Sometimes I just wonder why some people choose their particular online ID.
Do people know you as it in real life, is it a nickname actually laid upon you or is a it a personal preference?
Aquilla is it pronounced akWeelA?
How about the Piper twins? (Form of A Giant Squid)

Mine is obvious. I am an early 70's limited edition, now legally a classic, Christopher.
I feel funny using nicknames and have never been given any. Well a couple BUT I in no way resemble any of them unless I wear a turtleneck. I almost always use some version of my name on line. Even when i drove over the road I used my real name on the airways. I have always thought some people kinda funny about proclaiming themselves in real public life to be called something other than their actual name unless it was bestowed upon them by others affectionatly. Way too many "Dutch's" and "Freebirds" or "Ice's" out there.

So why are known as you are online?

I am known by several names online. I use different names to help keep different parts of my life separate.

For example, I use a name I will not disclose for all my online activities concerning my Job and my union. I keep that name separate from may political names because if my union discovered my politics or political affiliation I would most certianly be blackballed, and I can't afford that. Ah, such is the rights of the working man.

Anyway. For the Navy Reserves I use OverlandSailor. Simple really, I live in Overland, MO and I am a Navy Reservist. I for some unknown reason decided to use it rather then my political identity here. Hmmmmm, perhaps on some level I realized I would become so disillusioned by the Republicans in general that I would consider leaving the party.

My normal political Identity is JohnQRepublican. I am John, I am (for now) a Republican and I see it as a way to express the "everyman" part of the party, IE John Q Public.

My husband's callsign is Pigpen, which is where I get mine.

Elspeth is the name of my long-running Paladin character on AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) computer games. I most admire lawful good characters who fight monstrous evil and emerge victorious. Elspeth is an old Scottish form of Elizabeth (meaning "consecrated to God").

From the American Heritage Dictionary online:

I'm a dragonslayer wannabe.

My moniker is just me being cynical about the future of the world.

Since my other Half isn't around today, probably in the Dark Room, I'll handle this...I feel so alone LOL. DreamPiPer is my little sister, now she found this site first and we use to chat about the topics that she debated. Like most families we never talked politics much for obvious reasons, well in our house politics were the one subject you just didn't bring up! Talk about payin the Piper, if you think the Piper girls are stubborn, take a look at their Dad! Since nobody on this planet could ever be as right (Republican) or right (as in correct all the time), we just never knew what each other thought. UNTIL AD entered our lives. We came to realize that she and I share similar views of the world, Go Figure we had something to talk about, other than family stuff. So when I joined I figured I would make it easy for AD Members to draw the parallel, DreamPiPer used her surname , so I figured I would too. Plexed comes as I tend to be Perplexed, In life nothing is ever black or white for me, I do not take after my father in that regard, toooooo many shades of grey. AD encourages Family unity

Edited Typo Queen

I always ran with the wrong crowd. Very wrong crowd. Mostly drug addicts, alcoholics, partiers, and criminals. I was always the one never to let a friend down and always pushing them to get their things straight. Like driving them to work, school, or court, taking care of god children, and solving arguments in our click. Thats one of the reasons why they called me the Reverend. Vincent Del Fuego was the name on my fake ID, and what I used for an alias during the shadier period of my life. It's one of many nicknames that I've had that stuck. I don't know why people feel compelled to give me nicknames, VJ isn't too hard to pronounce.



Another nickname?

As the saying goes, you can call me anything except "Late for Dinner."

Typical days as I started new jobs...

I rode a bicycle to work, wearing a bicycle helmet, and before I even met my supervisor, someone yelled out "Crash!" and the name stuck.

I walked into a building and met two supervisors. One shared my first name, one my last name, and they both decided to call me "Wally." The name stuck.

I walked into a lunchroom once to be greeted with, "Moses!" The name stuck.

I had a bit role on stage in Gypsy. The character's name was "Cigar." I learned that there is no such thing as amateur theater, and that I was no pro. The name stuck however, and the other actor's in the play always called me by it.

