Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Where did you get your nick?

Before the server crashed, someone had started a thread asking people where they got their nicks, and we had some wonderfully entertaining responses. So how about some more? Or you can even repost what you'd originally said, if you want.

Mine is pretty much obvious: Wendy is my real name, and the M and R are my middle and surname initials. Pretty boring, really - I know others can do much better than that!

Well, my nicks don't have any exciting or interesting stories attached to them, but I need to start working up my # of posts again, so...

My original nick and IRC nick were DrMcCoY97. It's just my AOL address, and I didn't even pick it for myself. Back in high school my sister and one of my best friends decided that I needed to be introduced to the wonderful world of the internet (this was back in 95-96, and I had adamantly refused to even entertain the idea of going online at that point - my how things have changed. ). So, since I wouldn't set up my own e-mail account, they did it for me. The DrMcCoY bit comes from my obsession with the original Star Trek series - which predated my Lois and Clark obsession. <g> And the 97 was my high school graduation year. -So that's that nick.

And my other one that I'm now switching over to using is DocJill. Well, the Jill's pretty self-explanatory - my name :p . And the Doc...well, I will be one in 2 years, so I figured why not. I'm finishing my 2nd year of med school right now.

That's me.
Jill

I already explained about my original nick, judosas. I (occasionaly) love judo, played it for 14 years now. Lots of people call me Sas. So when I first started the internet and needed an email addy, I put that togehter.

I sort of grew up and thought it to be pretty childish. So around here I just use my real name... Saskia.

I've got some other nicks too, most from RL. And there's one I started using on the internet too.

I have no idea why I'm telling you guys this, since it won't make me look that good. <g> My best friend started calling me Sakkiman one day. We've been laughing about it a lot and at some point she decided to call me that ever since. It's a variation on another nick (Sakkia) and our boytalk. If that makes some sense.

I'll just stick to Saskia here, if you all believe that's really my name.

Saskia

Mine is long story and hopefully interesting.


It started back in 1996. We had just moved to our first home in the St. Louis area and my wife's car was on its last axle.

We sold Hubby (the car) and picked up a 1994 Ford Escort that was dubbed Edgar before we had even bought it.

After the purchase, we needed to get a driver's plate made for it. I had always fancied having a personalized plate so we thought long and hard on it and my wife came up with the perfect solution.

We both love Star Trek and at that time Next Gen was still the best.

I had just graduated with a BS in Data Processing so my wife suggested Mr. Data which was too many letters and would have looked like MRDATA. Being the retentive individuals that we are, we wanted something that looked nicer. So we made it MR-D8A.

It was a perfect marriage of my chosen profession as a DATA wrangler and our passion at the time of Star Trek (you have to admit that Mr. Data is an irresistable character!)

I was the first to go on-line and I was having the hardest time finding a handle that no one else had used. Out of desperation I tried mr_d8a and low and behold it worked. I've been using it ever since.

That also explains Elisabeth's handle: All4_mr_d8a. It was her expression of undying fealty for the love of her life.

As she said it "I am all for you, forever and ever. I belong to no one else and you shall have me for the rest of your days."

James

well, i told this before, but in case anyone is still interested...

when i was still new to having a double-digit age, my parents sent me to this summer school/camp place. it was a boarding high school during the year, but they opened it up over the summer as a place for younger kids to take random classes that they wouldn't otherwise see while pretending it was more camp-like. so, we got the fun of radioactive green stuffing with nigh-invulnerable crust and other such delicacies, and we also got to take classes over the summer. while i do have a few good memories of the place, they're mostly related to the wild pillow fights we had in the halls at night. the main thing i remember learning there was that if you dial 1-800-****-YOU (obscene word intentionally left out), you get a car dealership in chicago which has been prank called way too many times. this may have changed in the decade or so since i learned about it. i've never tried, myself.

well, one of the things they did to make it more fun and camp-like was to insist that everyone put up a nickname on his door (not sure if they did that to the girls, too).

i'd never had a nickname before (unless you count the fact that my first name is actually paul-gabriel), so i had to think about it for a while. i'd used "magician" as a handle on CB, but i'd already grown out of that by then.

so, i thought about it. at the time, i always wore a hat, since i was very sensitive about the fact that i was going bald so young (i've since gotten over that, thanks to a high school principal who refused to let students wear hats in the building. he said he'd let me, but then i'd just stick out even more. by then, bald was coming into style, so i just let it go. it's not a style i'd choose, but it's the one i have). at the time, i was also just beginning to recognize my cheerful insanity (see avatar ). so, i put them together and came up with MadHatter.

