Hi folks, I'm just wondering how you all arrived at your screen names.  For me, I must have gone through ten of them and getting nowhere really fast (all taken).  Then I thought to myself, need a name that no one has even thought of.  So since one of my hobbies is astronomy, I selected combining two planets (when we had nine).  So I came up combining Pluto and Mercury and came up with the very dorky Plutom.  Yep Pluto has since been reassigned as a minor planet along with our newly discovered one-sad.  Jan

I started using Ockham way back in the '80s when I first went online in
Compuserve and took part in political and religious forums.  I noticed that most
of my answers or "contributions" were along the lines of simplifying arguments
or removing false assumptions, so I took on the name.

By now I've been using Ockham so long that I no longer answer to David.

 I needed a new "identity" after leaving my first husband.  MorriganShadow no longer fit, lol.  So, my friend and I talked for a few weeks, and thought that JenX (yes, it IS a play on "Gen-X) would be a good fit.
It's much better than my first screenname.  I thought that EVERYONE on the planet would think "Oh, she's a hardcore, straightedge punk" when seeing the username "xXxhardcorexXx".  Yeah, if the 29-year-old me could tell the 18-year-old me a few things, the first would be how bad of an idea that screenname was.

It was a nickname I had in a place I worked.... It was alleged that I "Fixed" a 5 a side soccer tournament for my team to win, hence the term "thefixer"
I didn't by the way, but it stuck..

long long convoluted tale...

back in the early 90's I joined a joke star trek club (the other clubs HATED us :D )

being a red head and the club mainly being Klingons I wanted the word for Fire.

after yelling across a packed pub 'whats the klingon for Fire?' I became K'baH.

...wasn't till a few years later I found out that baH is 'open fire' and my name, Kaptain K'baH was litterally 'Open fire on the Kaptain'....which my Security Officer (a Changling thrown out of the Great Link for causing a Tidal Wave...they were trying to get away from him) would do every time he heard it. with gusto and every heavy weapon near him.

when me and the club parted ways... it morphed to Kaibah.. then Khai Janus Bach.... Kaibach for short...

(I used to be Khai round here but that was closed for me and I reverted back to Kaibach)

but in other places, (Steampunk / Diesel Punk), the full version is,

***Professor Khai Janus Bach
Temporal Mechanics and Applied Chronological Theory.

"Time Travel... Practical Application...."

Oooh mine if from my Favourite song :) Fugazi by Marillion.  The 1968 is added because in some places Fugazi was taken, so I added 1968 cos its a significant number for me.  Rather than take Fugazi(randomfreenumber)

Da Words

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a Blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real

Drowning in the liquid seize on the Piccadilly line, rat race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress Ophelia's hand with breathstroke ambition
An albatross in the marrytime tradition
Sheathed within the Walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the Time-Life-Guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to five with suitable ties
Cast adrift as their side-show, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm bestill, bewitch, drowning in the real

The thief of Baghdad hides in Islington now
Praying deportation for his sacred cow
A legacy of romance from a twilight world
The dowry of a relative mystery girl
A Vietnamese flower, a Dockland union
A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs
Magdalenes contracts more than favours
The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat

A son of a swastika of '45 parading a peroxide standard
Graffiti conjure disciples testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges
This is Brixton chess

A knight for Embankment folds his newspaper castle
A creature of habit, begs the boatman's coin
He'll fade with old soldiers in the grease stained roll call
And linger with the heartburn of Good Friday's last supper

Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens
Waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes, for the fashionably, for the terminally insane, insane
Do you realise? Do you realise?
Do you realise, this world is totally fugazi

Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries, where are the poets
To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary

Mine is easy to account for, I found a Gothic Name Generator website, fed my real name into it & out came Lucifer The Dark. The combination of "Bearer of Light" & "The Dark" tickles my odd sense of humour too. :D

Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently's holistic Detective Agency" had an electric monk. So I used the virtual equivalent. I'm a huge Adams fan.

Quote - Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently's holistic Detective Agency" had an electric monk. So I used the virtual equivalent. I'm a huge Adams fan.

