User Name and Avatars: Origin Stories

[briggart]

I come from an hilly area whose original Celtic name was Brig. I was once told that briggart means "person from Brig". I later found out that's likely not correct, but by then I was already using it as a username in several website

 

[JEB]

User name is an old, old nickname, based on my initials.

Avatar (which I've used elsewhere, but until this very moment had not bothered to add here!) is because I like classic Doctor Who.

Someone had to be boring.

 

[Lanefan]

There was a thread, started a long time ago, that allowed people to discuss their user names. Why did you choose that user name?

Unfortunately, I checked recently and it appears that it is now buried in the archived threads section. Which is sad, because that it where I first learned the real back story (and pronunciation!) of @Lanefan ... which I won't spoil, both because it's not my story, and because I will continue to mentally use the wrong pronunciation for Lanefan.

KANT TELL ME WUT 2 DO!

OH YA?? TELLIN' YOU NOW, YO!!!

LAN-NEF-FAN. Three - count 'em, one two three - syllables!

It means "Man [of the] Moon" in a homebrew language a friend and I tried to invent some years before I'd even heard of D&D (or any RPG, for all that). Lanefan was for a long time my number-one character, who would gladly either argue you into the ground or pound you into the ground depending on the situation.

As for my avatar, I found it online somewhere and used it for a different character of mine; and it fits for these purposes. One of these days I'll change it to Lanefan's character avatar, which is a much more recent find.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Mad Jack is my real name...

(What, you never heard of a guy named Madalyne before?)


Okay, Sir John Garrett, who became known as "Mad Jack", was an early D&D character...
My first name is the Irish version of John, and my Catholic Confirmation name is John, so I'd started going by the name Jack in certain social circles as a teenager, and quite a few people actually thought that was my real name.
(On two additional entirely separate but extremely coincidental notes, I'd picked up the nickname "Ripper" from some acquaintances during my early teenage years, due to both my skill at driving (despite being years away from being old enough) and my constantly having one or more blades on me. And later on, a particularly literate friend compared me to Lord Byron (who'd been described as "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know") and it sort of stuck.)
(Fun Fact: A friend's young daughter once pointed out that if you say "Mad Jack" seven times really fast it turns into "Magic", lol...)

By the time I grown out of my teenage years, "Mad Jack" had sort of become my alter ego, almost a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing. I've been using Mad Jack or some variation on it as an online persona pretty much everywhere online since I first got on the internet.

The skull is a cropped version of a photograph I took. It's an almost life-sized resin skull covered in Celtic knotwork that my brother got me for a birthday present one year, wearing my favorite hat.
Just as with Mad Jack, the skull is the picture I use for my avatar everywhere online.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Mad Jack is my real name...

(What, you never heard of a guy named Madalyne before?)


Okay, Sir John Garrett, who became known as "Mad Jack", was an early D&D character...
My first name is the Irish version of John, and my Catholic Confirmation name is John, so I'd started going by the name Jack in certain social circles as a teenager, and quite a few people actually thought that was my real name.
(On two additional entirely separate but extremely coincidental notes, I'd picked up the nickname "Ripper" from some acquaintances during my early teenage years, due to both my skill at driving (despite being years away from being old enough) and my constantly having one or more blades on me. And later on, a particularly literate friend compared me to Lord Byron (who'd been described as "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know") and it sort of stuck.)
(Fun Fact: A friend's young daughter once pointed out that if you say "Mad Jack" seven times really fast it turns into "Magic", lol...)

By the time I grown out of my teenage years, "Mad Jack" had sort of become my alter ego, almost a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing. I've been using Mad Jack or some variation on it as an online persona pretty much everywhere online since I first got on the internet.

The skull is a cropped version of a photograph I took. It's an almost life-sized resin skull covered in Celtic knotwork that my brother got me for a birthday present one year, wearing my favorite hat.
Just as with Mad Jack, the skull is the picture I use for my avatar everywhere online.

Glad to know there are some genuine weirdos on here! Hats of—-on!

 

[GetInTheHole]

My other hobby is golf.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

LAN-NEF-FAN. Three - count 'em, one two three - syllables!

Huh. I’ve been pronouncing it that way all this time. Now I have a sudden urge to listen to the tiny Snarf Zagyg on my shoulder and pronounce it LANE-FAN.

( )

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

USERNAME:

I used to go to California Pizza Kitchen on occasion, and the restaurant had a policy of having their waitstaff use name tags with their hometown as their last name. One day, my waiter was “Danny Alcatraz”. I said that was an unusual surname, which is when he told me about the policy. I looked at him, saying “Alcatraz” was an unusual place to be born. He laughed and said it made for a better story than his ACTUAL hometown. I asked him if I could use that name in a piece of fiction I was writing. He said OK.

But I never finished that story satisfactorily, and I needed an online alias, sooooo…

It’s one of only 3 aliases I remember using. My first was based on my email. I chose Dannyalcatraz to replace that. In recent years, I’ve started using “BubbaIMHOtep” in some circles- a portmanteau of IMHO and “Bubba Ho Tep”, a cult classic movie.


AVATAR:

It’s a cropped photo of one of my pricier guitars, a flag Dorado from Jon Kammerer Guitars, with pickups from Vintage Vibe.*


Bonus: here’s the back side:






* for the gear heads, the neck pickup is a traditional Telecaster style pickup, the bridge pickup is a Charlie Christian. Both were handmade by Vintage Vibe (Pete Biltoff).

 

[Pedantic]

When I was much younger than I am now, I was very confused that "being pedantic" was a criticism. Surely you'd want to know all the details of the thing, and above all, be as right as possible?

There was a period I leaned into it as a badge of honor, and developed the prickly, isolating sort of pride you get from mistaking your brand of different for better, and during that time plastered it all over my online presence.

I like to think I've become better, and now it's more a peccadillo than a defining character trait. Plus, it's fun when someone uses it conversationally and I can pretend I've been summoned.

I don't create art and I'm uncomfortable representing myself with art someone else made unless it was intended for that purpose, so I usually don't use an avatar. I do actually have a commissioned piece done in the Android: Netrunner style I've used elsewhere though, so maybe I'll put that up and be less faceless.

 

[James Gasik]

When I first signed up for ENWorld, years back, I had a more traditional screen name (something that started with "L" or a "T", most likely). Then after a few years, I decided to log on again (after being told I can't talk about the "Satanic Panic" at Giant in the Playground"- the "S-word" is a no no, apparently) and for whatever reason the system put my real name as my screen name. Being entirely too lazy to figure out how to change it (and who really cares if I come off as a rube lacking the creativity or the common sense to be anonymous on the internet), I've simply stuck with it.

My current avatar is a reference to Vampire: The Dark Ages, an excellent setting that I've found to be impossible to use, lol, as it's the "heraldic" Tremere Clan symbol (referring to that time I was a wholly irresponsible power gamer lol- "but the rules say I can do this, so why is that a problem?"- talk about old shame!).