What's in a name?

[Talisman]

Because every forum needs one, it's the "why did you pick that username?" thread. If history is any guide, this will quickly (d)evolve into a spirited discussion of the mating habits of the Alaskan three-striped woolly squirrel.

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My name is that of one of my favorite D&D characters, a blaster mage. He was in a campaign so heavily houseruled as to be almost unidentifiable. By the time the party hit 9th level, there was literally nothing the GM could do that was a threat to us, so the latter half of the campaign became story-hour, and was devoted to exploring our characters' personalities. I and two other players wrote reams of short stories about our own, and each others', PCs.

I liked the word "talisman" as a name, so my wizzie (when he realized he had been evil) decided to become a weapon against evil, a shield for the innocent...a talisman.

[Username17]

Frank Trollman is my actual name, given to me by my father and mother.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Mine is what people called me in high school. It doesn't have any significance, I made it up on the spot one day.

[ckafrica]

mine's just my email (which I set up when I was going to africa for a year). Otherwise my rotten brain would never remember my login or password

[Maxus]

Mine...well...a friend asked me for a name for a character one day. I said 'Maxus'.

And the next day, I joined this board, still with the name bouncing around my skull.

For the record, though, my first name's Alex. It's confused any number of people, because they thought my full first name was Alexander. It's not--my entire first name is four letters long.

[Surgo]

The name Surgo was generated in 1997 for the MUD Medievia.

[ubernoob]

I've always been a gamer, but I've always been a poor gamer. I've never had a top of the line system for hardcore gaming, but typically my friends would. So when we'd play competitive games my intuition and understanding of how games are designed gave me an edge even though I was always only playing with the friends when they would be able to play even when I was not around. It used to be just win on average. After a while it became where my friends refused to play vs games with me.

Uber-because I make winning a habit.
Noob- because I tend to be a noob relative to who I'm playing against.

Basically my name describes my life approach. When I choose to be good at something I do it very quickly and typically outpace people with temporal advantages. The most recent example of this is learning to speak Weave (what I use to describe reading and predicting people on a superhuman level). Mister Sinister has at least a two year head start on me. I've been learning the Code for the past 5 months or so. I've just recently equaled him in my mastery. In another three months I expect to have surpassed him completely.

Been using the tag for seven years or so.

[Maj]

My name is a shortened version of Majik - given to me by a friend in high school. It's also the short version of one of my favorite D&D characters, Majriti. So it does double duty as a game nickname, and a real life nickname.

[Bigode]

Means "Moustache" in Portuguese - I had one since 11, and became known as such when someone (we never found out who) entered somewhere on IRC where my elementary school classmates used to go as "Mr. Moustache" and claiming to be me. It's remembered at all because he did a job so awful at it that the only guy that, say, actually knew me, caught him (and there's no fvcking way it was a girl) instantly; only nobody else found anything weird with "me" using colored letters, as well as lots of netspeak and actual Portuguese errors. I adopted it when my GM compiled a lot of my material on a CD-R called "Bigode's Guide".

[Koumei]

Koumei is the Japanese name of the legendary Chinese diplomat/strategist/tactician/politician the Sleeping Dragon Zhuge Liang Kongming.

I had been watching Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny, and just grabbed that name for the hell of it. Besides, Kongming/Koumei specialised in the use of fire for his entire life (his own words), and that is pretty cool.

[Crissa]

Mine is the name of a girl I had a crush on in fourth and fifth grade. I used it first in Jan 1995 to make MUD characters.

-Crissa

[Koumei]

I'll admit to doing that with one character, although in this case, the girl in question said "Hey, you should name her after me!" (when I explained that the personality could be summed up as: me. Me me me. Me me me me me me me. Me me, me? ME! She has no qualms with admitting she's a little self-obsessed.)

Actually, I've named a couple of characters, even the Canoness for my army, after my girlfriend, too.

