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

[WraithGlade]

I originally made mine way back when I was a teenager, for use on gaming forums and accounts but then expanding outward to be my most commonly used username thereafter. 

It has been a really long time, so my memory is fuzzy, but I think I picked "Wraith Glade" because I've always been fond of both darkly sophisticated/classy aesthetics (hence "Wraith") and nature (especially trees, forests, etc... hence "Glade"). I've retroactively layered additional meaning onto the name in recent years, such as on my explanation for my site name on my website, but originally the name's inspiration was primarily vague and aesthetics (as I've described here above). 

The diverse range of people's reasons is interesting. I've long wondered why many usernames were chosen to be what they are, though sometimes it seems obvious in some cases.

[Stonmann]

For me the 'Ston' comes from my surname, 'Johnston', and the 'mann' comes from my favourite composer, 'Telemann', so it's actually pronounced 'Stinmin', but everyone always says 'stonman' 

[greyskieshappymind]

So I first joined Tumblr in May of 2022, I was sure I wanted to commit to being a writeblr on my main blog, but I really liked photography that featured grey skies and wanted a space just for those posts so I made a sideblog greyskieshappymind.tumblr.com. And then it just sorta stuck around as the name I used in spaces that weren't writer-centric and it just grew on me over time.

There are some places I still use where I'm scheppercastles / schepper-wubs (since I can't change them) so I might as well explain that too: "schepper" came from old Dutch meaning "writer/artisan/magician" and castles seemed cool at the time. Then Queen Elizabeth died and I questioned how cool castles really were, so I decided to swap it out with Wubs which was some girl's nickname from highschool that I decided to take. I still like Wubs as a nickname, just don't really feel like it fits in any usernames.

[Audball]

I chose my username because not only is it just an easy joke to make using my name, but because I wanted to ditch my old username at the time. I didn't hate my old username per se, it was just a relic from before I started transitioning so a lot of the baggage tied to it was very much boyish feeling so I decided to just start fresh.

I also chose it specifically because I have always been known for being a lil odd lol. Within friend groups I tend to be one of if not the friend in the group where everyone's intro for me is just "that's audball, she...is."  Not so much the case nowadays but back in the day definitely so.

[2010]

mine's simply because my website's name is just '2010' :P n i found this forum thru a community on discord i was apart of that i had found thru neocities ! so i decided because of those factors my user here would be the same as my site :] i made my site when i was 15 n just fully getting into my large interest in the 2000s + early 2010s so i figured 2010 would be a good site name because if i was born 10 years prior , i wouldve been 15 in 2010!

[Starstorm_X1]

For my "CyberCat2000" handle here and on some web revival platforms (i.e. Escargot)? I admit, it kind of started because I wanted a handle that sounded like something a young person in the turn of the millennium would use, hence the "2000" part. The "CyberCat" part kind of refers to my fursona, Cyberlux Compucat, who has been given the nickname "CyberCat".

As for my "Starstorm_X1" handle I use in most of the Internet, it's a little more complicated. Back when I was in college, I kind of had a phase of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic original characters. When I was signing up for a Steam account, I wound up using the name of one of my OCs, who happened to be named Starstorm. (Which in turn, was named after the "Star Storm" special attack in Paper Mario.) I'm not sure where the "X1" bit came from other than the fact that it sounded cool, heh. It wound up sticking for most places I have a presence on the Internet.

[soju]

My name on here? When I registered my account I was a regular at an Asian-themed bar near me, soju was just a drink I liked and thought it would be a good username.

On my other accounts, my username is a nickname my online friends gave me a few years ago, or if that's unavailable, I use a song lyric I like.

[coolio]

Literal nonsense that I liked the look of when I sign art. I couldn't even come up with a way to pronounce it until pretty recently, lol. I think I've had it since 2009-2010, and it's now my name when I do art or writing at all. And since I built my site(s) for art and writing specifically (as a way to migrate off centralized platforms), I decided to go with it wherever I participate in most webdev stuff.

[armaina]

This is on my contact card but I'll put it here anyway. My name is a misspelling/mispronunciation of the name Aramina, from the first short story of the The Girl Who Heard Dragons by Anne McCaffrey.

I've been using it since 1996
(though apparently it might be an actual Indonesian name???? I honestly have no idea all I know is people from Indonesia have been using this name and I am utterly baffled because I made it up entirely..)

[Capybara]

My username is me in real life.

[boyrotting]

I have delusions sometimes where I legitimately think I'm decomposing so why not base a username on that  . also I just thought 'boyrotting' sounded cool.

[xwindows]

Mine is based on my real-life alias-- named after the operating-system-that-must-not-be-named. (1) But around decade and half earlier, I decided to add one letter in the front; which turned it into a well-known nickname of another software originated from 1980s-- a software which I have been using to this day; and I started using this new form as my screen name for releasing software I wrote.

And when I finally put together a my own personal website few years ago, I used this as the website name; which also now host my new personal email inbox under this name as well.

In the present day, I noticed when other people on the Internet spoke of my screen name, they would think of either:

• That software I just mentioned, or...
• Me being one of the people who swore off aforementioned operating-system-that-must-not-be-named.

I hadn't realized of #2 until that random person told me (it's an English-language pun; and I'm not an English native); despite it being the case for like... 7 years now. What an irony, considering the origin of this alias...


(1) Cultural TMI: It is a thing that Thai parents do when naming their children. Thai first names tend to be long (and holy in meaning, sometimes nontrivial to pronounce), so they usually come up with something --often totally unrelated (2) with the child's actual first name-- as a nickname to call him in familiar setting. This nickname has no legal significance, but would be used in conversations among friends, classmates, and even coworkers throughout his life; in anything that is less than full-formal context actually.

There exist Thai first names with could be shortened into a serviceable nickname (like how nickname works in English-speaking western countries); but they are not common from what I've seen.

(2) Sometimes based on things on popular culture which they were into; be it film/TV-series/comic/videogame characters, software, automobile brand and whatnot. Guess what my parents were into around the time I was born.

[MellohD]

 I was playing Kahoot or gymkit in the 7th grade and was using "mellohi" as my name for the games, and then I was like hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mello hi... melloh D kinda sounds like melody, so now I use MellohD religiously for every username I can and mellohi for any alt accounts I make lol.  I think in my internet history i've only had about 4 main usernames ever 

[TheDuke_11037]

I came up with Dukeless at first just randomly, then eventually shortened it to 'Duke' but since that's a common user I had to add some numbers. I choose 007 as a reference to goldeneye, but then realized people thought that it was my birthyear so then I changed it to reference another game with 11037.

[lycoseadae]

i changed my name so a new reason to post! its the scientific name for wolf spiders(lycosidae) but the -si- is changed to sea referencing an old username i used for awhile until 2021ish