I'm not sure if this one will take off or not. I've just been wondering where we get the names that we use on our artwork, and in Renderosity. My story is simple. Over the years I've used various aliases for various reasons. My family and friends tired of this practice quickly. They said: "But Ron, we will always know you as Ron Knights!" So I decided "I want to be me!" ronknights

heh, same with me name: aleksandar alias: aleks

Thomas Geisel = thgeisel :-))

My alias comes from a roleplaying character I created a while ago. I patterned the character's personality and morals after my own so my friends started calling me 'Wolfe' as a joke. IT'S ALL THIER FAULT I TELL YOU!! I'M PERFECTLY SANE!! SANE I TELL YOU!!

Name: Mike

You beat me to the punch on this one Ron. I had the same question rattling around my head too.

The name Kelderek comes from the lead character in the Richard Adams novel "Shardik". I have no really good explanation to why I picked it, I think it was when I registered my first Hotmail account long ago and just needed a nick name. It has stuck since then and I have continued using it when I entered into the 3D arena.

i lived in foster homes most of my childhood. well, there was this one doll a foster family gave me and her name was "cinnamon" she had this beautiful red hair and if u pushed her belly in...it would make her hair shorter. to make it longer, you just pulled her pony tail. she had freckles and she was so cute. i was really attached to this doll for some reason (as i was to a stuffed bear named "buffy") cinnamon and buffy had to come with me everywhere i went. it was a way i (as a child) delt with some of the emotional stuff of being abandoned. i still have buffy, but cinnamon was lost:-( i will never forget that doll and the comfort she brought me. so, in memory of her...meet cinnamon stix (me) ummm...i have a picture of buffy if anybody wants to see da' cutie??!! real name: Elizabeth

ooh my i'm about to cry!! i did a search for cinnamon and i found her!!! well....one like her. Ron!!! hug http://members.tripod.com/ltanis/ideal_cinnamon.htm

This is a good thread, mainly because I already have the explanation on my web page, so copy and paste works very well so here we go. I've been asked on several occasions what does Cwshorty stand for, well to make a long story short, as a child I had a tendency to be alittle rough with my toys, or maybe I should say destructive. At the same time there was a popular wrecking company which was named the Cleveland Wrecking Co. - which is still in existence today - so my Uncle started calling me Cleveland Wrecking Shorty. Thus the name Cwshorty. I hope you didn't hit your head on the keyboard while you dozed off during that little story. However, I'm known by most people as Linda. BTW Cinnamon, I remember that doll you are talking about my sister had one, but she would never let me play with it, I can't imagine why LOL.

Well, I can't match the emotional resonance and depth of those stories! When I first went online with Compuserve, about 13 years ago, I mainly frequented political and religious forums. I quickly realized that most of what I posted was sort of off-message and unwanted by the inevitable "teams" that develop on such forums. No matter the subject, from computers to religion to sex, there are always two teams in a forum; if you agree with team A, you'll get cheers from A and friendly jeers from B. (And vice versa) But if you question the basic assumptions of both teams, as I always found myself doing, you'll be ignored or strongly dismissed. So I started calling myself Ockham: not the most common spelling of the name, but more likely to be unique online.

Zwaan being my last name and Dutch for Swan and people calling me Johnnie instead of John (I'm 1.87 cm :-) and is really the name my parents gave me, Johnnie that is) made me decide to pick the nick Swannie. Also I'm crazy about Swans. I think they are the most beautiful (water)birds/creatures there are. Although I hated that name when I was young.. they called me Ugly Duckling and all that, but that duckling turned out ot be a gorgeous swan haughty Hehehe, just kidding! Nowadays I make my kids proud of that last name, cos in fact it is a great last name. Being proud of it makes the difference.. they are not being teased with it. So, that's my short story... nice thread! Johnnie...

Till yesterday I used the name mi-scha. My real name is Michael Schalla, I think you get it. Right now I go under MadYuri (like the insane emperor from Lois MacMasters Bujold's books). And I'm really MAD...

Oops, that's 1.87 m and not 1.87 cm :-)) Hehehe, I'd just crawled out of the egg if I was to be that short. :-) Or as we say here, "still in daddy's pipeline" ;-)

I couldn't think of anything clever, so I just stuck with Melanie, the name my parents gave me. My dad had never heard the name and read it in the birth announcements before I was born, but he pronounced it wrong (he thought it was M-lay-nie), but my mother, being a Gone With The Wind fan, quickly corrected him and somehow I ended up with the name. Friends call me Mel and family call me Lanie, but I just ended up with Melanie on all my membership and log-in names. I wish I had a more dramatic or interesting story. Melanie

sturkwurk My last name is Sturk (Swedish origin) and my wife came up with my "studio" identity... Sturk Work which she cleverly changed to sturkwurk. I've been going by the screen name sturkwurk since early 1997.