[angelfromanotherpin]

When I first started reading Dragon magazine, there was a comic running in it called Yamara. I think all the archives are on-line now if anyone cares. One of the strips involved what the adventurers did once the adventure was over, and Joe the cleric went back to teaching seminary, where he was asked such perplexing questions as are found in my sig. Another storyline which involved entertaining pan-dimensional beings was then titled 'Angels From Another Pin.' What can I say, I thought it was catchy.

[JonSetanta]

Sigma is a handle given to me by a fellow nerd in highschool. I used it as a pen name in the publications.

He called (calls?) himself Epsilon, or Eppy.

I go by Siggy. People sometimes ask if I'm German, which I also (partly) am.

999 is kabalah numerology but that's not why I added it on.
I use the number because I was stoked about Galaxy Express 999 at the time I made the email account with the same name.

Lately I just go by SiggyPoo, a nickname given by a Filipino guild member back in Flyff years ago.

Also, I'm not the only person on the interbutts to use this handle but I was one of the first over a decade and half ago.
Apparently a Chinese, Brazilian, and Zimbabwe/Swiss dude each use the same handle. among many others....

[Crissa]

I used CmdrSpiff for awhile, but I kept being confused with a high-level IRCop named Spiff and I really didn't want to get in a fight with some hot-keyed hackers. But that was in '95.

Tho, my current spouse dated someone from one of the cracker crews once twenty years ago...

-Crissa

[Cynic]

For the longest period of time, I was a WIlliam blake fan and I used to go by some iteration of Tyger of the night or Tygerofdanyte or some such based on his poem. But then I grew tired of people either butchering it and I just lost interest in the name.

Over time, I've also turned into something of a cynic. So that would be a reasoning behind my name. I'm not a complete cynic so I suppose it's not completely accurate but what can you do?

[josephbt]

it's short for "fuck!!" or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito.

the guys at my university gave me the nick, a lot of alcohol was involved, never understood why the nick. never did ask, though

[koz]

Mine comes from the Marvel comic character, mostly inspired by a certain picture of the guy. I just decided to take it up one time, and started using it.

An odd side effect of this: One other forum member (not on TGD, last I heard) named AfterCrescent and I are quite close, and hence end up using nicknames. His turned out to be AC; mine became MS. I find it amusing that while he's a game term, I'm a myelin-stripping disease.

Go figure.

[ubernoob]

And mine is shortened to either an insult or a compliment. Whenever people shorten my tag I know if they are pissed at me or not.

[erik]

My first name is Erik. In college in '97 I was running late to a karate belt exam and my sensei (whose preferred name was Chopper, I kid you not) did me the favor of writing my name down on the registration card to save me some time. I sat patiently waiting for my turn to test as they called out students in batches of 3. And with only 3 students remaining an examiner called out "Alex, Girish, and.... Clik?"

Apparently Chopper's handwriting was worse than mine, so I just sprang up and announced that was me. After the exam I was teased that that nickname might stick, and I liked it anyway so I figured why not.

I would just go by clik, but someone was squatting on that yahoo ID a year before I acquired my nickname, so I added in ML for my middle and last initials.

[TarkisFlux]

Tarkis Flux, sister of drink, lady of the seven chaos pools, and exiled anarchist. That was the full name of the character that my screen name is from, and the last name was shamelessly stolen from Aeon (back when she was cool and on Liquid Television). She was an old character in series of 2e D&D games, and my first opposite gender character. Just happened to be a name I liked when I signed up for my first email addy and internets handle, and it's pretty much stuck (which is slightly odd in retrospect, meh).

[Avoraciopoctules]

Avoraciopoctules was the name of one of a past character's alternate identities. It has no real meaning. To get the name, I took the name of an attack used by a boss in the game Tales of Symphonia (Pronyma's Avoracium attack), then threw on some more syllables until it sounded like something a slightly-pretentious fiend might have.

Reposted from http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49143&highlight=

I'll add that the name of the aforementioned past character was Aldragon, and I use that name on the LoZ RPG boards.