Loved those books :) the idea of the Electric Monk was great, an electronic device that believed for you, so you don't have to.

In 1984 I needed a "Handle" for Compuserve's CB Emulator. At that point in time, I was pretty good at programming in GW-Basic. A friend of mine was always telling me I was a "Wizard" at hacking BASIC code, so...

basicwiz 

Before I create a user name I think about it for awhile. I figure it's going to be with me for a long time and I want something that reflects who I am. Plus it has to have certain criteria:

1. Short (I'm dyslexic so long words can be problematic);
2. Sound like a "normal" name (yes I'm square, LOL);

The name "Acadia" comes from an important snippet of Canadian history involving French Candadiens and it sounds like a girl's name. So that's how I ended up with "Acadia".

The only problem is that people tend to stick an "R" in there to make it ARcadia.

If you want to know more about the history behind my user name, see this link:

http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/library/digitalcollection/bookpage1.stm

The first part of my "name" is, well, my name and the second part will remain shrouded in mystery.

Just an effort to make myself more interesting than I really am... :lol:

BeyondVR stands for Beyond Visual Range.  It's a term for a weapon, like a radar-guided misslie, which can acquire a target that is beyond the range of the pilot's sight.

I thought it wasn't a bad fit for cyber-art either, but AOL wouldn't take names that long 12 years ago, so I shortened it.  Unfortunately, people think it means Beyond Virtual Reality.  My friends know what it means, even if others think I'm bragging.

John

My Mama gave me that name.

I should have given my screen name more thought---gad, double gadddddd.  Jan

Because I am a vile and evil pagan and an artist. : )

RGUS... stands for "R"eally "G"ripped "U"p "S"oftware... something so trivial now, but I used it for a software programming company I had years and years ago... still seems to fit with this new Poser painting program thingy. 

Quote - Because I am a vile and evil pagan and an artist. : )

LOL, I knew there was something I liked about you--Jan

Cyberwoman was a superhero character I created a couple years ago. (I've since discovered that it apparently has connections to Dr. Who or something like that; it's entirely coincidental, because I've never watched the show.) My Cyberwoman was an ordinary person, but she used computers and other special machines to give her "powers", and I thought it was a fitting name when I started doing computer graphics. Hmm... I should render her in Poser one of these days.

Mine came about after a typo in the CompuServ CB chans, I was using Case (From Neuromancer) and people would typo it as Xase, I liked the way it looked and kept it ever since.

FWIW I still pronounce it Case :biggrin:

During my freshman year of high school, I was involved with superhero role-playing gaming.  I think it may have been Villains & Vigilantes.  We created characters using our actual selves as the initial template.  I wanted a name for the character which was similar in some respects to my own name, and I ended up with Cage.  A few years later, I began using the name as the pseudonym with which I signed any drawings or paintings I produced.  When I dabbled with writing fiction, Cage was invariably the name of my Mary Sue character.  When the Web came along, it seemed natural to continue the use of the name when I needed a screen name.

The msg part is from when you had to enter 3 letters in those arcade game hi-score lists...
At that time I was a diehard fan of Michael Schenker (Scorpions, UFO, MSG) fan... so I added
the g to my initals...
When I needed an ID for yahoo, I added the 24_7 (at that time I was sitting in front of the computer almost 24/7 :)

So far I haven't found a site where the name was taken, so I kept it :-)

 John Doe was already taken.