After 30 years on the job, and 50 - 60 such nicknames, I think that my last supervisor actually called me by name once. Someone turned to me and said, "Where did he come up with that nickname?

It served a function, I always knew where someone knew me from...

I have an ex-wife who, I am reasonably certain, is not using the Internet unless it is a condition of employment. Nonetheless, I have no desire for her to wander back into my life. An on-line alias seemed an appropriate defensive move.

There was a columnist in the Grand Rapids Press, probably 4 - 5 decades ago, who wrote about the daily commute on the Cherry Street Bus. He signed off his columns as "The Old Curmudgeon." I looked up the name, and it fits my personality. Depending on which person you talk to, I am usually described as somewhere between Hermit, Misanthropic, and Anti-Social. The idea of choosing a User Name myself, instead of being branded with the same old 8 letter truncation of my name delighted me...

There is something about my personality though that seems to cause people to give me nicknames. I have grown accustomed to the fact that the people who have befriended me on this thread, so universally call me "Mudge," that it is not viewed as a spelling error on any of three Spell Checker programs that I use.

Wow after a couple of those stories mine seems a little tacky...I have no need or desire to hide behind a alias, but I've been using this name for years so it has sort of stuck

It started with a band I listened to a whole lot in high school (wow I started that almost a decade ago...?!) Anyway the name of their first album was "pokinatcha" and the 613 came from my area code.

Sort of mundane but thats its origins nevertheless..perhaps I should make up an exciting story about it....

I was pointed out to this site by a fellow mopar enthusiast (mopar is the term to cover all Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth and AMC products, and now Daimler Chrysler- though we all hate daimler, and there is whole nother debate about that so called merger- turned hostile takeover)

I drive a 1993 Dodge Ram turbo Cummins diesal 4x4 Dually when I don't have the whole family with me- so when I am cruising out to my "retirement home" site out on the Big Susitna river to do some work- they I am in my "CruisingRam"- so there you go! LOL

I use the same moniker on all my hot rod sites, about 10, plus this political site.

I rarely admit this nowadays, but my name comes from a love of star wars... way back in the beginning of AOL, I convinced my family AOL was better than the older way (remember ASCII characters and when you couldn't find everything online??) and so my dad let me sign the family up. I tried a few variations of our surname - the ever popular Irish Kelley's, but discovered even as early as I was signing on, there were way too many Kelley's in the world. So, frustrated I typed in random names that I liked, and eventually thought Rebel Kate would be fun, since I liked star wars and rooted for the rebels, and then I could make myself one of them by adding my name (brilliant, I know... but then again, I was rather young and silly).

Of course, my dad was thrilled to have the name Rebelkate to give out as his email address (wow, sharing email with my entire family... thats insanity!). I have since moved on from aol, but rebelkate stuck... especially after I went to college and someone found out my email address and now its become a real world nickname. Of course, being a southerner, I sometimes lie and tell people its because either a) I'm a southerner and am giving props to my ancestors or I'm just such a rebel.

I like my little sister's new moniker... for a while she ended up with Gerbyll (we raised gerbils, and she didn't want any numbers because she is original), then she left the parental nest and now has the fun moniker - Alive. It perfectly describes her (she is very alive ) and its pretty easy to remember - which is good since her buddy list goes for miles. Hopefully, when she returns from her German jaunt, there'll be a new AD member - look for alive (or Lucille Ball - she's a huge fan).

My mom is MindKelley - another one of my brilliant ideas Her name is Mindy, but Mindy was taken (there are apparently at least a 1000 of them) so I decided to showcase her genius

I generally don't care if people get my full name - there are a rather large number of Kate Kelleys in the world... There are two in my class now alone. I've also discovered the combination of names in my family is also rather un-unique... but in all my time signing up at various online forums, etc... I haven't had to pick a different name... so mayber there aren't too many rebelkates

Izdaari is pronounced Iz-DAHR-ee. It's pseudo-Swahili, from the EverQuest random name generator for the Erudite race. I played that character in EQ for four years or so. I started doing message boards just for EQ, so it was natural to use my character name there, and I got used to it and started using is elsewhere too.