Hummmm, how boring I am. Used my real first name...lol Nice thread, I sometimes look at the names and try to figure out what they might stand for or come from. Marque

Hey... Some moving stuff above. I'm Hogwarden... simple really! Real name Howard which means, you got it, Hog Warden or keeper of pigs. I don't really keep pigs or any farm animals! In fact I'm a veggie of 16 years! Hogwarden looks and sounds really ugly (I am actually ruggedly handsome) as a sig so I sign "Howie" on my pics.

My name is a word that I acquired the trademark for. It will eventually be a site where one can bask in the presence of the Goddess Kwan Yin Kwan Yin is revered in Buddhist and Hindu cultures throughout Asia and India. It is believed that seeing her image or hearing her name relieves suffering.

I really dont have a story to my name. My friends for no apparent reason started calling me Kovack and then my hockey coach was drunk at a hockey tornament and started calling me Kojack and thats where I got the name. That is all

My name is Mark Routledge and I am a member of "No Imagination Anonymous" I was going to re-register but Ive read that some vendors get freaked when you post images and they dont see your username on their purchasers list. As an addendum question how many different IDs do you have in total outside Renderosity? Currently I have 4.

Eirian is a character in one of my favourite novels: Freda Warrington's "Dark Cathedral". I picked out the name for two things. While it's not a "pagan" name, that novel gives it a pagan resonance for me, and that was important to me. I needed an alias that would reflect my religion, if only in my own heart. And it's a Welsh name (translation = silver), and I live in Wales.

four years ago I got my first doggie ever, a Siberian Husky, because of her clear blue mysterious eyes, I named her Mystic, being she's a winter doggie, I called her Winter, then my husband pointed out to me that I had to choose a name, so I ended up with MysticWinter, before the ink was dry on her papers, I was signing in as MysticWinter all over the net, most just call me Mystic :o) I use MysticWinter as my only Identity, before that I used the name Whisper for a good 7 years, which some people still call me (some people can't handle change) that name was given to me because I tend to speak in a whisper.

I got tired of getting the ... 'there is already a member with that name' message.. So went with my own for this site. Mind you Helen is not to bad when you consider my father who is Polish wanted to call me Anastasia (he like the sound of it). My Grandmother who is English put in a plug for Sara-Clara Thanks mum.. :) She won and I ended up Helen Elizabeth

Attached Link: http://www.skyewolf.com

Hrrrmmm. Nikita Creed is the main character in a novel I have had rolling around in my head (and occasionally on paper) for about 10 years. Always been Nikita Creed for as long as I have been online. These days....even my husband slips and calls me Nikita. ;o)

My husband's online ID is kristoffcreed. heh Kristoff Creed is also a character from my little novel in progress.

Daio (Day-oh) is a nickname I made up when I was 17 and went off to college because I hated my real name. Okay, so I don't mind Donna Maria even if it is a very Spanish name for someone of German descent, but I hate just Donna itself. I have never felt like a Donna. So when I left home for college I simply told everyone I met there that it was my nickname. Now just about everyone I know socially (friends and family) call me that, the only ones who call me by my given name are the folks at work (and my mother when she's peeved at me). I did not find out until recently that Daio is an actual name in Japanese and the it is a Man's name. I does lead to some confusion at times but I'm not changing it. :-)

Not much of a story here. I liked the nic so much that I stole it from my hubby so he had to get a new one. ;-) Aeriol

Mine are all based on various company names I developed for different services. Virtual Site specialized in historical recreations and animations for museums and archaeologists. At This Stage provides scenic design and previsualizations for entertainment design professionals. And RoadtoAj is an animation production company, currently with four feaure-length projects on the go.

Wow, again, thanks for all the replies, histories, etc. Let's not worry about whether the story behind our "identities" is boring. After all mine is really just my name! Someone asked about other identities. I have used a few over the years, but I only use maybe 2-3 right now. Sometimes I use marlinfingle or Marlin Fingle, who is my comic strip character. He may actually see "life" one day. I've adopted a new identity for Renderotica because my art there is more graphic, without being pornographic. (Anyone who wants to know that identity can try sending me an IM.) nikitacreed talked about using a character from her book. I have a book I've been writing for about 20 years. It's called "Machines That Madden." Part of the concept is that the main character has a story to tell which could help save the world. He knows that telling the story will put him and his loved ones in jeapordy. Unfortunately for our hero, some dark force keeps invading his mind, and often succeeds in keeping the Truth just out of his grasp. Our main character has a habit of slipping into and out of different realities and identities. I've shared the story with some friends, and they found it gripping. I just get lost in telling stories in "novel form." So the story remains unfinished. Ron

