LJ usernames

[yendi]

So, I thought about doing this as a survey. But I want people to be able to write as much as they need to. So just respond in the comments. My question: What's the meaning/origin behind your LJ username? I'm asking about the actual unchanging userid (i.e., yendi), as opposed to the morphing item in the "name" field, although you're welcome to talk about both. I know the origins of some of your names, and can figure out others, but I'd love to know why you all chose the IDs you chose.

As for me, I've been a fan of Steven Brust's Dragaera for at least fifteen years or so. I've used all sorts of variants of names from the books online over the years, but I eventually settled upon Yendi, because they were the group of Dragaerans I most enjoyed reading about. They tend to be the ones who are not only subtle, but so subtle that folks forget how subtle they can be. As someone who almost always goes unnoticed and gets overlooked, I've always liked the idea that I can get away with being more than anyone expects or realizes. And yes, of course that's egotistical. :-) I've been using variations of this handle pretty much everywhere online for the last few years. I don't necessarily

As for my current name, well, it's a another Brust reference -- my favorite Yendi character from the books.

So, I've told you mine. Now tell me yours.

Comments

Easy

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

My name is Bethy. I live in NYC.

My email addy is the one that gets questions. Agnes Leigh was a rpg character. She started as a Call of Cthulhu character, then she was embraced as a Malkavian vampire when I started running a Vampire game, and she was my NPC. I've played her live, and actually got quite a bit accomplished. then she metamorphosed into a GURPS system 350 point Archon, in a game which lasted for two years and it still peeves me that it ended when we finally got assigned to another Justicar.

I love Agnes. She is my lesbian conspiracy theorist occult investigator alter ego.

Re: Easy

[yendi]

She is my lesbian conspiracy theorist occult investigator alter ego.

We all need one of those.

[galdrin.livejournal.com]

Nothing as exotic as yours ... my real name is Robert which means "bright and shining with fame". Galdrin, which was created by my EX utilizing my copy of _The_Languages_of_Middle_Earth_, is a Tolkein-elvish extrapolation of the meaning of Robert and comes out literally as "shining rememberence"..

[tarpo.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=tarpo&itemid=397103

Posted my nick desc here.. Didn't add that the person who actually came up with the name was murdered by his lunatic GF.. Pretty shocking.. he was a nice guy

[yendi]

Wow -- I remember the original post, but that adds an interesting and dark twist to it.

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

Always have liked Brust. Though the one time that i met him, 'twas to tell him to say hi to roommate Nate, who was in a 'zine called Apalogia with which I dabbled for a short while at the invitation of my late friend Vashti/Ruth. (As was security guru Bruce Schneider...)

Martin Hesselius - a medical doctor studying the occult who is alluded to in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/lfanumen.htm)'s Green Tea (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/greentea.htm) and Carmilla (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/carmilla.htm) (the pre-Stoker vampire favorite, far better than Polidori IMNSHO).

Geros Tragos - I chose "Geros Tragos," Greek for "Old Goat," both because it is a mildly humorous epithet in English and because I am told that like the Spanish epithet cabrón - definitely them's fightin' words, equivalent to cuckold, quisling, or mofo - it is much harsher in Greek, indicating brutishness, stupidity, and like. The dark side of Coyote, indeed, and one that I know that I have.

Why? Because I have my good sides and my bad sides, and am deeply aware of the latter. But, and I do desperately hope that this does them no harm, I am redeemed by the caring and attention of my Lady K and my friends. It is Grace in action. I am awe-struck.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

There's very little worse than Polidori . . .

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

The gothwalk is a "dance", also known as the gothic two-step. It consists of stepping backward and forward, somewhat off the beat. Handwaving and looking angstridden are optional.

There was a MOO in TCD when I was there. One of the commands was "gothwalk", and the result was "The air darkens noticably around you as you gothwalk here".

So when I was looking for a unique handle, to stop me getting confused between billions of different ones, I remembered that and settled on this one. Nobody else ever uses it, anywhere.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Oh, how funny. =) I'd wondered about your name for a while now.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

Well, Jennywren was taken, so I had to add the extra n.

Jenny Wren was a nickname given to me by my grandmother, something she always called me, and it just seemed to fit. Of course, my first name really is Jenny (or rather Jennifer), and I've rather identified with the wren in my life--kind of an ugly duckling thing. Inside it, the wren hides the most beautiful voice. Mind you, I can't sing for shit, but it was the plainness hiding something else.