As mentioned in the old thread, I just use my surname. As my first name is fairly commonplace, most people use my last name real-time a well. Wertz always struck me as the sort of sound that would be produced if you pressed on a cartoon character's nose, but one can't choose one's family name...

Wertz is the monicker I use on most serious discussion boards - elsewhere in the ether, I sometimes use snowrash (after the Neal Stephenson novel). When posting as my conservative alter ego, I use Amlord.

Aquilla (I pronounce it Ah-Keel-ah) is a variation of the latin word for Eagle - Aquila. Part of my heritage is American Indian. My birth mother was Comanche and the Eagle is a sacred bird to me. That is also why I use the avatar I do.

Real life name is Anslem, and nobody could ever pronounce it right. Everyone usually says Ant-slim, and when I was about 12 someone just started calling me Slim. It has stuck to this very day, 15 years later! It seems weird to people when they first meet me, as I am anything but slim, but I like it and 99% of the people I know call me by it now.

BTW, my family always pronounced it an-slum, so Slim is definitely better than Slum!

ConservPat...Conserve Patriotism...or....Conservative Patriot. Clever, and multi-functional

CP

Um....might want to check that, Wertzie. Snowrash doesn't sound so nice.

I love to tell this story of my name. My real first name is Jaime. It's pronounced "Jay' - me" not "High-may" like in Spanish.

When I was a kid I tried to avoid explaining my name. I used to be really embarrassed to explain to people how my parents chose it. The reason is - the picked it out of the TV Guide. I am truly a child of the 70's.

Mom and Dad chose Jaime because they really liked Lindsey Wagner's TV character name, Jamie Sommers. You probably know her better as her alter-ego - the Bionic Woman.

They changed the spelling because my mom thought "Jamie" looked like it should be pronounced "Jam-mie." Yeah, I know. Doesn't make much sense to me either.

Interesting side note - I was supposed to be named Carrie because my dad liked that annoying song Carrie Ann by the Hollies. Thankfully, Stephen King came out with his book about an evil child of the same name. I am grateful that my parents were so ruled by pop culture.

So if we're ever lucky enough to meet, you can call me Jaime and it won't be weird. As another interesting side note, when Wertz came up to meet Mike and I we called him Wertz the whole time.

My real name is Jennifer or Jenni, but it is such a common name that I rarely use it for online purposes.

"jenreiautter" is the first three letters of each of my family members:

Jenni, Reinard (my fiance), Autumn (daughter #1), and Terra (daughter #2)

One of my other online names is Sage, which I enjoy for a number of reasons: I love the smell of burning sage during a Native American smudging ceremony, I live in Utah, which is in a desert climate and if you drive far enough from my home in Salt Lake City there's a lot of sagebrush. It also means a wise person, and while I don't think I'm there yet, I hope to be in another 30 to 40 years!

My sister already explained that Piper is my surname. The past year I had been toying around with how I will name my "dream" business in photography. I was in Ireland last summer visiting a friend and mentioned the name I had come up with, PhotoPiper (play on photo paper). He said why not Dreampiper. I liked it. So when I joined AD I decided to use it as my moniker and see if it wears on me a bit more. My sister suggested changing the name to look like DreamPipEr to emphasize the dreamer and piper. Mike was kind enough to change the appearance for me and now I really like the name of my dream business "DreamPipEr Photography"!

Oh Jaime, I used to love the Bionic Woman! My first name, Kimberlee, was suppose to go to Piper Plexed. My parents liked the name and when she was born they considered naming her as such. They decided not to because they were afraid that she would be called Kimberly Clark. When I was born they decided they didn't care if I was made fun of (joke) but would change the spelling so as not to confuse me with toilet paper.