My wife's initials are ip, mine are th, hence the "thip". Would've been more gentleman-like if I had put my wife's initials first, but have you ever tried to pronounce "ipth" ? Someone sent me an IM once, in which I was asked if I had any connections with the canadian rock group Tragically Hip. Just for the record - I don't. My singing would be classed as a crime against humanity ;-)

Well mine is self evident...LOL. But is it inner or outer beauty? That you will have to decide for yourself. Actually I needed a nick to log into a chat room on my first outing on the internet, ages ago, and thats what I came up with. So, I just kept it as my online persona. Boring I know, and a bitch for folks to keep typing, so most just call me LL. Jackie Lovely Lady from deep in the heart of Texas

Well, my story is a little complicated - I started out with the nickname Zani (short for Androzani, from "Doctor Who and the Caves of Androzani", and I still am) in late 1986 or so, but when I got my first "real" online account I named myself after a characteristic I've always had - being a black sheep, or in this case, a White Raven. :) I also always loved that Raven was a little bit sneaky and a lot more wise in all the stories I knew, so White Raven is the name I use. :) Hope I didn't send you to sleep, White Raven

I'm a night person and somewhat neo-pagan. (I appreciate the philosophy, but I'm not religious.) I like having a name that implies that I'm always getting better (a crescent moon becomes a full moon) and if I have an off day (crescent waning) then it's just a matter of time before things come around and I start getting brighter again. (Atleast, that's the hope.) I've used this name for many years. I actually get offended if I have to modify my name because someone else is already using it. (Has stolen it.)

When it comes to computers, Unix is and was my first choice - Windows was an afterthought for me (my very first home PC ran SCO Unix, not DOS.) Since most folks in and around the Quake2 Weapons Factory MOD forums knew about this little *ix fetish of mine (especially WRT Linux), I had gotten the name "Penguinisto" to replace my old moniker "Spark" (short for 'spark-chaser' - a common slang term for electronic engineers like I had once been :) So why not "Tux" or something like that? Well, it's like this: Even today, a true linux afficianado usually refers to him- or herself as a "Penguinista" ( a munge-up of the term "Zapatista" that certain Latin revolutionaries took on for themselves in semi-recent history...) However, looking at the Spanish way of names (names ending in "..a" are feminine, while those ending in "..o" are masculine), I figured the term "Penguinista" is a bit too feminine-sounding for my taste, especially when I was toting around a rocket launcher :) (For those who may not know, Linux' mascot is a Penguin... he's a cute little critter too, according to the missus.) So to make a long story short, the WF community pretty much decided that I would be better off with my current nickname, and it just sort of stuck. Most folks there just call me "Peng" for short; it saves keystrokes. My real name: Thos. J Miller jr. /P

This is my story, and I'm sticking to it! Well, a long time ago, I was hanging out with my lemur friends in the jungle. Most Lemurs are pretty easy going, you know, lie around, eat, dance, leap, browsing the Lemur forums, etc. But I was always a little different, I like to invent and build things. Sadly, none of which actually worked that well, but it's really hard to get the right tools when you're a Lemur. Eventually, the other Lemurs began calling me the Lemur who does Technology. Actually, they began calling me the Lemur who does Technology Badly, but that's not really relevant. Anyway, this went on for awhile, when one night a strange object came crashng down in the jungle. At first every body was paniking, after all we remember a big scary thing crashing down, back when we lived with the folk you now call Dinosaurs. That was terrible, so of course every body was worried and the Lemur forums were buzzing. After awhile, when nothing bad happened, most everybody forgot about it and went back to business as usual (not that Lemurs care much for business, and as an aside, did you know there are no Lemur Lawyers?) Anyway, I, having more than my share of curiosity, couldn't rest until I discovered the source of this unsolved mystery. So I packed up my Lemur mystery solving kit (which consisted of a rock and a stick... hey told ya, hard to get good tools!) and took off. After many adventures (which I will not go into here, due to space concerns) I came across the object, hidden deep in the jungle... It was a Extra Terrestrial Space ship! After careful consideration, I began to investigate the ship, so as to ascertain it's properties. Stage one involved poking said ship with my stick. When this technique, inventive though it may be, failed to yield satisfactory results, I was forced to used more invasive measures. I banged on the ship with my rock. This produced a much more interesting data set, in the form of a loud bonging noise. After repeating this technique for some while, (after all experimental results are useless unless they are repeatable) I sat down to think. It was at this point I had the brilliant Idea of muttering to myself, "how can I get inside" Some of my Lemur compatriots have opined that as I am always muttering to myself, this idea was less brilliant than sheer luck. I think they're just jealous. Meanwhile, the ship itself spoke to me! It turns out it was controlled via voice! Wonderful. Well, I won't bore you all with my long conversations with the ship, but eventually I learned how to control and operate the ship, as well as many other aspects of the ship. And since the ship was well stocked with both genetic materials from Earth and other planets and much information about biotechnogy, it was then that I conceived of the ambition to work with the stuff of life itself, to create new forms of life. As I was a fast learner, this kind of technology soon became second nature to me. After many moons of plotting and planning, I gathered a small cadre of my more adventurous lemur comrades, and headed off to make my new Laboratory, which I planned to build on an asteroid, since Earth is so darned crowded. Before we left, the ship required us to apply for interstellar passports. Well, in the name section, I of course put Lemur who does Technology. There was a unerving 'Bzzzzzt' sound, and I was informed that my name was too long for the instellar space traveler registration computer to accept. Hmmmm. You'd think an alien race who built things with names like 'instellar space traveler registration computer' would be a little more generous in the name length department but oh well. I shortened my name to Lemur Technology, (Bzzt, too long) and then Lemurtech (Bzzt too long) and finally Lemurtek. Bing! So there you have it. Regards- Lemur who does Technology (badly)

