Comes from a combination of my surname and my fondness for Japanese culture.

It's also similar to my main e-mail address and usernames I've used in the past (which were all pretty much constructed along the same lines).

Back when I found the PPC I was still very much a newbie to the concept of internet in general, having had a very sheltered life, so I just used my own name (being unaware of why exactly people used usernames). And given how the PPC kind of asks us not to go changing usernames around all the time, I didn't feel I could change it once I grasped the concept better.

Besides, these days everyone knows me as Cassie anyway, so there's really no point unless I wanted to confuse everyone after four years. :P

I was rummaging through the wordlists in the Silmarillion and in the appendices of Lord of the Rings trying to put together names for characters for a fanfic I was writing. I came up with Elcalion, which basically means something like "Son (or follower) of the bright star".

El is either Elf or star - used sorta-interchangably in names: e.g. Elrond is either "Elf of the Cave" or "Star Dome"
"cal" is bright light (as in "aiya, Earendil ancalima" - "Hail, Earendil the brightest"
"ion" is either "son" or "follower"

It seemed like a good name for an Elf, and then it ended up being my Boarder name here, around about which point I basically stopped writing that particular fanfic so I never ended up using Elcalion as a character name.

I've now been Elcalion here for six years or so, and I use a variant ("Kallion") for sci-fi message boards and RPG characters.

I was rummaging through the wordlists in the Silmarillion and in the appendices of Lord of the Rings trying to put together names for characters for a fanfic I was writing. I came up with Elcalion, which basically means something like "Son (or follower) of the bright star".

El is either Elf or star - used sorta-interchangably in names: e.g. Elrond is either "Elf of the Cave" or "Star Dome"
"cal" is bright light (as in "aiya, Earendil ancalima" - "Hail, Earendil the brightest"
"ion" is either "son" or "follower"

It seemed like a good name for an Elf, and then it ended up being my Boarder name here, around about which point I basically stopped writing that particular fanfic so I never ended up using Elcalion as a character name.

I've now been Elcalion here for six years or so, and I use a variant ("Kallion") for sci-fi message boards and RPG characters.

It was one of the usernames that popped into my mind when I thought about joining. It came from the word "ocelot".

I was registering for the Young Writer's Society, and at the time I was really into star signs, so I used "scorpion" a lot, because I'm a Scorpio.

Well, "scorpion" was taken, so I jazzed up the spelling a bit. XD I've been using either this or Inksplattered ever since.

It's my middle name, and I was kind of in a hurry to introduce myself to the board. I was too lazy to change it to anything else.

I picked mine because the first part is a RL nickname and the second part because on the first board I ever joined was about a book series (Warriors by Erin Hunter) and the names of characters were two things found in nature, and Shellfur sounded good. I've just stuck with the same thing (But Youtube- it was taken. Grr...)

I needed a username for Xanga once upon a time and hit upon SilverMystic13. Silver for my favourite element the time, 13 for my favourite number at the time, and mystic because it sounded cool. When I needed a self-insert character for a semi-roleplay-esque forum, I named her Mystia Argent. Since then I've had a number of characters with that name, all of them completely different from each other and few of them bearing more than superficial resemblance to me. My PPC agent is one of those.

[[also, hi! I'm a total lurker these days, largely due to life being a thing.]]

Well, I liked the M1 Rifle a lot so when I started going online, I used it as my nickname.

The '8' comes from my birth year ('88) but I couldn't fit all of it in the required length for a multiplayer game I was playing and I dropped one of the 8. It's been stuck like this since 2003. =x

I picked up the pseudonym of PoorCynic around the end of high school. I had started up a blog (now defunct) as part of a class writing project. The pieces in said blog were almost entirely humorous articles in the vein of Dave Barry or Bill Bryson. I had the idea to present my writings in the format of letters to the audience, all of which were signed by "Poor Cynic" in a reference to Ben Franklin's character of Poor Richard. My perception of humanity had shifted by that time, leading to the "Cynic" part of the name.

I kept the name after the blog was scrapped. It's catchy, easy to break down into a shorter form, and doesn't have any unnecessary numbers in it (a practice I really don't like.)

I've been Tungsten Monk since . . . er . . . well, it's been almost ten years, I'd say, but I can't place exactly when it began. I can tell you, though, that tungsten is my favorite element (so utilitarian, so underappreciated). 'Monk' was a harder choice, but I believe I can blame the Brother Cadfael mystery series for introducing me to badass monks.

It accidentally started a trend, though. Now all my OL names are either metal plus noun, or have the initials TM. (On fanfiction.net, for example, I'm Totenkinder Madchen. :D)

It was originally going to be used as a name for a family member of my RP character, but I liked it enough that I ended up using it myself.

I was at camp one day last summer, and had sort of a nervous breakdown. I got really upset, there were tears...and hand biting... but anyways! I felt emotionally numb afterwards, and felt that I had gone insane. This was during the gaming part of the camp day, and we were playing Warcraft 3. So, for a screen name, I chose "ShatteredSanity".

