How did you come up with your username? Why did you choose it?

[Dan Q]

I've used a lot of usernames over the years. Probably the first one, which I used to use on BBSes in the early 90s, was "Diceman". Like the George Cockcroft (Luke Rhinehart) book, but in my case it was a school nickname because back then I collected dice.

Much later I became "Scatman Dan" in many circles, after Scatman John, after some new friends from university discovered that I knew all of Scatman John's lyrics by heart.

But by the time you've shed your anonymity online, the horse has already bolted and there's little use shutting the stable door. So nowadays, I just go by my real, full name basically everywhere. If you see a "Dan Q"... it's probably me... or else some annoying Dan Quayle or Dan Quigley or similarly-named person who's chosen to use just the initial of their surname with no regard for those of me whose surname only has a single character in the first place, grr.

Upside: I'm very easy to find, because my name is short and unique. Downside: the same thing.

tl;dr: it's my actual name

[AnIzzi0t]

I've had multiple online handles over the years! they've all been based off of ocs or alter egos my friends and I made up

my first username that I remember clearly was back in the 2010s (which, 2010 was 15 years ago in 2025 ) was breyathewolf1229. i remember nothing about how I got it other then I liked wolves and breya was a cool enough name for me and I needed a username to play roblox

my 2nd ever username was.. uhh... *checks notes* nythia. just... nythia.

my 3rd username was starring my oc kia!! ItsAmiaKIA was my internet handle for about two years I believe. which brings us to..!

AnIzziot!! my current user and my favorite so far it comes from the name "Izzy" and "an idiot" (affectionate)

[Pippa_the_Prius]

My username comes oddly enough from someone I don't even talk to anymore! I've had many over the years, mostly stupid gamer jargon like my steam which remains "GankMaster42069" or something-
And for a while I was going by "Kira" which was the name of my first ever OC, who I never draw anymore lol 
Now "Pippa" comes from the name of my very first car, my 2008 Toyota Prius. My coworker at the first job I ever had suggested the name and I kept it. Now I go by Pippa_the_Prius because, Prius. lol 

[murderoftheuniverse]

murder of the universe - full length album by band king gizzard and the lizard wizard! of course, of course!

[EternalFyre413]

My username had been EternalFyre413 since like around 2012 or earlier? I was (and still is) a Kingdom hearts trash, EternalFyre was like a nod to Eternal Flames, Axel wasn't even my favourite character funnily enough, my favourite is actually Demyx
413 was just a combination of silly bad luck numbers

The username was originally made as an alt to use as one of my sona, my main username was originally planned to be ContraDreams (never used) but for some reason I signed up on DA as EternalFyre413, thinking I won't use it as much, unfortunately I'm active and people started calling me by Fyre and I just really like it a lot so it just got stuck and I'm now Fyre

[littlelum]

In 5th grade one of my classmates started calling me littlelum for some reason, and everyone else just picked it up. Later, when joining the internet, I couldn't think of anything else so I chose that as my name.

And no, none of us were familiar with the Rayman games at the time.

[GideonWilhelm]

I was born named Gideon, and when I was adopted, my parents changed my name.  As time went on and I wanted to carve out more of an identity for myself online, I figured Gideon is a pretty good name!  The 'wilhelm' part as added when there were already too many Gideons and I just kinda... thought of a name!

[zomboid]

well... i really like project zomboid ... @zomboid is taken on a few of the ~big sites~ but in smaller places like this i feel sooo  when i get to just be zomboid.

[MallRat]

Mine's not too complicated haha
I lived in a town where places for teens to hang out were disappearing, but there was always the local mall. I worked at that mall full-time during high school, so I spent a lot of time there and loved it.

[arctozolt]

I use about three different (but similar) usernames consistently online, so I'll just go through all of them.

arctozolt - for more casual online spaces, when available. the name of my favorite pokemon, so it's like a badge of honor. usually not taken, and while that's good for me, it's a little disappointing that arctozolt seems to be lacking in the fans department. 

arctyzolt - note the "y" in place of the "o". my gamertag. a little more unique than arctozolt, but still somewhat recognizable (to me at least.) people struggle to pronounce it sometimes, so they'll just call me "arc" which is a fine nickname so i don't really mind it. it's pronounced "ark (as in arctic) tea (like the drink) zolt (like electricity)," for those wondering. 

electrofloat - rhymes with arctozolt, and keeps the elemental nature of the name. arcto -> electro (ice -> electricity) zolt -> float (electricity -> water). i'm an artist, so i use this when sharing/posting my art online. i try to keep it somewhat more professional on these accounts. it's just a really fun word to say, too. it makes me think of like a circular pool floatie with like little lightning bolts or something. 

[Squidiottt]

i used to use the user "chaotic multiverse guardian" back when i had amino which was based on ink sans who is often called "squid" and at some point i combined it with idiot and it became squidiot.

the extra 't's are just cuz someone already had that user on some place i dont remember and then it just became a feature 

[WhimsicalCookie5]

I always saw awesome people online with cool and creative usernames, others had nicknames or names that they went by on the internet in general.  ∑(O_O;)

I wanted to be epic like them, but I wasn't creative enough to come up with usernames of those high levels of coolness.

So I decided to just think of what I like and what can make it interesting or fun.

I like cookies and whimsical is a nice adjective ^_^

Therefore, I'm CookieSwirl but I also go by different usernames and nicknames(?

Everyone here is creative and nice! (◕‿◕)