[Calibron]

My name(Calibron that is, I'm only Caliborn because I didn't migrate over properly when we changed boards) is actually an extremely obscure pop-culture reference. Back in the late nineties when nikolodeon was producing and showing a large number of pilots for original series under the moniker Oh Yeah! Cartoons there was a particular medieval high fantasy cartoon called Enchanted Adventures that I thought was really interesting, but never made it past the pilot episode; in that pilot episode the hero's magic, form changing sword was called Calibron.

I've been using it as my internet handle since the year 2000 and no one has ever mentioned(and quite possibly even got) the reference. In fact it is so obscure that the only reference I could find to it on the entire internet is this(Ctrl F Calibron or Enchanted Adventures to find the one sentence description).

[shirak]

Mine came from the word Raistlin Majere uses to cast Light with his staff. The novels started me on D&D and I thought it was cool.

I recently reread the novels and realized the word is Shilak. Oops

[CatharzGodfoot]

My handle was first used at the WotC boards. At the time I thought that they were generally so dumb that the most overblown absurdist parody of a fantasy hero with a penis implant would fit right in. In time I discovered that I had actually developed an irrational affection for the name and character, and the boards as well...I had become one of them, and true to my chosen name!

Basically, Catharz Godfoot was the original 'Christmas tree adventurer".

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The Stone Thing
A Tale of Strange Parts
by Michael Moorcock
copyright 1975.


Out of the dark places; out of the howling mists; out of the lands without sun;
out of Ghonorea came tall Catharz, with the moody sword Oakslayer in his right
hand, the cursed spear Bloodlicker in his left hand, the evil bow Deathsinger
on his back together with his quiver full of fearful rune-fletched arrows,
Heartseeker, Goregreedy, Soulsnatcher, Orphanmaker, Eyeblinder, Sorrowsower,
Beanslicer, and several others.

Where his right eye should have been there was a jewel
of slumbering scarlet whose colour sometimes shifted to smouldering blue, and
in the place of his left eye was a many-faceted crystal, which pulsed as if
possessed of independent life. Where Catharz had once had a right hand, now a
thing of iron, wood and carved amethyst sat upon his stump; nine-fingered,
alien, cut by Catharz from the creature who had sliced off his own hand.
Catharz' left hand was at first merely gauntleted, but when one looked further
it could be observed that the gauntlet was in fact a many jointed limb of
silver, gold and lapis lazuli, but as Catharz rode by, those who saw him pass
remarked not on the murmuring sword in his right hand, not on the whispering
spear in his left hand, not on the whining bow upon his back or the grumbling
arrows in the quiver; neither did they remark on his right eye of slumbering
scarlet, his left eye of pulsing crystal, his nine-fingered right hand, his
shining metallic left hand; they saw only the fearful foot of Cwlwwymwn which
throbbed in the stirrup at his mount's right flank.

The foot of the Aching God, Cwlwwymwn Rootripper, whose
ambition upon the old and weary earth had been to make widows of all wives;
Cwlwwymwn the Striker, whose awful feet had trampled whole cities when men had
first made cities; Cwlwwymwn of the Last Ones, Last of the Last Ones, who had
been driven back to his island domain on the edge of the world, beyond the
Western Ice, and who now came limping after Catharz screaming out for
vengeance, demanding the return of his foot, sliced from his leg by Oakslayer
so that Catharz might walk again and continue upon his doomladen quest, bearing
weapons which were not his protection but his burden, seeking consolation for
the guilt which ate at his soul since it was he who had been responsible for
the death of his younger brother, Forax the Golden, for the death of his neice,
Libia Gentleknee, for the living death of his cousin, Wertigo the Unbalanced,
seeking the whereabouts of his lost love, Cyphila the Fair, who had been stolen
from him by his arch-enemy, the wizard To'me'ko'op'r, most powerful, most evil,
most lustful of all the great sorcerors of this magic-clouded world.

And there were no friends here to give aid to Catharz
Godfoot. He must go alone, with shuddering terror before him and groaning guilt
behind him, and Cwlwwymwn, screaming, vengeful, limping Cwlwwymwn, following
always.

