On Screennames
At this point, I don't even remember what put the idea into my head, but I've just spent a hour searching the internet for ways to determine how long I have styled myself as Yaxley. I was able to confirm I registered it for AIM on July 1, 2000. So at the very least, I can prove that my use of the moniker will have reached its sixth year in just a few days. But it was also my screenname for AOL, I know this. And it was to the best of my recollection, AOL 2.5 or 3.0., so we're talking aound 1996 here. But as my parents closed their AOL account several years ago after I begged them for months to get broadband, I can't check to see when I registered it with AOL. Assuming it would even tell me in the first place. And now I'm stuck. Is this stricly relevant to anything? No, not really. I just wanted to be able to brag that I've been using my internet alias for a decade. Yes, I am fully aware that no one cares.
But all the screenname nostalgia has me thinking, in particular about other people's online nicknames / screennames / user names. Sometimes it's fairly obvious, especially when you know it relates to the person's real name in some way. Other times, I just think "Where in the heck did that come from," but I never bothered to ask. So now I'm asking. Come and share the origin of your AIM name / blog title / e-mail address or whatever. Tell about why you use the pseudonym that you do. I'll go first, for those of you who missed it when I talked about this a year ago.
My family got our first PC for Christmas in 1995 and soon discovered the joys and agonies of AOL. When I asked for my own screenname, my dad chose it for me. In hindsight, it was not a good idea for a 13 year old to be on the internet with a screenname that contained his real name, so it's probably good that we eventually deleted that one. When he agreed to let me choose my own name, I had no idea what to pick. I had just finished reading the book Yaxley's Cat by Robert Westall, and that seemed cool, so I picked it and it has stuck. As Yaxley is apparently a not-uncommon surname in England, I have recieved e-mails from people demanding that I relenquish the name to them as it is their real name and it is not mine. I declined to acquiesce to their requests. The name also appeared in a list of Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, much to my dismay. But I like the name, and use it everywhere except the few site where someone got it before me. Probably that British guy who was so mad at me years ago.
Anyway, come tell me where your name comes from.
But all the screenname nostalgia has me thinking, in particular about other people's online nicknames / screennames / user names. Sometimes it's fairly obvious, especially when you know it relates to the person's real name in some way. Other times, I just think "Where in the heck did that come from," but I never bothered to ask. So now I'm asking. Come and share the origin of your AIM name / blog title / e-mail address or whatever. Tell about why you use the pseudonym that you do. I'll go first, for those of you who missed it when I talked about this a year ago.
My family got our first PC for Christmas in 1995 and soon discovered the joys and agonies of AOL. When I asked for my own screenname, my dad chose it for me. In hindsight, it was not a good idea for a 13 year old to be on the internet with a screenname that contained his real name, so it's probably good that we eventually deleted that one. When he agreed to let me choose my own name, I had no idea what to pick. I had just finished reading the book Yaxley's Cat by Robert Westall, and that seemed cool, so I picked it and it has stuck. As Yaxley is apparently a not-uncommon surname in England, I have recieved e-mails from people demanding that I relenquish the name to them as it is their real name and it is not mine. I declined to acquiesce to their requests. The name also appeared in a list of Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, much to my dismay. But I like the name, and use it everywhere except the few site where someone got it before me. Probably that British guy who was so mad at me years ago.
Anyway, come tell me where your name comes from.
posted by Yax at 4:58 PM
6 Comments:
I have several internet pseudonyms. Pseudoliterati is the newest and the most obvious. I won't even bother explaining it. CareeningSerene was created my freshman year of college, and comes from a Third Eye Blind song: "You're so serene/Careening through the universe/Your axis on a tilt." WornOutLullabye goes back to high school (senior year, I think), and comes from the Angie Aparo song, "Wonderland." That is all.
Mine is from my high school French class. You know when you pick a name for everyone to call you during that class period, well Brigitte was mine. The rest of it, obviously the date I entered this world.
I also have another one, based on what my grandpa calls me and what my friend Jacque calls me. I actually like it better, but I'm too lazy to try and make anyone use it. :-P
When the internet first came to the Gilpin household, we had AOL and only one account: DaGilpins
I hated it much.
I created my own account behind their backs: Treybur. I was going to go with Treyber, but it was taken. This is what my sixth-grade-teacher called me, and it kinda stuck with my friends.
In college, I realized that Treybur sucked as well. Searching randomly for cool-sounding nicknames (FlowryWhore or whatnot) I remembered a project I did my senior year of highschool: we had to make a video of one act from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
I played the murderer that young Macduff calls a Shag-eared villain, and I respond with "What, you egg! Young fry of treachery!" running him through with a plastic light sabre.
I was also growing my hair out at the time. It gets curly around the ears when I do that.
Tough, rugged, witty, shakespearean: ShagearedVillain
I must confess, I really with Trey had gone with FlowryWhore... but alas.
I've been away...so this is late. You might not even read it.
hikokanut:
People in high school never called me by my first name. It was either kokanut or kokes. so I used kokanut since people also called my brother kokes. it was taken, and I was so against using numbers. so I put the word hi in front of it at my brother's suggestion. as if my IM friends were saying hi in front of me. he had created his IM name the day before me. it was hikokes. I didn't know it at the time.
wow, I have been out of the blogging world way too long. there is, sadly, no sense in my even entering this discussion. it was fun to read, though.
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