Then I discovered a very obscure character by the name of Jenny Wren in a few of the more obscure Robin Hood ballads (the thing that kills me is that I can't recall the titles). Hot damn, my nickname is a character in the Robin Hood ballads, though I.

I know yendi knows this, but some people may not for some reason, but I've had this Robin Hood, um, fixation since I was a very small child. Used to throw tantrums when the parents would change the channel if I was watching the Errol Flynn movie--I don't remember this, my mom told me. Even did my medieval studies thesis on Robin Hood (and, I always have to clarify, pre-Costner thing).

Speaking of Robin Hood, the video game is out!!!! I'll be getting it this weekend, since my job is a wonderful place and gave us a 20% discount at WaldenBooks and Borders this weekend, and it CAN be combined with the preferred readers cards. And if Borders doesn't do video games, I'll just get it on my way home.

[yendi]

Cool - I was wondering about the "s". :-)

[chelona.livejournal.com]

Mine is hopelessly easy, it is my name, and my username on most school and corporate systems since I was in high school. Of course, back then, it was a little shorter. ;)

Turtle, of course, is another, longer story. One I think I have put in my memories list.

[yendi]

:-) You were one of the people I had in mind when I mentioned explaining the non-userid name as well.

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

Hotcoffeems is a shortening of Hotcoffeemississippi – it should actually be read as Hot Coffee, MS. The full is too long as a handle, but I use it as my LJ name. Hot Coffee, as you may have guessed (particularly if you’ve seen the pic on my info page), is a real town. I love the name, because it is silly and euphonious and has many double letters. Ifirst used it as a Yahoo name; it was the only thing I tried that wasn’t taken (I have an aversion to having random strings of numbers following my name). Long, yes, but I like it. I suspect some think it means “Ms. Hot Coffee,” though.

[yendi]

I wasn't sure if it was a real town or a joke, actually, but I'm glad to hear it's real. All states should have cities named after caffeine, imho.

[juanfandango.livejournal.com]

Juan Fandango ees my name.

Eet pre-dates Greem Fandango.

Eet ees nothing to do weeth a dance.

Eet ees my name. I am thee Mexeecan vampire.

[yendi]

Eet pre-dates Greem Fandango.

But does eet, I mean "it," predate Queen's singing of "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, Will you do the fandango?"

[vill.livejournal.com]

Villanelle is a charcter in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802135226/qid=1037371934/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-1223136-0283160?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). It's also a poetic form and the name of one of my cats. (I got two at once and named then Villanelle and Sestina.)

But Villanelle from Winterson's novel is really the source of the name. I think I picked her because of the whole exchange with Villanelle and Henri. Villanelle says she can't love him because she has no heart, she's given it to a woman. Henri says, "Villanelle, you'd be dead if you had no heart." But he listens at her chest and there's no heartbeat...And they have to go find her heart before this other woman weaves it into a tapestry.

Alas, Villanelle was already taken when I started my LJ. So I shortened it to vill, the nickname I acquired in the few IRC chat rooms I used to frequent.

[ariadnesthread.livejournal.com]

I adore that novel. I read it for two courses in college (The first was one on British novels, which took a swath all the way from Daniel Defoe's "Roxana" to Winterson's "The Passion" and Barbara Pym's "Quartet in Autumn." Would've been a perfect class if we hadn't had to read Dickens's "Little Dorritt" in the middle!. The second, at a different school, was a great women's studies course called "Rhymes with Witch: Gender Stereotypes in Postmodern Literature." What a reading list THAT class had!).

One of my favorite take-aways from "The Passion" is the recurring theme/statement "Believe me. I'm telling you stories." The whole unreliable narrator idea, the frame story, the delirious dreaminess of much of the book....lovely.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

Well, my original username for CIS was Starsong (well, actually, it was a string of numbers longer than my social security number, but that's not important right now). A few years back, on TH, galdrin did Tolkien-Elvish translations for all and sundry. Mine was Galialar. Since I use that elsewhere, I didn't want to use it here. So, Linithiliel is actually my own mishmash of Sindarin and Quenya words meaning approximately "starsong". And there you have it.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

A few years back, on TH, did Tolkien-Elvish translations for all and sundry

There should be a "Galdrin" in there, but I guess I screwed up the tag.