And Catharz rode on, rarely stopping, scarcely ever
dismounting, anxious to claim his own vengeance on the sorceror, and the foot
of Cwlwwymwn, Last of the Last Ones, was heavy on him, as well it might be for
it was at least eighteen inches longer than his left foot and naked, for he had
had to abandon his boot when he had found that it did not fit. Now Cwlwwymwn
possessed the boot; it was how he had known that Catharz was the mortal who had
stolen his green, seventeed-clawed limb, attaching it by fearful sorcery to the
flesh of his leg. Catharz' left leg was not flesh at all, but of lacquered
cork, made for him by the People of the World Beneath the Reefs, when he had
aided them in their great fight against the Gods of the Lowest Sea.

The sun had stained the sky a livid crimson and had
sunk below the horizon before Catharz would allow himself a brief rest and it
was just before dark that he came in sight of a small stone cottage, sheltered
beneath terraces of glistening limestone, where he hoped he might find food,
for he was very hungry.

Knocking upon the door he called out:

"Greetings, I come in friendship, seeking hospitality,
for I am called Catharz the Melancholy, who carries the curse of Cwlwwymwn
Rootripper upon him, who has many enemies and no friends, who slew his brother,
Forax the Golden, and caused the death of Libia Gentleknee, famous for her
beauty, and who seeks his list love Cyphila the Fair, prisoner of the wizard
To'me'ko'op'r, and who has a great and terrible doom upon him."

The door opened and a woman stood there. Her hair was
the silver of a spiderweb in the moonlight, her eyes were the deep gold found
at the centre of a beehive, her skin had the pale, blushing beauty of the
tea-rose. "Welcome, stranger," said she. "Welcome to all that is left of the
home of Lanoli, whose father was once the migtiest in these parts."

And, upon beholding her, Catharz forgot Cyphila the
Fair, forgot that Cwlwwymwn Rootripper limped after him still, forgot thet he
had slain his brother, his neice, and betrayed his cousin, Wertigo the
Unbalanced.

"You are very beautiful, Lanoli," he said.

"Ah," said she, "that is what I have learned. But
beauty such as mine can only thrive if it is seen and it has been so long since
anyone came to these lands."

"Let me help your beauty thrive," he said.

Food was forgotten, guilt was forgotten, fear was
forgotten as Catharz divested himself of his sword, his spear, his bow and his
arrows and walked slowly into the cottage. His gait was a rolling one, for he
still bore the burden that was the foot of the Last of the Last Ones, and it
took him some little time to pull it through the door, but at length he stood
inside and has closed the door behind him and had taken her in his arms and
pressed his lips to hers.

"Oh, Catharz," she breathed. "Catharz!"

It was not long until they stood naked before one
another. Her eyes traveled over his body and it was plain that the eyes of
scarlet and crystal were lovely to her, that she admired his sliver hand and
his nine-fingered hand, that even the great foot of Cwlwwymwn was beautiful in
her sight. But the her eyes, shy until now, fell upon that which lay between
his legs, and those eyes widened a little, and she blushed. Her lovely lips
framed a question, but he moved forward as swiftly as he could and embraced her
again.

"How?" she murmured. "How, Catharz?"

"It is a long tale and a bloody one," he whispered, "of
rivalry and revenge, but suffice it to say that it ended in my father, Xympwell
the Cruel, taking a terible vengeance upon me. I fled from his court into the
wastes of Grxiwynn, raving mad, and it was there that the tribesmen of Velox
found me and took me to the wise Man of Oorps in the mountains beyond
Katatonia. He nursed me and carved that for me. It took him two years, and all
through those years I remained raving, living off dust and dew and roots, as he
lived. The engravings had mystical significance, the runes contain the sum of
his great wisdom, the tiny pictures show all there is to show about physical
love. Is it not beautiful? More beautiful that that which it has replaced?"

Her glance was modest; she nodded slowly.

"It is indeed, very beautiful," she agreed. And then
she looked up at him and he saw that tears glistened in her eyes. "But did it
have to be made of sandstone?"

"There is little else," he explained sadly, "in the
mountains beyond Katatonia."