nice discussion - always trie to figure out, who is the person behind the nickname. i tried to categorize the types of names - i think it could be a very interesting study in psychology or sociology. so read my latest dossier (1500 pages) at ... ;) my nickname comes from some fantasy short stories i wrote in my school time (not very successfully - only some friends read them...) jenay was derived from johannes say was derived from josef (my real name - german) cowas derived from kurz (my real german name)