Monday, November 10, 2008

The Name Game

Just thought I'd post a very short quasi-meme: This post is all about your pseudonyms and blog names: Why do you call your place what it is, and why pick your pseudonym?

For me: "Bronze Dog" is a gradual evolution from some names I decided to make up for generic Internet purposes. Going around by my fantasy characters names didn't exactly fit on an Armored Core forum, so I made the decision to go generic. I started with "Blue Chu": I was just getting into anime at the time, and hearing 'chu' a lot in relation to mice and rats made me think it was the translation, but a visit to a Japanese/English dictionary dispelled that notion. Eventually, I found out it was the Japanese onomatopoeia for squeaking. Next generation was "Blue Inu (Dog)", but since it didn't have the two rhyming syllable thing I was going for, I just dumped that for Blue Dog. First entered it into R-Type Final as a pilot name, and did for a couple games of Armored Core. Since there were no shortage of Blue Dogs on the internet, I tried some variations, at one point leaning towards "The Tiny Blue Dog" as one less likely to show up. Anyway, that tended to get long, so thought I'd get something back down to two syllables. I did a little Adobe Creative Suite, drawing up website buttons at one point, settling on some metallic hexagons. Didn't go for cliche gold or silver, so I went for bronze, also thinking about one favorite bit in Earthbound: The 5 mole brothers that all claimed to be the third strongest of their family.

I'm guessing you weren't expecting that much history. The blog's altered name is much simpler: Blog rhymes with dog.

Comment or make a post about your names. No tag rules. This is strictly voluntary.

17 comments:

Joshua said...

Well, I comment using my real first name, so that's fairly easy to explain...

As for "Tobasco da Gama", it's something that came out of nowhere back when I was in high school. The origin should be fairly obvious, I think. I just mashed up Tabasco sauce with Vasco da Gama. Eventually, I changed "Tabasco" to "Tobasco". No special reason for that, it just seemed like a sound idea. Like it could kinda sorta pass for a real name or something. ;)

I use "furtim" for online gaming, though. It, oddly enough, also dates back to high school, but this time to Latin class. "Furte" pops up in the section of the Aeneid about Daedalus building a device to allow the wife of Minos to copulate with a bull to produce the infamous -taur. I liked the dual-meaning of "crafty/stealhy" for "furt-", but I didn't like the boring second-declension ending for the adjectival form. I did notice, however, that there was an alternate adverbial form that had a better ring to it. Hence, "furtim". The meaning is the other reason besides tradition why I like to use it for gaming online. It just feels right.

Joshua said...

Oh, also, I rather like naming myself an adverb. It's cheeky.

Snail said...

I'm named after the animals I study. Not very exciting, is it? I suppose it could be worse. I might work on bot flies.

My blog name, 'Snail's Eye View', just leapt into my mind when Blogger asked for one.

I should have constructed a more elaborate story but there you have it.

Anonymous said...

I tend to stick with aliases starting with the letter E - my real first name starts with E, and I've always loved the letter. Some of my various accounts have the username "The Letter E". Because sometimes I am very uncreative.

"Etymological" came from an attempt to make a non-fandom, non-stupid Livejournal name years ago. I love etymology, and I liked that it included "logical", as well. I also liked that it was unisex.
It ended up sticking better than I expected, and it's to the point where I consider "Ety" to be one of my names.

The blog... "virus machine" was just something that Johnnypotamus and I thought sounded neat. There was more to it, but it really just boiled down to that.

Don said...

My freshman year of college, I was looking to make a new AIM account, and I wanted it to be something cool. I tried to find "evil genius" in various languages. I settled on Japanese, because I was really heavily into anime at the time. I found "Akusai" on some random online Japanese dictionary as a word that meant "evil genius." I snagged it and used it off and on since then. When I decided to blog, and to do so with a pseudonym, that was the first thing that sprung to mind.

Later, I found out it might just mean "bad wife." I kept it anyway. If true, it is too hilarious to pass up.

Dikkii said...

Well I feel boring.

Dikkii's just an abbreviated version of my first name. All my friends call me it. It's been my nickname since first year university but originally I spelt it Dickie.

Then someone wrote a note on my door (about third year) spelling it "Dikki" and I liked it. Plus, the extra "i" at the end was a bit different.