Ok now that you all know my full name I am a bit scared! On the other hand, when I am a famous photographer you can all say I knew her when!

I originally used this name on another forum devoted mainly to Tolkien, but also the fantasy and science fiction genres in general. Most of the LOTR related names were already taken so I just wanted something vaguely related to fantasy, and a Paladin of course is the good guy.

Political discussions were eventually banned from the general forum on that site, so a few of the members began visiting here to discuss political issues. I used the same name I had used on that site so the people from the other site knew who I was. JonBon, UltimateJoe, and Victoria Silverwolf are from there. (not sure if there are any others lurking around)

I took my screen name from the novel by John Gardner, which was of course inspired by Beowulf. The 72 is the year I was born.
I've used some variation of this name for ages.

I admit I always assumed it was because your name is PAtrick and you're conservative.

Anyway, like Christopher, I just use my name.

On other forums, I will use variants that include my birth year like "Jules67" or "Jules_1967", usually only if someone else has already registered "Julian".

I think a quote from Silverado sums it up best: "I figure you either gotta treat people like everybody's your friend, or nobody is". I usually plump for the former - it's much less hassle.

After receiving several death threats I decided using my real name was not a good option. Picked Hugo out of thin air.

unabomber just sort of sounded cool. also I like explosions and explosives (though not bombing innocent people) so the bomber part kind of fits (black powder in lemon/lime bottles make an awesome bang, as do dry ice bombs)

The moniker has a two-part history.

Part One: I've worked for many years in computer operations in 24/7 operations centers. Most of the time on third shift, so working during the night time has become pretty standard fare. Even as a editor, there were times when I'd go in at 8:00 am and not finish until 3:00 am.

Part Two: When you're working nights you often need something to keep you going and I don't drink coffee. So, I'd slap on the Walkman and listen to something stomping like the J. Geils Band song, "Night Time."

And the rest is history...

An occupational hazard of snowboarding? I guess I also qualify for the much-sought Typo Queen monicker. Yeah, that shoulda been snowcrash. Thanks, Carrie.

In my younger years I was nicknamed,"popeye the sailor man" because of a similarity to my last name. I shortened that to "Popeye47" which represent the year I was born. Very boring but that is it.

Hmmm...I thought I sent those to Wertz....

A common misconception Julian, very common. Nope my name's not Patrick, in fact it is...


CP

My initials are AML.

My last name starts with Lor...

So, AMLOR...

I added the d so that it seems to be a word that means something...

For the record, I pronounce it (or would, if I ever said it aloud) as A.M. Lord.

See, I always figured it was because you were gender ambiguous.

TheCook is just the name I use online. Obviously, it's a popular one, so sometimes I use TheCookMa or The_Cook, etc. No rhyme or reason to it, just take what's available and as close to TheCook as possible.

The source of the name is simple, it's the translation of my last name into english.

Cyan is one of the shades in the CMYK colour chart, a nice blue. It's fitting, because I enjoy graphic design, and as a name, Cyan is androgenous, short, and somewhat exotic sounding.

I generally use Cyan for all of my activities online, and if it isn't available, I use the variation of SleepyCyan.

Mines an occasional nickname which developed from my real name. Sam - Samuel - Samule - mule -geddit?
I work freelancing in design and as a digital colourist (I colour in comics and illustrations), when I work with a particular set of pencillers and inkers who I've collaborated with for years, we call ourselves the peskykids. So peskykid is a moniker I use sometimes as well.

You can see our stuff on peskykids site

Watch out though its image and a bit flash intensive so could be slow on older computers!

I admit to being about as big of Roleplaying geek as Paladin Elspeth, my Moniker comes from one of my Epic fantasy stories that I have told over the years. It serves its purpose as keeping my real name off the boards, and letting any of the few dozen players who have encountered me know who I am.

Quane was based on an elven name from JRR Tolkiens books, and Corsair is simply an older version of the word Pirate.

QC Shows up in many of my stories as an NPC and my main series of books.




Quane