I think I wanted to use something new for the PPC, so instead of using one of my regular screen names, I used this.

I don't know why, but the mass of ellipses used fascinated me.

I tried to be Korora (little blue or white-flippered penguin) on LJ, but that name was already taken. I knew there were some Boarders on the Sue-sporking Livejournals, so I used that name here.

Both names I got from a book on penguins I read as a teenager.

July is my birth month.

And as to Flame...

I uh, had a brief period of time where I was most enamored of fire.

I have been using this particular username since I was eleven or so. So around September-ish I'll have used this as my name on the internet for half my life.

Huinesoron was the first name I ever used online for more than about five minutes, and actually came about when someone at school introduced me to the concept of webmail (which was astonishing and revolutionary, let me tell you). It's Quenya, from Middle-earth, because I am absolutely an elf (half Noldor, half Teleri, all awesome, right?).

Specifically, it's an agrammatic mashup of two words - 'huine', meaning dusk, twilight, shade, and 'soron', also spelt 'thoron', meaning eagle. My back-translations have varied - 'the Eagle of Darkness' was how I put it for a long time, but right now I prefer 'Eagleshade'.

Perhaps more interesting (or sad), the nickname hS comes about because I used to write Huinesoron in real life - in Tengwar. And when I wanted to shorten it, I wrote this:



That's a small Tengwar hyarmen (h, in yellow) cupped inside a larger esse (s, in blue). So yeah. Fun With Alphabets!

hS

I majored in theater. When I started getting involved in online communities, I didn't feel comfortable using my real name, so I decided to use the name of a character I liked. I discovered immediately that a lot of people (at least, where I was hanging out then) use Shakespearean names as online handles, and forget about finding a positive female character in Kit Marlowe's work. I went earlier in Dramatic Literature 201-202, and started using Antigone from the play by Sophocles.

Then I had a few cases where someone else had already used Antigone, and the board software autosuggested putting a number at the end of the handle. I decided that if I had to have a number added it was going to be one I could remember, so I used my zip code.

Well, mine isn't anything spectacular at all - Sergio is my first name, and Turbo is a nickname I use because I like cars a lot (and I'm pretty good at driving games, too)

It's also what I used as a basis for a character I used in a roleplay-fanfictionish thing... now known as Agent!Sergio Turbo.

I chose the name because not only am I an opera fan, but I also happen to be a dramatic soprano.

A dramatic soprano is one with a large singing voice, and they most often sing heroic or grand tragic roles (ex. Isolde, Tosca, and Norma).

This handle came from the name of one of my Hetalia original characters. Anna Beilschmidt, AnnaBee for short.

She's a borderline Sue, and I'm not proud of that, but she's such a fun character to write that I used her as my handle on here.

And, um... I picked *her* name, as opposed to one of my other OCs' names, 'cos I didn't want to get mistaken for a bloke anymore.

At one time me and my friends were absolutely obsessed with South Park, especially the Coon Saga. Because I was sort of the loner of the group, they nicknamed me mysterion.
I just changed the last syllable and used it as a forum name.

I choose darklordaakmal because I am a fan of Dark Lord Sauron. I do have another nickname around the Internet, baabaaer. Baabaaer because my favourite animal was a sheep.

*chuckles slightly*
Is anyone here familiar with the Tokimeki Memorial series?
Well, for those who aren't, it's a dating game series, with games for both girls and guys. I'm a big fan. #Understatement
Anyway, in one of the games, there's a character called Himuro Reiichi. He's my favourite character (and a big Lust Object). The characters in the game often shorten his name to Himurrochi. Which I then shortened down to Himochi.
I think you can understand the 'Is Awesome' part.

This is just the literal translation of my Chinese name. Well, surname and given name. Crimson comes from my surname (It can also mean Vermilion or Bright Red, which is sort of the same thing), while my given name, which consists of only one character, means Flight.

Well, it began while I was casting about for a new forum name that wasn't so fracking pretentious or stupid and I was born in the Year of the Rabbit, so I decided on something Rabbit related. Now, a username like that is fairly common on big forums so I needed to tack something on to it and because I was playing a lot of Touhou at the time I decided on HouraiRabbit for those situations where I needed something more unique. I used to love reading those old stories about the rabbits on the moon when I was a kid living in Beijing, and I later saw its significance in other stuff like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Watership Down, Wind in the Willows, the three rabbits in the shape of a Triskelion, and so on, so the Rabbit moniker stuck.

Well, I was about twelve or so, possibly younger, I decided to sign up for a fanfiction account - or possibly a Dragonball Z chatroom, I don't remember, they were all pretty close together. The screenname my dad had signed me up for with AOL (this was back when AOL 4.0 was a Big Deal) was soccertrumpet, and I wanted something... cooler.

Anyway, I thought foxes were really cool - getting over a wolf-obsession stage, I was pretty sure being clever and witty was way cooler than being noble and majestic - and I pretty much hero-worshipped my aunts, who have always had a private joke of being the Three Witches.