Quote - Oooh mine if from my Favourite song :) Fugazi by Marillion.  The 1968 is added because in some places Fugazi was taken, so I added 1968 cos its a significant number for me.  Rather than take Fugazi(randomfreenumber)

Da Words

Vodka intimate, an affair with isolation in a Blackheath cell
Extinguishing the fires in a private hell
Provoking the heartache to renew the licence
Of a bleeding heart poet in a fragile capsule
Propping up the crust of the glitter conscience
Wrapped in the christening shawl of a hangover
Baptised in the tears from the real

Drowning in the liquid seize on the Piccadilly line, rat race
Scuttling through the damp electric labyrinth
Caress Ophelia's hand with breathstroke ambition
An albatross in the marrytime tradition
Sheathed within the Walkman wear the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation
She turned the harpoon and it pierced my heart
She hung herself around my neck

From the Time-Life-Guardians in their conscience bubbles
Safe and dry in my sea of troubles
Nine to five with suitable ties
Cast adrift as their side-show, peepshow, stereo hero
Becalm bestill, bewitch, drowning in the real

The thief of Baghdad hides in Islington now
Praying deportation for his sacred cow
A legacy of romance from a twilight world
The dowry of a relative mystery girl
A Vietnamese flower, a Dockland union
A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs
Magdalenes contracts more than favours
The feeding hands of western promise hold her by the throat

A son of a swastika of '45 parading a peroxide standard
Graffiti conjure disciples testaments of hatred
Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights trim the barbed wire hedges
This is Brixton chess

A knight for Embankment folds his newspaper castle
A creature of habit, begs the boatman's coin
He'll fade with old soldiers in the grease stained roll call
And linger with the heartburn of Good Friday's last supper

Son watches father scan obituary columns in search of absent school friends
While his generation digests high fibre ignorance
Cowering behind curtains and the taped up painted windows
Decriminalised genocide, provided door to door Belsens
Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens
Waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration
Radioactive perfumes, for the fashionably, for the terminally insane, insane
Do you realise? Do you realise?
Do you realise, this world is totally fugazi

Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries, where are the poets
To breach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary

Fugazi used to be an army term used in the 60's but because of the TOS I can't say what it means. LOL!

I'm just like you. WAY back when every name I came up with was used.

I finally came up with geoegress- a name so god aweful that no one else would ever want it----anywhere,,, lol

geo= rock
egress= out

:D

LMAO My came about of being 100% lazy Bobbie is what i go by in RL and I was 25 when I  signed up so it came  as Bobbie25. But that way way back when not so many namers were taken lmoa a Geo hugz :)

(hehehe) Bear hugz Bobbiekins back :P

Seachnasaigh (pronounced "shock-nah-sigh")  is old Irish family surname from Gaillimhe (Galway);  the bloodline being a blend of Dane Viking and Irish Gael.  Seachnasaigh means dodge/deflect a blow, and counterstrike.

I'm Sam Therapy (or variations thereof at places where the space character isn't recognized) almost everywhere.  The exception is Basefook, since they kicked me for using it, so now I'm there using my real name of Dirk van Rinderpest. (And if you believe that's my real name, would you be interested in a bridge I have for sale?)

Anyhow, I couldn't be anything other than Sam Therapy, since my band's name (my real band, not the odd one or two I sometimes play for) is called King Dice.  I've used Sam Therapy as a stage name and alter ego for over 25 years.  If you don't get the reference, Google and Wikipedia are your friends.

Many years ago I had a dream in which I experienced all 5 senses. I've never had a dream remotely like it before or since. The sensations I will describe are not embellishments added to this story but sensations I experienced in the dream.

The air was cold yet still, like a day in early Spring or early Fall. Standing motionless, the sun felt warm on my skin.

I, along with many others, was standing by a riverbank. With a bow in hand and a sword clasped at my belt, I (We) had been dispatched to the right flank to prevent the enemy from crossing along a shallow point. Off to my left I could see the bulk of the battle taking place on a flat stone bridge. Whoever commanded the bridge controlled the movement of the opposing force, the ownership was being hotly contested.

I could see many men dressed mostly in leather and furs, some chainmail, and a few helms. I could literally smell the iron weapons that they carried. A great shout went up among them and they began to charge across.

With my bow I managed to drop two of them in the river. A third, I only wounded in the upper leg. I distinctly remember he carried an axe in his left hand and a round shield in his right. I should have changed from bow to sword but took a chance with one last arrow to drop the bellowing man. My arrow flew true to the center of his chest but at the last moment, he caught it with his shield. Then they were upon us.