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

Well, Dana is my real name, as you know.

Ariela used to be my predominant online name back when I was involved in an online community, and my friends called me Arie. That came from a script treatment that I wrote for an X-Files episode where Mulder and Scully met their kid, who was made by the Conspiracy from Scully's stolen ova and sperm stolen when he was kidnapped at the end of Season 1. She was in her early 20s (genetic engineering, y'know), and she basically was an interesting mixture of the two of them. I kind of feel like I look like that (red hair, tall, etc.) so she's a little modeled on me. :)

I liked the name. Of course, after this they used the name Ariela in two different episodes, lol.

[yendi]

Cool -- I had wondered about the other half of your name.

And you should sue the pants off Chris Carter! The name-stealing scumsucker. :-)

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

I hate having to come up with names - and I didn't want to use my RL name. And I was thinking about dormice and server farms (since I was at work, and sleepy). That's as much sense as it's ever going to make :)

[melvh.livejournal.com]

Prety straight up, actually. Mel is the short form of Melissa that I chose for myself after putting up with another nickname for entirely too long. VH are the initials for my surname.

"Mel, Just Mel" is my classic response to folks who insist on calling me Melanie or Michelle or some non-nickname other than Melissa. It became a litany when I began working for a hispanic Stupidvisor that insisted on calling me Melly.

[ariadnesthread.livejournal.com]

I'm a Melissa, too. I've *never* liked my name or nicknames. Mom's family *still* calls me Missy--my grandmother started it. Missy is a Persian cat on a pillow (or the slutty Melissa-called-Missy who used to live down the street from me). I've always associated Mel with Mel the short-order cook on "Alice," and it just doesn't work for me.....though people have called me that. Also, I have a friend who's "Melanie, but call me Mel." One high school friend called me Liss, but I have another friend named Lisa. Another high school friend called me Missa, which is pretty cool--she created it as a shortened form of what one of my babysitting victims called me. Kimberly couldn't say "Melissa" when she was three, so she called me "Missala."

One of these days, I'll find the perfect pseudonym/nom de plume. If not, I'll just change my name to Zelda.

[kajivar]

Kajivar came about from creating a name for a larp character. She was a fire elf and full of passion, so I wanted a fiery name. I checked through some foreign language dictionaries and found "kaji" as Japanese for fire. I wanted a longer version, though, with Kaji being the shortened form, so I played around with it until I ended up with "Kajivar." She was one of my favorite characters, and the one I'm trying to currently write a novel about, so I've adopted the name pretty much everywhere.

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

I've been Crow online, jeez, since tenth grade or so, I think. It started out as a joke when someone else changed his IRC nick to Tom_Servo, but I quickly adopted it as mine and played up the birdish aspects. I've always liked crows; I like their calls, their intelligence, their shiny black feathers... I picked Crow rather than Raven because I think of Crows as being the scruffier cousins, and that's how I feel a lot -- not particularly dignifed, not too much of a loner, just scraggly and smart and given to mischief.

The "Crowyhead" bit came about on another mailing list; my friend M was given to calling people by cutified versions of their handles, and thus Kirsten Crowyhead was born (also Crowybutt, etc.). I find that Crowyhead is never taken when I register at a new website, although Crow often is.

[yendi]

Another one that I'd been wondering about explained! :-) I remember you as Crow, of course, and assumed the LJ name was a way around the fact that "crow" was taken. But I didn't realize that there was also an MST3K aspect to it, too.

Of course, I realized that I also remember you as a high-school kid on T-H, and now you're like an adult or something. :-)

[bouncepogo.livejournal.com]

Mine's nothing awe-inspiring...at the time I started using Bouncepogo everwhere (Fall 2001), it was because "Bounce" by System of a Down was my favorite song. If you haven't heard it, you really should listen to it.

Favorite song...well, for me that changes often. They're still one of my favorite bands though.

Before that I used various other themes such as CelticMuse, for my Gaelic heritage and the fact that I can be inspirining. *coughs* My very first internet psuedonym, back when I was 17 and an online newbie, was PhlamingPi, after John Lennon's quote about "A man coming down from the sky on a flaming pie..."

[yendi]

Cool -- you were one of the ones I was wondering about. But . . .

And the Pogo part of the name? From a Walt Kelly fan thing, or something totally different?