the next year, my uncles chipped in together and bought me a laptop for my birthday. my idol of the time (a guy who was more nerdy, more crazy, and far more knowledgeable than i) helped me set it up and introduced me to a local bbs called "cheers" (the sysop was a huge fan of the show, and went by "malone").

a quick explanation for those of you who missed the bbs stage (this was before the internet, you see...): BBS stood for "bulliten board system." you dialed into a computer using a (hopefully) local access number. many bbses had just one server, but some of the bigger ones had a few spread out. cheers had about 4, i think. that meant that users were streached out over about half of the state of NJ.

cheers, like most BBSes, was centered around a chat room, but it had some other features, too... a graffiti wall, where you could type completely random messages, a few other random features i don't remember offhand, and something strange called "email," where you could leave a message for another registered user, to be picked up the next time that user logged in. that part never made sense to me... if, for some odd, reason, you had a message for a specific user, why not just wait until the next time you ran into each other in the chat room?

well, anyway, i used the nick MadHatter there, too. wasn't long, tho, before i noticed that the chat room suffered from the occasional conversational lull. after a while, i came up with something to entertain people during those lulls. it was the fun and wacky adventures of...

"HatMan: Avenger of Boredum (and bad speller...)"

he'd drive up in a Sombrerromobile, have a silly adventure, and then, when conversation started again, quietly slip out, job well done.

after a while, he got a sidekick, Hairpin (which sounded similar to robin), who drove a CapCar. that's about all i remember about the routine, but it was fun.

later, i moved to compuserve (where i met pam, and was introduced to folcdom and the original ficlist), but soon found that the MadHatter chat room nick was also used by a major jerk, with whom i really did not wish to be confused. so, i went through a few cserve-related nicks, ending up with TSFILOCB, which was a good conversation piece. it stood for "The Search For Intelligent Life On CB" (cserve's chat room was called "CB simulator," as it was designed to resemble citizen's band radio). people would ask me about it privately, and i'd explain, and we'd get to talking, and thus i managed to make friends with the few people curious enough and intelligent enough to ask (if you've ever hung out in a teen chat room, you know what i'm talking about).

well, when i moved on from cserve, i realized that TSFILOCB wouldn't really work too well. it made no sense anywhere else, and the places i was going had far more interesting people, on average, in any case.

i remembered MadHatter, but decided that the HatMan persona had been more fun. so, HatMan it's been, ever since (except when i dress up for the kerths as TopHatMan ).

of ironic note is the fact that we're currently investigating the possibility that my health problems might be related to mercury poisoning from old dental fillings (i've heard about a couple people with similar symptoms who traced it to that, including kurt busiek my favorite comics writer).

so, that's the story.

NEXT!

Paul

I moved this from Fanfic Related to Off Topic. Before we had our technical difficulties it had been in FF Related, but was moved to OT. History is repeating itself.

Carry on! I love hearing these stories.

~Anna

you forgot something anna... what about your story? huh?

Paul

Delighted you've restarted this one, Wendy - I was really enjoying all the stories last time around.

More please!

LabRat

hey, no fair posting just to up your count, rat! :p if you're going to add to this thread, it should be to tell your story! i retold mine, and it's longer than yours.

Paul

No fair jumping up your post count by just telling Labby that it's not fair for her just to jump up her post count, Paul!

All right, I'll give a summary of my story:
Lots of people call me 'Anna Banana' cause it rhymes. I used to use BananaBelcher for a screenname all the time (Belcher is my unfortunate last name), but Wendy and Pam informed me that it sounded gross. I couldn't disagree so I went looking for something else.

Back in middle school and junior high I used to sign notes to my friends 'BanAnna.' I have no idea what made me think of doing that then or what made me think of using it here, but I did and I was informed that people thought it was clever, so I stuck with it.

~Anna (who hopes Paul is satisfied now )

I had already told my story on another thread, and so wasn't going to repeat myself here. However, with our recent loss, the thread is no longer, so I may as well join the club and tell my story. (Plus as Paul pointed out, it'll help my post count! )

I've been on the net for maybe 4 or so yrs now, but it wasn't until a year and a half ago that I decided to 'get involed' and make my presence known. I had always heard the warnings, 'Don't tell anyone your real name/give out any personal details on the net', which must have ingrained themselves on my brain, so I decided I had to come up with a nickname. I wanted something unusual/that no one else had and I also wanted a name that meant something, so one of my friends, LotR crazy, suggested using something Tolkienesque. She dragged out her copy of The Sillmarillion and I got some Latin and Frech dictionaries, and we came up with Loriel Eris.

