The Story Behind It Is ...

[+pboland]

I'm sure you would all like to know where my name came from, but I'm not saying. It's a secret and no one will ever know.

 

On the other hand, my handle on my electronic drum websites has a much better story. Most in the drum community call me HF. It short for "Hellfire" and that's short for "Hellfire Electronic Drum Systems". The other website I run is a forum site for electronic drums made by Alesis called "DMdrummer.com" I even have my own logo:

I never felt it necessary to use that name here, as the meaning of it wouldn't be interesting to most.

Edited June 28, 2013 by pboland

[Rev]

I joined the IGN forums back when the Wii was being announced, back when it was codenamed: revolution

 

But the username revolution was taken. And then i remember seeing somewhere recent the movie: gothika

 

And somehow i had the idea to use IKA and merge with revolution and becoming the revolutionika!

[TrickyMoon]

Story behind my screen name...

back in 1997/98, I use to play Age of Empires (and then AoE2...) on Microsoft's Gaming Zone (zone.com), which was their multiplayer hosting service... anyway TrickyMoon popped up as a suggestion from that service so I took it and have kept it ever since.

[ghsqb]

So what the hell is a ghsqb?

 

Well in 1990 & 1991 I was enjoying my final two years of high school, and part of that was playing varsity football.

 

As a group myself and my teammates used to enjoy going out to local bars and playing NTNs QB1.

(If you don't know that is, link here:http://www.buzztime.com/qb1.html)

 

As a group we would all use similar handles.

We would all use ghs (Gloucester High School) and then our position.

That's how I started using ghsqb.

 

When we played NTN at the bar, the screen would be ghsqb, ghswr, ghsrb, ghste etc...

 

This also coincided with the era when I began to use the 'net alot.

many sites that I registered at, I used ghsqb.

 

Obviously in 2013 ghsqb has very little relevance anymore, but it's the handle I was using in the mid 90's when alot of my online identities were created.

 

I've been wanting to change it for a while now, but when people know you under a certain name, it can be difficult to change.

 

I might bite the bullet and go the IntellivisionDude route though. I knew him under his rgw name, but the name change worked out well for him!

[yell0w_lantern]

Way back in 1999/2000, I was graduating college and had to set up a new email account. After I finally realized why the name "squeaky fromm" sounded so familiar, I mostly stopped using my hotmail account and switched to yahoo but the only name that came to mind was a joke-character I had created for the DC Heroes RPG back in high school. Finding that "yellow_lantern" was already taken, I spelled it with zero instead and have been confusing people ever since. The first internet forum I joined was for a super hero video game, Freedom Force. Since it was a superhero-related forum and I figured it would be easier to email me if I used my email address in the handle, I typed "yell0w_lantern". For continuity across forums, I just use the same name everywhere. Only a couple of forums won't allow 0s or underscores but otherwise, it's the same.

Edited June 30, 2013 by yell0w_lantern

[+intvsteve]

Pretty obvious and boring nic for me. When I first started using it back in the late 90s it seemed more clever.

[Fushek]

Bump for the newer guys ...

[+nurmix]

Don't know how I missed this thread.

 

I've told the story on the podcast, but basically, my name goes back to my high school days, when I started a DJ business - for parties, school dances, etc. I eventually started making my own remixes and mega mixes (I got quite good at beat matching with vinyl records), and I called my creations a 'Nurmix' (my last name is Nurminen). That name stuck through the BBS years, and early days of the Internet, and continues today.

[freewheel]

I had to go legit...

[+Gunoz]

Lots of interesting & fun stories all around.

 

Freshman year in college back in '83, a bunch of us went uptown in NYC to say farewell to Clyde the coconut ( story for another day ). We stopped into McDonald's along the way, and the Happy Meal toy happened to be Muppet Babies. Someone picked up one of them, pointed at it and said "Gonzo", then pointed at me with the long Italian last name that no one could pronounce, and said "Gunoz". It's stuck ever since.

[intvnut]

Obviously in 2013 ghsqb has very little relevance anymore, but it's the handle I was using in the mid 90's when alot of my online identities were created.

 

I've been wanting to change it for a while now, but when people know you under a certain name, it can be difficult to change.

 

I hear ya. For a long time, I went by 'im14u2c.' Where did that come from? The license plate on the back of the taxi on the cover of Leisure Suit Larry read "14U2C." When I was picking my first UNIX login name back in college, I was trying to find something clever to fit in 8 or fewer characters. I saw that, and stuck "im" on the front, because usernames had to start with a letter. Spelling it out: "I Am One For You To See."

 

 

I eventually got tired of people reading it as "I'm 14... whatever", and the name just seemed... I dunno, like it should be retired to my teenage years. It really took a long time to shake it. There's at least one website I frequent where I still use that handle.

