Where Did You Get Your Handle?

[Ankari]

Chilari's latest challenge thread makes mention of her name and how she came up with it. I thought that was interesting. If you use a handle, how did you come up with it? Does it have a special meaning to you? Where do you use it?

I was 13 years old and new to fantasy. I just finished reading The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan (holy crap, its been 19 years!) and I knew that I wanted to be a writer. Well, it was the summer and my family planned a "trip" to go back to my ancestral homeland. While on the plan I had tons of time to think about my world and, of course, my hero. I needed a name. I would go through hundreds of them but discarded almost all of them. We were going to land in the airport in Ankara, Turkey to switch planes. As the captain spoke the city's name, my mind wandered, mulling over trivial things. One of those things was "What do the people of Ankara call themselves? Ankaran? Ankari? WAIT! That's the name!"

And Ankari was born. I've used it since then for table top RPGS, MMOs, email accounts, everything. My MMO live included EQOA, EQ2, AoC, LoTRO and DDO.

Who else?

[Phil the Drill]

Phil the Drill was my pro wrestling name. I wrestled for four years on the independent circuit in grungy high school gyms and National Guard armories. Most of the time I wrestled in front of about 40-50 people, but sometimes in front of 200-300. I came to find later that there was a boxer named Phil "the Drill" Williams, but since I was just Phil the Drill aka The Drill, I didn't feel like I was ripping him off.

Pic available in the "What Do MS Members Look Like?" thread.

[Kelise]

I generally go by Keladryie, which is a name a friend made up for me in the first year of high school, for the book she was writing. Kelise is a newer handle of mine, and it comes simply from my names - Katharine elise.

I hope that if I ever get published, that the publisher will let me use it as part of the name I write under. For a while I was considering Kelise Emery, but I'm not convinced on that name as of yet.

[Aidan of the tavern]

Well my names Aidan and I'll let you figure out the rest.

[Ireth]

I was maybe 14 or 15 years old, and I'd just joined a LOTR fansite called Council of Elrond. I needed a username, so I went to one of those elvish name generator sites and it gave me the name Ireth Telrunya. I used that for my CoE name, and just Ireth for here. It's what most of my internet friends know me as.

[Reaver]

Just like existence itself...I am, have always been and shall forever be Reaver.

Okay...It was my call-sign in the Marine Corps.


A picture of the real me will appear when there have been enough "yes" votes and I reach 350 Reputation Points.

[Elder the Dwarf]

Young the Giant is a band. I don't really listen to them, but my friend had told me about them a while back. I didn't have anything to use as a fantasy-like nickname, and at the time I joined everybody had a cool nickname. I thought of the band and I thought that would be a pretty good name. So I just kinda put my own spin on Young the Giant and turned it into Elder the Dwarf.

[Graylorne]

I took my name years ago, from the Greylorn book by Keith Laumer, an SF story. Adapted it to be unique and o wonder I'm still the only of that name on the web.

[ArielFingolfin]

I got my name from two of my favorite literary characters. The first Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest and second is one of the elves in Tolkien's The Silmarillion. Not very original either in name or story, but I like it.

[Caged Maiden]

I just used my name... I'm also caged maiden in certain places (like deviantart) but that's my business name, a play on the fact that when I wear costumes I am usually corseted. So since corsets are a specialty I make, I went with caged maiden for my business name. Too bad I didn't think to use that here. If I could switch I would because Anihow is lame.