Laure - from Tolkien, means shine, or radient, as in light, and is also similar to my real name

-el - from Tolkien, is maiden (quite appropriate!)

and

Eris - can't remember where exacly it came from. I tried looking it up in the latin and french dictionaries when I posted previously but I couldn't find it. I think I must have mauled beyond belief from its original form. It probably means born or from as when I was trying to make up a name I wanted something like Star Traveller or Born form the stars. The first is my wishful thinking - I'd love to be a mission specialist on one of the flights up into space, or on the space station, and the second came from the fact that 'we're all made from star material.

Anyway, if you apply some poetic licence Loriel Eris means something like Maiden born of the light, which was as close as I could get at the time.

That's my story.

Loriel (who's just realised that all the graemlins are back. Yeah! )

Yeah! No fair. You tell 'im, Anna! )

My daddy gave me my name... oddly enough, this is the only place where I use my real name. Other places, I use a name my mom gave me, the one she *wanted* to name me, but Dad won out. Unfortunately, I'll have to change it in a few years, because it's going to be my future daughter's name, but it's mine for now.

Hatman, Labby, quit fighting over posts. You've got years to leapfrog each other!

BTW, do you know hard it is to type one-handed, while using the other hand to hold a laptop with a cat lying over that wrist?

My name, Alicia, was my Spanish Class name in High School. Some of you know my real name, some don't .

(and I still use Alicia3456 as my IM name - it's really weird to explain to people that know me in RL)

Hmm, my story is short and boring, but hey, I need to get a first post to this latest version of the boards! It's pretty self-explanatory: Tracey is my first name, Lynn is my middle. Hmm, I'm so creative [g]

The lower case thing I have going on ... well, I dunno. I guess I was a lazy typer the day I registered for the boards, and it stuck [g]

Next?

Tracey

Well, I hadn't gotten around to telling my story before the boards crashed, so here goes for the first time. <g>

When I got interested in the online community, I was paranoid about giving my real name out -- unlike Kathy, my name doesn't bring up 3000 google hits and none of them as me. (At least, I think it was Kathy that said that...) So, I played around and fiddled with stuff, not liking any of it (did Chester, because it was a joke with my friends, but um...it's a boy's name and I'm...um...a girl. ).

In high school I was really involved with the theatre group and I played Beth March in Little Women. (I died. It was fun.) My 'sisters' still called me Bethy sometimes for fun, so I decided to use it as my nick. Then, when I became less paranoid, everyone knew me as Bethy (plus my real name is a pain to type fast) so I just kept it. Even those who've met me still call me Bethy!

Bethy

Long long ago, in a forum far, far away... I was a minor somebody on CompuServe -- I had the glamorous title of "Assistant Sysop" for two sections in the SFMedia forum, and one of them was for L&C. The gang there decided that that made me roughly (very roughly! ) equivalent to an Editor in Chief... and ChiefPam was born. I left CServe years ago, making me chief of nothing and no one <g> but never changed the nick because a) everyone knew me under this name, and b) I had no earthly idea what *else* to call myself. (Well, okay, I could have gone with "Granny Kyra" but that would have taken a muuuuuuuuuch longer explanation).

And I just realized that now, thanks to the Wonderful Annette and these new boards, the nick actually makes sense again!

PJ

An abridged version, cos I'm too lazy to type out my lengthy explanation again. And Wendy? I claim credit for this thread. Before the crash that is.

I'm a twin. My twin sister's meclone2. I don't think there's anybody here that does't realise this.

I'm the elder one, so I called myself 'twin1'. But it was too common, so I decided to take an ego trip and added 'me' in front. Hence metwin1.

I'm repeating my appeal here; please include the number 1 when addressing me (ie don't call me metwin). The distinction of being the elder twin matters to me.

So remember, I'm metwin1.


metwin1

Well, here's my story (again).

My twin sister has been calling herself "metwin1" online since 1997. I didn't want to call myself "metwin2" (she's the older twin) because I think the alliteration sounds terrible and also because it makes me sound like an echo (metwin2, metwin,too).

In mid 1997, the birth of Dolly the sheep was announced. My twin sister and I were in the same class the following year (the academic year in Singapore starts in Jan and ends on Nov). Our classmates dubbed her the "twin" and me the "clone". So I'm meclone2.

--meclone2--

*edit* P.S: I'd prefer it as well, if FoLCs called me meclone2 instead of meclone. The number "2" and I are rather good friends. I think it comes from being the second twin and the second child of my family.

Mine's boring and short, but I'll retype it to grab a post...I lurk, therefore I name myself the Shadow. It's basically the same s/n that I use for all the Charmed boards because I lurk there as well, sort of like the demons' shadows (as they wait for instructions).