 

At the time, I was starting to really get into reverse engineering the Intellivision and developing what's now known as jzIntv and SDK-1600, so when I registered my Yahoo account, I went with 'intvnut'. Why 'nut'? Because I'm a shade crazy about the things I get into. And then it spread to GMail, and everywhere else. Now I can't get rid of that.

 

In yet other forums, I've gone with the more generic "Mr Z." But, unsurprisingly, that short appellation is often taken before I get there.

Edited September 10, 2015 by intvnut

[+Tarzilla]

Since about 1998- ish I've used a mix of my childhood interests, half Tarzan, half Godzilla.

 

Thought it was more internet friendly than my Quake/ Medal of Honor handle of "muffdiver"

[+JasonlikesINTV]

Joe, I was totally reading that as I'm 14... Maybe I'm slow

 

Reminds me of this

b4∝qru/18qtπ?

[intvnut]

Reminds me of this

b4∝qru/18qtπ?

 

Took me a second, because in this font the 'pi' symbol looked like an 'n' on my monitor. That, and the 'alpha' doesn't show up very cleanly either. Maybe it's a Linux / Firefox problem.

 

"Before I'll f....." oh, dear.

[wolfy62]

Mine is from my last name is Wolfson and people and friends called me Wolfy, Wolf, Wolfman...you name it for most of my life. And, I was born in 1962.

[AtariBuff]

The first part of mine comes from an ancient video game company (some of you may have heard it). And the second part, well, I dig that company very much. So, voila - my screen name AtariBuff was born.

 

But don't let that nick trick you - I also heavily collect for the ColecoVision, Intellivision, Vectrex, Arcadia and some other obscure systems and I kind of like all of them very much.

[+DZ-Jay]

The first part of mine comes from an ancient video game company (some of you may have heard it). And the second part, well, I dig that company very much. So, voila - my screen name AtariBuff was born.

 

But don't let that nick trick you - I also heavily collect for the ColecoVision, Intellivision, Vectrex, Arcadia and some other obscure systems and I kind of like all of them very much.

 

So more like a VintageGameBuff, uh?

[Fushek]

Mine is from my last name is Wolfson and people and friends called me Wolfy, Wolf, Wolfman...you name it for most of my life. And, I was born in 1962.

 

Interestingly, most last names started with some kind of meaning. My last name of Smith, for instance, points to a high likelihood that there was a Blacksmith in our family's past.

 

Wolfson. So, somewhere in your history there was likely a son of a ... oh.

[+intellivotion]

The secret of my nick is the fact that it is the most boring nick in the whole forum.

I deserve probably the silver medal.

BTW, very cool thread!

 

And, obviously, intellivotion is a sort of crasis of Intellivision and devotion

Edited September 10, 2015 by intellivotion

[+nanochess]

I choosed "nanochess" because of my (now defunct) site named nanochess.110mb.com it is also the name of my world's smallest chess program in C.

 

I went to use it for everything including my new domain nanochess.org because I couldn't figure out something better.

 

I was thinking to use microchess, but someone used it first in 1976, before I was even born

[InfraMan]

I, uh... really like Infra-Man.

[First Spear]

Making me feel old when you have to explain "BBS" and "sysop"

 

 

Mine's pretty simple. Once upon a time, when dinosaurs roam the network, and 16MB of RAM on your PC was considered "high end," I used to skydive. I also was a member of a local BBS (Bulletin Board System, an ancient type of online forum, where you connected via modem) in my town.

When I joined the BBS, I needed to come up with a nickname as a login, and after agonizing over it for almost 10 whole minutes, I came up with "DZ J." This was short for "Drop Zone James" (Drop Zone being a skydiving term for the area where you land, and James my name." I thought it was pretty cool.

There was a minimum number of characters, and the dot and space were not allowed, so I changed it to "DZ-Jay."

Being a local BBS, we also used to meet in real life, to go to the movies or bowling, and it was common (and fun) to call each other by our nicks. After all, that's how we knew each other when communicating online, which was quite often.

My later-to-be wife was a technical support rep and sysop (system operator, like a moderator now) at that BBS, and I met her while calling for support one day. We later met at a group outing to the movies, and hit it off--but that's another story.

Anyway, people called me "DZ-Jay" then and it spread around to new friends and acquaintances, and it stuck; and I've been using that as my online and offline nickname since. Even my wife calls me "DZ." About the only people who call me by my real name are my parents.

So there you have it, the story of "DZ-Jay."

dZ.

[tacrec]

Mine is short for my record label Triple Action Records. I would like to change it since I don't make music anymore, but I don't see a way how.

[+atari2600land]

Mine is after my website: www.atari2600land.com, where I post all my stuff I work on. I just didn't realize at the time, that I would work on other stuff besides the 2600!

[+Lathe26]

Mine come from my last name. My last name literally translates as the English word "turner" but it refers to someone who works at a lathe (a power tool found in woodshops). I learned that last part from a few German citizens while I was a member of the Bluetooth SIG. The 26 comes from a number commonly not already taken on other sites.