I still haven't heard System of a Down as far as I know. I tend to avoid the radio.

[ariadnesthread.livejournal.com]

I tried to use my standard online name here, but it was taken. Urban Angel comes from Dar Williams's "Mark Rothko Song." I love the imagery in it (though I don't really like Rothko's paintings much at all (yes, I *get* modern art, but that doesn't mean I like it)), and the opening lines stuck with me:

The blue it speaks so full
It's like the beauty one can barely stand
Or too much things dropped in your hand
And there's a green like the peace
In your heart sometimes
Painted underneath the sheets of ashy snow
And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright

I liked the whole concept of urban angels, and it's kind of a recurring theme for me--I have several Carl Lundgren prints featuring not-quite-fallen but slipped-vaguely-downward angels, and there's a character in my Lilith proto-novel who's the guardian angel of Washington, DC (she hangs out on the spire of the National Cathedral).

My first-ever online handle (from 1991, when I started college) was Morrigan. I'd just started getting into Celtic mythology, and I quite liked the notion of a fierce triple goddess (I liked the raven association, through it didn't start appearing in my life in a major way until somewhat later). Alas, during the 2 years I spent internet-less (1993-95), Morrigan became a popular handle.

My LJ name.... All variations of Urban Angel I could think of were taken. I'd had a dream a few nights before about Ariadne and Theseus. Ariadne's story is one of the Greek myths that has always left me unsatisfied. She's smart and resourceful (not to mention a princess)--she gives Theseus the means to find his way out of the Labyrinth--and yet she ends up either dying or being abandoned. No fair (of course, I hate what happens to poor, innocent Cassandra in the Iliad, too. Yeah, refuse a god and get cursed, lovely). So I have this slowly germinating idea of an Ariadne story. I also like the craft/fiber arts association. Some things I have read group Ariadne with Arachne and Penelope and Athena and the Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) in the yarn/fiber artist category. I'm a knitter--I liked how that fit. So. Ariadne's thread leads the hero out of darkness and back to his destiny. Yet another example of a woman acting behind the scenes to advance the story. :-)

Question

[pansy-burke.livejournal.com]

Hi, just out of curiosity: are you the same person that posted that ariadnesthread @ neubauten.org? (http://www.neubauten.org/forum20/view_topic.php?topic_id=488&forum_id=3)

If yes, cyber space is really a small village :-)

[cissa.livejournal.com]

"Cissas" are a species of corvid. They're not native around here, so I have no experience of them first-hand, but from what I've read they're fiercer and more predatory than most corvids, who tend to scavenge. The juxtaposition of the extremely girly-sounding name with the ferocity of the species tickled me, and that's why I chose it; I'm not claiming ferocity for myself! Plus, it wasn't taken. :)

More about Cissas here: http://www.nfss.org/Articles/Article/Softbills/Cissa-1.html

[yendi]

Cool! I honestly had no idea what a Cissa was -- I assumed it was a family name or something.

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Well, I've been many known by many things since I first came online, starting out with star_eyes, which morphed into half_asleep. None of 'em ever particularly made me happy. About two or two and a half years ago, as the TH'ers may remember, I had some experiences that really made me appreciate corvids, especially crows. I started experimenting with 'em as usernames, but still didn't have anything that made me happy.

When a mailing list that I run had to change names temporarily (from crowgirls), I actually ran a poll on what to change the name to. The runner up was faecrow and for some reason it stuck with me. When I had to create a user account at yahoo (*gag*), all of my normal names were taken. However, faecrow, one of my last ditch efforts, wasn't. Later on, when niac created a replacement account for me, he just used the name I currently had, faecrow. It's kind of stuck, though my domain name is dreamingcrow.com. The nice thing about it is that I never have to worry about it being taken, even on a popular system. I have yet to see it anywhere else.

It combines the fey side of me with the internal trickster and gives a pretty good description of what to expect from my online personality. :)

[dreamcowgirl.livejournal.com]

dreamcomgirl Well all of my screenames have had dream in it mainly I am a hopeless dreamer in life ~~I daydream all the time ~~I have long term dreams and short term dreams ~Sometimes though being a dreamer can cause great pain ~~
Cowgirl was from when I was younger I used to be the onl one of my friends who would listen to country music and they would call me cowgirl then I started saying stuff like "whoa not this cowgirl" It sorta stuck so I combined the two of them ~~

I have met friends from online in real life and they call me "Dream" and it cracks me up

[yendi]

I have met friends from online in real life and they call me "Dream" and it cracks me up

I always do a double-take when folks call me "yendi" in rl. It's always been just an online identity for me, not the name I think of when I think of myself, so it kinda throws me.