I cast the bow aside and desperately tried to clear my sword from sheath. The large bellowing man slammed into me (I felt this) and knocked me hard to earth. Before I could regain my feet, he planted his axe in my chest and my sternum split. Then he yanked it out as momentum carried him over. I heard the pounding of many feet on the ground as they ran past to meet whatever fate lay before them.

Hot blood quickly pooled on my upper chest and ran down either side of my neck. I looked at the dazzling sun in a brilliant blue sky, and while playing with soft green grass betwixt my fingers I thought, "Death isn't so bad. Its kinda nice to just lie here and wait for it to come."

Then I awoke.

Beyond the fact that the dream was extraordinarily vivid, there were two other very remarkable things.

One: the (We), were not human. We were elves fighting to protect our lands from invading men (I know, I know… it sounds like the movie Avatar). But they were too many, we too few. They won, we lost.

Two: About three years after the dream, out of sheer boredom, I joined a medieval reenactment group. They told me I needed to pick an authentic name for my personae. While researching for a suitable name, I happened across a translation by J.R.R. Tolkien of a fragmented Anglo-Saxon story titled, "The Death of Ælfwine". I was struck by the many similarities of the described historical battle and the dream. The main battle had taken place on a bridge, the invaders forged the river, the defenders lost in a mighty last stand surrounding their King.

I did not particularly care for the name and continued to search for something "better", but the name seemed to pick me. It kept returning over and over again. Having found nothing I liked, I capitulated and became known as Elfwine.

Elfwine is a slightly shortened version of Ælfwine (pronounced Alf'-win), which is Old English for 'elf-friend'. Only a few names survive from those days. Fred is a common name, short for Alfred (elf-counsel), female form: Alfreda.

After I left the medieval group (thank God!), I've used Elfwine as a nick on various web sites. Its easy to spell and remember.

To this day, some still call me Elfwine in public.

 Back in the 80's there were all these hacker movies and they all had these cool sounding names so when my brother and I started programing we picked out names. My brother picked Red Phantom. I don't remember what mine was since I obviously stole his. Later I found Schwinn had a bicycle called the phantom in the 50's and one was red.

 It is just my name, simple!  Someone suggested that "aimei" is related to "anime", an abbreviated pronunciation in Japanese of "animation".  In fact, "aimei" is Chinese pronunciation of my name.

Mine is just from one I started on the net, it was after a Goo Goo Dolls concert, I was in to them big time.  So I took the name from a song they did on the Batman Soundtrack called Lazyeye, the 724 is the date of the first concert I got to see them in.

hmmm...and I thought these were all your real names. Now who the hell are you people ?

mine is really easy ... it comes from my real name..........
Jack Smith

Hmm... this is a long story.

Long time ago there was such a thing called WebTV. This was back in the 90's. My husbands nickname on there was ryu-tetsu. He always called me his little angel.. so... ryuslilangel. I kept the story very short. :)  

It is interesting to see how everyone made their screen names.

Given at birth.

I lost my first Rendo (PoserForumOnline) password- and decided to simplify my user name as well.

 I go by "Eric Walters" but my real name is TenebriousMalachite! OK, just kidding.

If I forget my user name- I can open my wallet and look at my ID. :-) Of course it is a rather boring user name. I thought about something more dramatic like desultoryphillipic or chastenedvortex-but I've been using my (actual NAME) for a long time now on the board and dont want to give up my "glory" of being one of the "OLD ONES."  Says in creaky voice- "I remember back in the Poser2 days we used to have to (fill in the blank). If I changed my screen name to "Gideon's Narwhal" or some such I would have a 2010 join date!

I couldn't think of anything good for me.
I did look up sam's info on google and it referred to bowie, possibly either jim bowie (inventor of
bowie knife) or more contemporary bowie.
ISTR bill said he wanted to use bilbo baggins but it was already in use.
I also thought ge0egress was like "earth exit" as in "this way to the egress", but I was wrong.
like those guys waiting for the comet to take them away back in the 90s, with the purple koolaid.

once more...(sorry, this thread comes up annually, and December makes 9 years for me...;)

Started here as nu-be...which worked for about a year or so, until someone informed me I'd lost my 'freshness date'..;)

Was sitting around the office, looking at a poster from a place called 'You can't do that on Star Trek', called  'The Pakled Award for smart people and technical things'...;) Since 'gadfly' was already taken, this was the 2nd choice.

