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?

 

[Philip Overby]

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.

 

[Sheilawisz]

As you all know my name is Sheila, and the wisz part comes because, years ago, the main weapon of my Mages was a magical fire called Wiszlash =)

So, Sheila+Wisz= Sheilawisz!!

The Wiszlash weapon was re-imagined to change colour and name, but basically it's still the same stuff.

 

[Ghost]

I made it up, then some time-travelling ancient Greeks came and stole it from me.

The bastards.

 

[Ophiucha]

I like healer archetypes and I like snakes. Originally I was going to go with "Asclepia", which would be a feminine form of Ascelpius, the healer with a serpent for a staff, but I like the letter O a lot more, so I went with the constellation, Ophiuchus, which according to legend is Zeus putting Asclepius in stars, though there are other myths related to the constellation, so I guess I get a bit of range for interpretation. And I make it feminine because I'm a woman.

 

[Penpilot]

Painfully obvious, although, I really only type.

 

[dragonangel517]

Years ago, when I first signed up for Yahoo mail, I wanted to use dragon517, but it was taken. Dragonhuff was one of the suggestions offered and I loved it. My last name was Huff at the time. After my husband passed away, and I eventually got remarried, I decided to drop the huff part , but dragonmarcotte just doesn't have the same ring, so I went with angel instead. I still use dragonhuff for some things, too lazy to change all my log-ins, and can also be found as bardragon in a few places.

 

[Steerpike]

Limb by limb, it appeared that he was sound enough, but the sum of these several members accrued to an unexpectedly twisted total. His face was pale like clay and save for his eyes, mask-like. These eyes were set very close together, and were small, dark red, and of startling concentration....

If ever he had harboured a conscience in his tough narrow breast he had by now dug out and flung away the awkward thing - flung it so far away that were he ever to need it again he could never find it. High-shouldered to a degree little short of malformation, slender and adroit of limb and frame, his eyes close-set and the colour of dried blood, he is climbing the spiral staircase of the soul of Gormenghast, bound for some pinnacle of the itching fancy - some wild, invulnerable eyrie best known to himself; where he can watch the world spread out below him, and shake exultantly his clotted wings.

(Steerpike, from Peake's Gormenghast books)

 

[The Blue Lotus]

Hmm, Well Unlike others my name has no meaning at all.
At least not to me not really...
Lotus flowers are important symbols in my religion and through out the ages in other religions.
Blue is one of my fav colors, Slap the two together and there ya go.
Nothing special or fancy or even slightly moving, I wanted something different than my other Id's on the net.

 

[Telcontar]

Tolkien. Buried in the denouement of "The Return of the King" is a line where Aragorn picks the name of his royal house, calling them Strider after the name he went by in the north. But he translates it into elven so it'll sound better - Telcontar is the translation. I liked the sound of it, liked that it connected to Tolkien, and liked that (at the time) it was not a well-known artifact of the books.

 

[Jess A]

As some here have already deduced, I have a fascination with wild weather and I try to be near storms when I can, even when they might drop a tornado or two on my head.

The name actually originated from Raymond Feist's books - the nickname given to the character Arutha for a moody personality. It was also a nickname of mine when I was a kid - I was likewise rather moody :| and my friends also read the books. Though it's been a very long time since anybody called me that! I was re-reading the books recently and had a little chuckle to myself.

Given my obsession with the weather, I thought I'd reclaim the name for myself, this time without being offended by it.

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.

...seems your wish came true. Took me a few moments to realise who you were until I read your post fully. My brain is in pieces somewhere...

 

[suzannasinister]

My name is not from anything I am proud of other than the name itself.
Years ago I was involved with a criminal boyfriend.
He had a nickname with the Local Police dept. and they had a local rag called the Evening Whirl that highlighted all the local arrests and criminals on the loose and captured and crazy stories about things that went on in the city.
My BF was arrested, I happened to be there at the time, they took us both in.
They released me because I didn't have anything to do with his crimes other than he came home to me.
When the paper came out that week, the headline read "Hammerhead and Suzanna Sinister apprehended, Crime on the Southside all Cleaned Up"
As if he or even We could have committed every crime in a city of a million and a half people...Please be serious!
Anyway
that's how I got my handle
I liked the handle
thought the headline was unfair
but hey make the best of it yes?