[pharminatrix.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, by virtue of fucking the Program Director (cuz let's call a spade a fucking SHOVEL, shall we.......knob-twiddling CAN get you pretty far, but one must expand one's domain outside the broadcast room)at a College Radio Station known for its far-flung wattage in the New York State (Vassar College radio had to be called WVKR - the "k" is for "krautrock" - because WVCR would've been unspeakably retarded), I was given a show by my only virtue of having a pretty smile and long, long legs and a mind for Evil. Well, not my own show. A mutual friend of mine and the Program Director's had a show caLLed "Aural Pharmacognosi" which was general "out-there tunes" interrupted by a brief segment of discussion called "The Pharm Report." Craig A.K.A. Pharmboy dedicated this segment to education about drugs. Since Craig had a heroic case of ADD, and was a psychiatrist's son, he had particular interest in this field. He was medicated with Desoxyn which all good kiddies know is pharm-grade methedrine. The going was always way-gone. His side-order of Tourettes made things extra spicy (now serving 28 FCC violations weekly!). Sometimes he would read news, sometimes he would interview An Expert (usually one of our other friends who happened to be On Drugs at the time. Or just liked drugs and was willing to pretend to be An Expert Doktor.) At some point, his ADD was less under control and he realized he needed help keeping the show on track. He alo wanted a Robin to his Howard Stern, A Bad Cop to his Good Cop, a Tango to his Cash, and so on. He liked the idea of Enforced Medication as Naughtiness. And so one night, sitting on a curb in NYC, swooping along the minwaves of the three hits of Beavis acid we had each taken, not to mention the aftershocks of a Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black concert, Pharmboy, the Program Director, and I sat about hatching a name for Yours Truly's Radio Persona. Nympharmaniac was hatched and discarded as Radio Perv was not part of our intended direction. And here's where I decided to command my listeners to cringe toward their pill-bottles under the flick of a DNA-strand whip, to kiss my PDR, to pray to me for enlightenment in every pill. I became the harsh fugue-driving mistress you have all come to know and love. Thus "Pharminatrix" was born. This occurred in 1994. The name and agenda followed me to the present, however. And here I am. And I am that I am.

[yendi]

Sheesh. At Emory, I think folks fuck the radio manager to not have to do a radio show.

Cool story. :-)

the rave that can be raved is not the Great Rave

[daoistraver.livejournal.com]

"not only subtle, but so subtle that folks forget how subtle they can be" - I like that idea a LOT.

as for my user name, well... http://daoistraver.com
and using the above as an example, my LJ "name" fits doesn't it?

Making the obscure simple since 1969.

Re: the rave that can be raved is not the Great Rave

[yendi]

Yeah -- yours was one of the ones that I assumed meant exactly what it sounded like it meant. :-)

[gallowglass.livejournal.com]

Back around the time when I was setting up my journal, I was also starting yet another revision of the background to one of my main fiction series. Having tired of the way a dozen years or more of continuity was bogging things down, I decided to remove 90-95% of that continuity and have a fresh start of sorts, reintroducing the continuity elements along the way. As a part of this, I decided to conceal the main character's name (and his connection to various of the higher powers of that continuity) behind a pseudonym. I wanted something that sounded good, preferably one word for simplicity's sake and which would hopefully not end up sounding dumb after having been said a few times in conversation.

I went off and researched names and when I got to 'Gallowglass' something clicked. It was slightly enigmatic, sounded good and the literal meaning, 'foreign warrior', actually fitted the concept of the character, at least as other characters would be perceiving him initially. So I said to myself 'Done!' and moved along to other details.

So, I came to choosing my username and I wanted something other than Coriakin, because that's one of the names most people know me by and at the time I was looking to keep this private from them (it hasn't worked out that way but there you go...), so I needed a separate identity and gallowglass was a name floating at the top of my consciousness at that point, so I used it, largely for the same reasons I used it for the character, apart from the literal meaning part, which really doesn't fit me at all, well, most of the time, anyway.