When I was fist learning to talk I could only manage "Alla" instead of Angela (my real name) and it stuck to this day with all my family...Used to anoy and embarass the hell out of me when I was a teenager . When I first went online in 1995 it was the only user name that I tried that felt comftable and I've used it ever since.

I suspect my nickname goes back further than most. I was introduced to the vector-graphic "Plato" computer system based in Urbana, Illinois in 1975. Plato was spread out among various institutions of higher learning and comprised one of the very early but recognizable arms of what would eventually become the internet as we know it (and Al Gore was nowhere around). Anyway, I was not and still am not a computer whiz, but I was attracted to the interactive games and messaging. You would have to see vector graphic "3D Startrek" to believe how primitive this was....one step above "Pong" but you could play with people across the continental US. ANYWAY....I discovered that Plato had a slight flaw in that there was a way that you could overwrite letters without erasing them and create new symbols. I combined "8,Y,+, and X" and got a symbol that looked like an egyptian Scarab beetle. This became my marker and nickname from that day on. Scarab (wish there was a way to do that little symbol here)

alogna backwards

Lunaseas= being in the same house with 3 boy children, husband, and a Tom cat...the only other girl in the house is a geriatric cat! So hence, Lunaseas!

I like this here - thought often how the people came to this names, here my name: Monika is my real name, but my little sister thinks that this name dont fit me. She use the name Mchen for me because it would fit my beeing better (right word?) - and since years everybody calls me Mchen even at work they use this name. So I changed it to moenchen.

I think mine is quite obvious to many people... I'm a big Tolkien fan :) And there aren't that many women in the Lord of the Rings... so I picked Eowyn :)

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)

I speak Lao so I decided to use the name bounlua which translates to every lasting virtue, bounlua was my name when I served a mission for my church.

My Parents gave me my Identity ;-) . The only problem I have with nicknames is you don't know what sex the people are attached to them. I've called a few guys here "her" by mistake. And visa-versa. That's always embarrasing BLUSH :-) ScottA

I wrote an X-files fanfic several years back and on the advice of the alt.xfiles.creative FAQ decided not to post it under my real name. Having come off a clinical depression I thought "Moody" would be ironic, and it has that intensely bland Christian connotation with the Moody Institute (remember, Ian Fleming picked James Bond's name specifically for its dullness). Duane just sort of popped into my head; my wife's first roommate in college had an obnoxious live-in boyfriend for the first semester named Duane (who wasn't a student there -- longish story). I figured a moniker this boring would keep my ego in check and keep people from asking (so far, it's worked). Stu Charno, the fellow who played the wacky serial killer in the X-files episode "The Long Repose of Clyde Bruckman" uses one name for his acting career, another for his musical career, and I believe a third for some other artistic pursuit of his. My other web pursuits are similarly divided among different identities.

Hotmail. I couldn't have the name I wanted, so I thought of something obscure, (the Klingon moon :) not knowing at the time that it's German for Doctor... It too was taken, but they said I could try praxis11 or 22 instead... later jb

I've murdered over 47 people throught the country so Paul Mason is a name I picked out of the phone book when I fled state troopers in Idaho.

I've had a few nicks over the years but got sick of trying to remember who knew me as what. I decided to go back to my roots with 'sptainton'. :) Simon Paul Tainton.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=shredboy

There was a beautiful anime in the 80's called Maison Ikkoku. It is (I guess Viz has released it here), a romantic comedy and I fell in love with the characters when I saw it. The main male protagonist is named Yusaku Godai (although in Japanese its always the other way around), who is a wonderful person but a definate work progress. I guess I identified with the guy, hence gyusaku (first letter of last name and first name). Real name: John p.s. Nice thread Ron. I like histories :).