So I thought, and considered, and mashed the two words together in the sort of amalgamation that fantasy-bent preteens seem to be so good at coming up with.

And now I go by other things, like VM, because I was confused with erotic furry writers. And... well, I'm not an erotic furry writer.

And now you all know!

I smashed together 'Fury' and 'Wildfire'--two nickname-things that came from weird Roleplay-ish games my friend and I did with the Warrior Cats universe when we were ten. 'Fury' was because I was into Greek Mythology and loved the Furies at the time, and I honestly cannot remember the story behind 'Wildfire.'

I live by the sea and I like turtles.

...yeah.

It was pretty. And it sparkled. The words did, I mean.

The initials of my real name are D.T.R. Since I was young, I always thought it looked like doctor. For my online name, I added "lit" to represent literature, my greatest love.

It's based off Ivan the Terrible (or Fear-Inspiring, depending on translation.)

Well, this handle comes from the Yu Gi Oh! card Des Dendle. Quite a while ago I noticed it and decided that its name was cool (it's a mushroom-ish thing that fuses with a Vampire Orchid, so the card itself is weird) and I've been using it ever since. That was quite a lot of time before I even knew the PPC existed, let alone posted in the Board.

...is actually an opera reference.

Specifically, it's a reference to Alban Berg's "Wozzeck", which is an opera in three relatively short acts about a man by the name of Wozzeck who is a soldier, is quite poor, gets exploited by pretty much everyone around him, and is more than a little bit on the insane side. It's an absolutely glorious opera, and you should totally check it out. Just, remember to go into it with an open mind: it's opera, but it ain't opera according to Mozart or Verdi or even Wagner. Oh, no, this is opera with a musical language that is stridently dissonant and as far removed from anything you have ever heard before as you can feasibly get.

As for the 'Herr'... well, "Wozzeck" is a German opera, so...

It can all be summed up to the fact that I play to many videogames. And well, I've always been partial to magic user characters. Specially the cute and cuddly ones.

Some of you might have noticed this already, but I have a penchant for hats. My dad actually called me a mad hatteress once, which gave me the idea to use it as a screen name. Other places I'm Lily of the Mountain, which is a play on Lily of the Valley.

Back when I first got into online fandom, I think in middle school, I had delusions of saving the world one person at a time, so I called myself SoulFinder after my ability to get past outer differences and get along with most people when I want to, often in cases where others find the person in question difficult. By the time I was heading toward graduating from high school I was completely sick of how pretentious and silly it sounds, and it still makes me cringe a little. ^_^; Most people just called me "Soul" most of the time anyway, so I went looking through translation dictionaries for words meaning "soul" in other languages. "Neshomeh" is Yiddish, and I like the sound of it. It seems to have stuck.

~Neshomeh, who at least has an ancestral claim on the German part of Yiddish's parent languages.

Well, when I was in high school, I was in the band, and in our band program, marching band was a requirement (which was cool because it got us out of PE). If, like me, you happened to play an instrument that you couldn't march with (the oboe, in my case), you'd end up in percussion, usually the front ensemble. Or, rather, the pit. I never much liked pit bulls, but pit vipers are pretty awesome, and at the time I was a fan of Invader Zim, so I added the required "doom" on the end, and... rest is history.

Originally I was just Albatross. It was a running gag in my Improv Team 3-4 years ago. Then at my summer job we got "Nature Names" and mine was Albatross. Coincidentally, this is where I met Tray-Gnome and he introduced me to the PPC.
The Star came after a Competitive Improv Performance which I thought I did quite well in.

Well, Phobos is Greek for fear. In some places Phobos was a god of sorts. I kinda liked that, so I used it as my name.

Before I was Phobos, though, I was Barid. You may recognize that as the name of one of my agents. He was Barid before I was. He was my main character in World of Warcraft. I borrowed the name from him. He borrowed the name from Barid Bel Medar, also known as Demandred, from the Wheel of Time series. Demandred is my favorite of the Forsaken, so I used his old name for my first WoW character.

-Phobos

The more interesting one is the handle I often use on IRC-type-things, "Tezcatlipoca." It's the name of the Aztec god of darkness, chaos, rulership, magic, and a bunch of other things. I have a (somewhat notorious among my friends) fascination with the idea of darkness as an elemental power, so I felt it fit.

I was also considering using "Itzpapalotl" (because wings made of obsidian blades are just awesome), but decided that "Tezcatlipoca" sounded way better, even if it's not gender-appropriate.

Eh, I just found the name somewhere and started using it as a Boarder name... while putting my own spin on it.

Well, I'm firemagic because that was my email for a while, back when I first started reading fantasy. I was kinda obsessed with fire-based magic at the time, so that's what the 10-year-old me made her email.

On the Wiki, I'm Karrin Blue, named after Karrin Murphy from the Dresden Files, one of the most awesome female characters ever (in my humble opinion.) Blue because... I like the color blue.