What's your screenname mean?

[haiiro]

Haiiro is an archaic word for "gray," or "the color of ash" in Japanese. I took and enjoyed a lot of Asian studies courses in college, and when I was casting around for a new username about 5 years ago, this one jumped out at me. It has always been very deliberately lowercase.

At the time, I identified strongly with the idea that people are mostly gray in terms of morality -- never black or white. Five years later, I still think that's a pretty basic truth, but I'm happier with myself and identify less with it on a personal level.

Oddly enough, it was seeing this thread that made me think about that -- until then, it's been my username (here and elsewhere) for so long that it just seemed natural to me. I'll probably stick with it, but I'm less certain of how natural it feels anymore.

Can you tell that I tend to overthink things?

 

[nonamazing]

In high school, I was very easily bored. So I took to adding things to my signature on tests--stuff like 'The Incredibly Brilliant One' or 'Don't you wish you were me?'

One particular signature addition I used frequently was 'The Amazing', so much so that the football players (who cheated off my tests, of course), used to shout that out at me whenever I walked past them (and for a dork-o like myself it was pretty darn weird when a three-hundred pound linebacker would announce "It's The Amazing!" as I walked into a room).

When I started applying to college, I signed all my applications as 'The Amazing Chris Tucker' (hey, the guys at MIT and Princeton loved it, man). Because of that, and because the school I attended was so small, the ironic nickname followed me throughout my college years.

Sometime after that, I reconnected with some of my friends from college via a messageboard. But at that point in my life, I was feeling anything but amazing, so I called myself unamazing instead. I've liked that name better, so since then I've used it or some varient thereof as my general internet alias.

And in another semi-ironic twist, I've started signing all of my paperwork at the store with the initials 'tact'.

 

[Aesmael]

Lesse now. I was looking around some of the Song of Ice and Fire sites when I stumbled across a Wheel of Time and, for some reason, decided to register there rather than elsewhere. Perhaps because theorising about WoT seemed more fine while reading discussion of soiaf seemed more interesting. Anyway, even though I was going off the wheel at the time (and indeed eventually made my home on that part of the site that has the least to do with its founding purpose) I wanted to choose an appropriate username. So I threw together something from the Old Tongue of the novels. It was intended to mean 'Betrayer of All' but I erred and after a brief flurry of discussion it was settled that the word in fact means 'All Hope', which I now much prefer. The other name I use is also more unique than the one I was given.

I use it wherever I register, which I feel is only polite. Have found there to be an amazing commonality of individuals and news

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I'm a fan of pulp superheroics, and a freak in reallife. With my semi-rare complex of medical oddities explained on my website and the recurring theme of pollsters, opinion takers, and people who are foolish enough to ask my opinion, I have begun to identify with being an Anomaly. Pulped up, it was either The Anomalous Avenger or Doctor Anomalous. The latter has flow.

On the old boards, BBSes and so forth, I had a dzoen handles including (back before there were kajillions of people) Superman, Kal-El, Erok-El, Erok, Kryptonian, and related. I was Hagrid for a while, too, but decided to enter full-lurk mode on the net for a while. When I re-registered a few months later, I went with this.

 

[Dyne]

Dyne is the name of a character from Final Fantasy VII (one of my favorite games). Dyne was one of Barret's old friends who you encounter in the prison underneath the Gold Saucer. Dyne is also the type of Limit Breaker that Zidane uses in Final Fantasy IX (gotta love those FF games). A dyne is also a unit of force in physics, though I only knew this recently.

I use Dyne for the names of Wizard characters, as well as characters of the Sci-Fi genre. In most cases, Dyne is a Neutral Good Elf Wizard, since that's the type of character I play most often.

 

[Paragon]

I am without Equal.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I decided to use my real name for a change.

Sam

 

[CronoDekar]

I hadn't yet discovered D&D when I first came online in '97, but I had been a big fan of console RPGs for the previous few years. So, I took Crono from Chrono Trigger and Dekar from Lufia 2 (both SNES games) to come up with the nickname Crono & Dekar, which was later shortened to CronoDekar when I went on IRC. Nothing complex as to why I selected the names I did - I chose them mainly because they were awesome swordsmen with just as awesome hair. I've never found much reason to change my nick, so I've stuck with it as my main alias.

Over on the WotC forums I use Laskaw, which is a ghostwise halfling bard I played in a friend's short-lived FR game. Nonetheless, he's been my favorite PC so far.

 

[Turhan]

My screen name here is taken from a literary figure in Henryk Sienkiewics' "trilogy." The fellow, Turhan Bey, was a sultan of the Ottoman empire or some such powerful war leader who was in the midst of making war on what was then called the kingdom of Poland (about half of eastern Europe). That was in the 1670's. I think the fellow was fictional, but I'm not sure. Later I found out a Viennese actor of Turkish descent uses that name as his stage name. The actor made a ton of b-movies in the 40's and later, and he's done some TV too, like a couple roles on Babylon 5. None of that reflects upon my DnD character's nature, I just happen to like the name. And it is rather uncommon....

 

[FireLance]

You can blame G-Force for my username. If you're not old enough to know what G-Force is, I will just say that it's a Japanese cartoon featuring a group of five people protecting the earth and stuff (kind of like the Power Rangers, but less campy). Among the vehicles they piloted was this massive airplane/spaceship that could turn into a fiery phoenix-like blast of energy. Many episodes ended with them using this ability to blast through and destroy the threat of the day.

That image kind of stuck in my mind, and when I needed to name a phoenix NPC for a 1e D&D game, I used "Firelance". Since then, every time I needed to use a phoenix in the game, I would call it "Firelance". During 2e, I started creating a homebrew inspired by elements of the Death Gate Cycle, the Dark Sun setting and the Birthright setting. The basic idea behind the setting was that the world had been split into eight pieces because of a massive struggle between good and evil. Firelance became a hero of the old world who had best embodied the philosophy of Fire. Formerly human, he had evolved into a phoenix. His weapon, also called the Fire Lance, was what would be a holy, flaming lance in 3e terms.

I have long abandoned that setting, but I'm still fond of the name and the (NPC) character and weapon who bore it. So, I've been using it as my user name on ENWorld and a few other forums I frequent.

Sialia was kind enough to make me a nice avatar of both the phoenix and the weapon that shared his name.