I could have come up with a really cool handle for the net, but Bronze Dog was already taken.

Clint Bourgeois said...

My last name plus a nick name I got in high school, due to my ability to flip out when people pissed me off enough. I've calmed down much in recent years, but I still keep the name. Plus, people who don't know that it is my name think it is saying something about my political ideals. It does and it doesnt.

I have a website, but it doesn't have a name. Just my name.

Anonymous said...

Ok, I know I don't have a blog. One day maybe, I'm working on it. Jeez will people stop nagging me already. I mean I'll do it on my own time. Where the hell do people get off telling me...

Sorry.

My first name is James, I go by Jim usually.

My wife's nickname for me is Blue.

One of my favourite songs is by a band called Del Amitri - Jimmy Blue.

Hence, Jimmy_Blue.

Not very exciting I'm afraid.

I went by Elthrin years ago on the Portent forums and in a few other places, but haven't for a while.

Been thinking about a blog name, were I to have one, but haven't come up with anything interesting enough yet.

Melissa Gay Art said...

My handle's pretty self-explanatory. :D

Anonymous said...

I first picked this as my call sign in the old PC "Shmup" Raptor: Call of the Shadows because I wanted something to compete with a friend's callsign, Moonshine. I was a kid at the time so keep that in mind.

At any rate, when I first started signing up for forums (mainly video game related) I couldn't think of anything so I just ressurected this old name with the intention of using it ironically since people with "dark" in their name were a dime a dozen at the time. I coupled it with avatars of kittens, and these days it sticks. I use it pretty much everywhere online because my imagination is broken.

King of Ferrets said...

First, right before I started playing World of Warcraft, I learned my uncle had a character named Weaselofdoom. I liked the idea, and I had a ferret, so I made a character on his server called Doomferret (People actually managed to recognize the origin of the name, interestingly.) Then people started calling me Ferret, and I made up King of Ferrets as my title when I started a guild. So now I go by King of Ferrets online. Blog name is rather self-explanatory.

Wikinite said...

I chose wikinite as a poke at religion. I have the irrational belief that things written on wikipedia are true.

I even had an external agent called "The Wiki" that naturally attracted truth, which was embodied in wikipedia.

Anonymous said...

"Evil Bender" is Flexo, from Futurama, where the joke is that the "evil" Bender is actually Bender himself. Naturally.

I took my name to indicate that themes aren't always what they seem, and that foolish oversimplification and ignorance get us into trouble.

Berlzebub said...

"Berlzebub" is a nickname that I picked up somewhere I used to work. I'm not sure of the exact reason, but it might have to do with practical jokes. One of my coworkers called me that, and it kind of stuck. So, when I started looking for an online pseudonym it wasn't that difficult.

As far as my blog name, it's not that imaginative. I combined "Berlzebub" with Dante's "Inferno", and there ya go. Considering that most Xians think that the devil has horns, a tail, and a trident I figured I would throw in another piece of fiction that most consider gospel.

MWchase said...

Well, let's see. My current blog that I'm focusing on is new, but I've had the name in mind for a while. "Le Blog pour Le Blog" is obviously a takeoff of "L'Art pour L'Art". It remains to be seen whether 'for blogging's sake' ends up being a good thing or a bad thing.

My current blogger handle is just my given initials and my last name. Before, it was "cassol", which was apparently my name in a bizarre dream I accidentally gave myself. Best summed up as "In the next generation of office jobs, chess is serious business."

Some other names are out there, pretty much abandoned, or not something I want to link to my primary gmail account, (actually, I really don't want to link the stuff from ten years ago or so to... anything. I wouldn't particularly wish the reputation I gave those names on my worst enemy. Fortunately, years of training have gotten me closer to understanding the art of not being an asshole online.) so that's it.

Bing said...

Bing McGhandi? Because it's totally unlikely. But my pseudonym's pseudonym, Lance Goodthrust, was a name that was invented by a friend of mine way back in the day. I stole it without shame.

HJ

Laser Potato said...

A children's book.
No, really.
It was about two princes who were in an arms race against each other, and the weapons got more destructive (and sillier) as the story continued. One of listed weapons was "laser potatoes", and it just stuck. (In case you're wondering how it ended, the princes talked out thier differences.)