Even though there's other 'Pakled's out there, in some surprising places...;)

Quote - Mine is easy to account for, I found a Gothic Name Generator website, fed my real name into it & out came Lucifer The Dark. The combination of "Bearer of Light" & "The Dark" tickles my odd sense of humour too. :D

I never thought to try a Goth Name Generator before.  I put my name in and it came up with Marchioness of Night
                                                
Ironically I have an image in my gallery with that exact name!  Must be some kind of an omen!  

EDIT: 
OMG! This is fun.  Another site said I"m  "Fetal Mind"  and another said I'm "The Evil Fairy"

            *

Mine was easy, initials of my family, with the exception of 3D, but now it is the name of my dogs, Sam and 3D

Sharen

Quote - RGUS... stands for "R"eally "G"ripped "U"p "S"oftware... something so trivial now, but I used it for a software programming company I had years and years ago... still seems to fit with this new Poser painting program thingy. 

And here I've always thought it was a clever form of Argus... 

My own name.. is pretty self explanatory I guess. I'm a Trekkie and I'm a girl. and because TrekkieGirl sounded.. well.. naff.. I made the girl into a growl. It also has the benefit of being so far unique, there's a TrekkieGal somewhere in the Poserverse, too and I've seen some TrekkieGrl's around - but with 3 r's.. there's only me :)

My old name, Ern Yoka was my bajoran star trek name. It became ernyoka1 when I forgot my password wayyyy back  and had to make a new account here. 
Byt I always signed my things with TrekkieGrrrl even then, so having one handle and another signature became confusing very quickly... so when the option of byuing a new handle here emerged, I jumped at it :)

I generally sign as Trekkie - but it's too short as a proper username, there are too many Trekkies out there :)

Miss Nancy has it right.  From the Bowie track, 'Sons of the Silent Age'.  My band doesn't sound anything like Bowie, though.  We sound more like Killing Joke. 

WandW is actually W & W ; The Wilmington and Western Railroad, which once ran from Wilmington, DE to Landenburg, PA.  Part of it still exists as a scenic railroad, and I once lived a short walk from its western terminus.

My name here is fairly obvious and must have taken me all of a nanosecond to come up with when I first registered here.
Elsewhere, Daz, Youtube, etc I'm Flickering Light (also my VJ name) which is a reference to the effect of same on the human eye, in particular the refresh rate of old analogue TV's invisible to the naked eye, but sufficient to trigger the fright or flight reflex, which is/was why when there's a Tv in the room even if it's showing football you end up watching it. 
In public it serves as a warning and disclaimer, don't want to cause harm to (or get sued) by photo-sensitive epileptics.

Quote - Before I create a user name I think about it for awhile. I figure it's going to be with me for a long time and I want something that reflects who I am. (Acadia)

I wish I'd done that. :-) Now it seems I'm stuck with it.

Quote - "Before I create a user name I think about it for awhile. I figure it's going to be with me for a long time and I want something that reflects who I am. (Acadia)"

I wish I would have spent some time thinking about it too but when I joined Rendo many years ago I had no idea of what my involvement was going to be so I just used my network login from work. Richabri is just a concatenation of my real name that was auto-generated by our IT department.

I had plenty of opporunities to change it and I wished I would have before I developed so many products under that screen name :)

Who knew?

Well, my first name is Ron, but that is all I can reveal about my devilishly clever screen name.

My thought was keep it simple, so it's YngPhoenix = Young(my last name) Phoenix(city I live in).

Quote - Well, my first name is Ron, but that is all I can reveal about my devilishly clever screen name.

Aha!  Ron Klbe it is, then.  :)  Or is it Bkle?

Very close, but my secret remains safe!