bob and I am from Illinois.

[USP45usp]

Mine I've had for years.  It's famous or infamous, depending on who you ask

[Perd Hapley]

Wingnut.  I only ask because in army days I knew one of the many Nguyens from Vietnam.  (He was serving in my unit at Fort Hood; I'm not that old.)  He pronounced the name "wing" so we called him wing or chickenwing.

[wingnutx]

I always wondered how to pronounce "Nguyen".

I served with a couple of slavic types that ended up with nicknames like T-12 and Y-14, which is the first initial and the number of leters in their name.

[grampster]

When my grandkids were about 6 and 4 they started calling me grampster.  I liked the sound of that, hence my screen name.  Now everybody calls me that.

[Brad Johnson]

When my grandkids were about 6 and 4 they started calling me grampster.

Count yourself lucky. My mother ended up as "Nanky".

Brad

[Perd Hapley]

I always wondered how to pronounce "Nguyen".

I served with a couple of slavic types that ended up with nicknames like T-12 and Y-14, which is the first initial and the number of leters in their name.

Gotta love the way soldiers deal with long names.  We had a sergeant named Zayasbazan, and we just called him Sergeant Z.  One day I said his whole last name, and he made me do it about three more times.  Said it sounded just like home.  He was Dominican, but raised in Puerto Rico, or the other way around, I don't remember.

I think there are different pronunciations of Nguyen, though.


gramps, we all know the reason for your name.  You're an old fossil; nough said.

[grampster]

Heh.  Well it started out Gummy and Gumpy and evolved to grampster and gramma gramma.

[Brad Johnson]

Well it started out Gummy and Gumpy...

The matched set of custom embroidered/engraved/calligraphed gift ideas are almost endless...!

Brad

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

Mine's the genus and species name of the swamp rabbit. Lots of them around where I grew up in east Texas. Used to bbe known as White Rabbit around the Errornet years ago. 30 years ago someone started referring to me as 'the white rabbit' because I was (and still am) fairly cavalier about time and keeping of such, as in appointments. See 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' for further reference. In real life, it's been shortened to Rabbit by a select few who know me well.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[mustanger98]

I've always liked horses in general and mustangs in particular. A mustanger is someone who trains and rides mustangs. A mustanger may or may not be one of the wranglers on the BLM round-up crews. I've always wished I could have been one of the old-time mustangers of the type Will James wrote about. I also did own a mustang who meant a lot to me. The 98 comes from that being the first year I was on the internet.

Over the last eight years, some people have wondered what year/model Ford Mustang I have... I don't. I do have a story though... this one night, my sister's now-ex-boyfriend was at our house and a friend of our's brought her boyfriend over. Sister's ex- drove a then-new mustang and friend's ex- drove an older one that'd been souped up to race. They were very very close to trying to out-bad each other with their cars. My mare was still alive and well then and I was fixing to tell 'em both forget their junkpiles-on-wheels because I had the real deal there's was only named after.

[steveO]

Mine is self explanatory I think

[RocketMan]

One of my other hobbies is another one that makes fire, noise and smoke: high power sport rocketry.