Over at GPN, there’s a discussion about how people chose their handles. I’ve always been intrigued by handles and blog names and often ask about them in my interviews. I’m constantly stunned at how many of them are connected to some pop culture reference point.
Personally, i was always obsessed with the letter z. I lived with a dog named zephyr and often used that as a nick. For the last few years, i’ve used zephoria which is a combination of zephyr and euphoria. I must’ve been in a good place when i concocted that – a euphoric wind. Apophenia comes from my addiction to weird rarely used words. I’ve subscribed to WWFTD for ages. Yet, if i look back on my teenage handles, they were all associated with Jack Kerouac novels (those i’m not telling because they connect me with Usenet – ::gulp::). Even my first car was named Cody. My computers have always been named xanadu… note: my love of Coleridge predated my awareness of Ted Nelson.
How did other folks choose their handles? (And btw: i’m *loving* the responses to this)
Update: Does anyone know any published literature on handle choice? Or about how people remember each other’s handles?
I just unimaginatively picked my initials, which I had no shortage of. I found early posts of mine that I signed in all caps (-JWGH) but pretty quickly I switched to lower case, I think because many other people who used their initials used lower case and because of the negative SHOUTING associations of upper case.
Actually, I think there are a few transitional posts where I used mixed case for some reason (jWgH and the like).
I bet this is the most boring response you get!
Since the age of 16, I’ve been a huge George Clinton/Parliment/Funkadelic fan (Think PCU if you may not know him). Cause of this my handles and/or computer names usually have ‘funk’ in them.
Funklord I got from Eric Sermon.
When Everyone started using that I moved to Funkknight. Funk for P-Funk. Knight from “Batman, The Dark Knight”. I earned the nickname Batman early on in at College, so I had to use a play of off that.
My Web server I named, “clonedfunk”. Basically from the “Clones of Dr Funkenstein” album.
But I do have to admit, “Kill Bill” made such an impression on me, that the IBM Thinkpad is now “Black Mamba” and the Desktop is “TwistedNerve” (name of the whistling song). Really only named it TwistedNerve cause I love that song/scene so much.
On the network at Sun (where all comuters had names) my computer’s handle was ‘Naima’ — my favorite song at the time, a Jazz ballad by John Coltrane. Naming my computer ‘Naima’ turned out to be a lightning-rod for Jazz aficianados all around the company – many jam sessions and several gigs resulted from that lightly-chosen name. Some people still think of me as NAIMA, and sometimes call me that.
On MUDs (both text and graphic) I was WarriorPrincess – in honor of Xena (another pop-cult ref!)
Professionally, I go by ‘A.J.’ (short for Amy Jo, my given name). I started doing this when I was a programmer, ’cause I liked to sign my code ‘A.J. Kim’ – so that the person maintaining and updating the code couldn’t tell if it was written by a male or female.
Quiplash is short for Quipster Whiplash. (I always was the funny one with the snappy comebacks.)
my handles have to do with ways in which people uniquely identified me that resonate with my perception of myself, such as particular word pairing used in a poem someone wrote for me, or childhood wordplay on my name, or favorite quotes. because i love the quote,”Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me! For I am the ruler of all that I see!” from a dr.seuss book yertletheturtle is now a defunct one.
Indeed, I came up with a Z handle, as well. I wanted to come up with a good Led Zeppelinesque name as I built my Zeppelin tribute page. That was then, this is now – college students often find a need to get a new AIM sn (for various reasons), so RockOfVictory is what I use now, even though my website is still Z. By the way, I happened upon your site just a few minutes ago. I have a feeling my wife would definitely enjoy perusing it – she was a sociology and women’s studies major – currently hoping for a meaninful job… which usually requires at least a master’s in her field, eh?
I chose “isolde” from the story of Tristan und Isolde which ended up as a Wagner opera. Tragic, romantic.
I look through dictionaries for interesting names-Nemo, meaning zero; Xerxes=famous persian leader and batting351 from my baseball days(my batting average was .351 in school).
Is it true your fav poem, Kubla Khan, was written under the influence of opium?Wow,the visions…
Mine is joebeone… which is a derivative of something that comes from my aunt calling me “Jobewan Kenobi” (sp?) back in the early eighties when I adored all things star wars.
haptotrope came from this piece of art oil_red_o was a product that was used to stain fat cells, triscadacaphobia was a phonetic spelling of a word I got as a result of asking for help with a usernam back in 96 when I was trying to pick up a hotmail account and everything I thought of was taken…before that I was Ophelia (duh) Celine, after a french exchange student who probably constitutes my first girl-crush, Expresso Pegasus because of all the coffee and fantasy SCA hoo-ha…. Miss martha… well… heh… practice and a team of 12 makes perfect! ibecameaspy for some personal adverts, etc… yeah, I’ve collected a few..
I didn’t get to choose my handle, it was chosen for me when I was a wee lad. My sister, who was 3, grabbed my fat cheeks when I was 6 months old and called me pillo. I used to think it was my name for the early years of my life but was trained out of that. I get a kick out of hearing people say it. Being mexican the two l’s make a Y sound, like (pee-yo) but most people emphasize the Pee rather than the Yo.
I either use variations of my name (Jenifer) or of Morticia Adams or characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I am particularily fond of Granny Weatherwax, and have been known to sign up on dating sites as Esme Weatherwax. ;oD
I recently went through a “choosing a new domain name/blog name” fit and posted a long entry on the process I went through and the criteria I used. No pop culture references that I know of, though 🙂
http://mydentity.illusiondesigns.net/archives/2004/06/choosing_a_domain_name.html
These days, the handles I use are generally my name, for ease of people finding me. Heck, my website is just [my name].com.
I think the first handle I ever chose was back in my days of IRC, age 15 or so. I realized I had to choose a nickname, and wanted something more memorable than Jon-something. I think I had recently been watching some Monty Python, so I just chose SirRobin on a lark. I kept that name for the next 5 or so years of IRCing I did, ’cause people got to know me by that nick, and it rarely collided. That was the only place I ever used that nickname though; never translated to email or screen names.
My first Internet handle was ‘poidog’ which came from a band named Poi Dog Pondering that I was fond of at the time. I thought it was obscure because absolutely no one else I knew had even heard of the band. It was years before I met another person IRL who had heard of them (they were out of Texas, I was living in North Carolina). I used it in my MUD’ing days in the late 80’s. Occasionally people on the MUDs would get the reference. I particularly liked typing it because p-o-i are sequential on the keyboard making logging in a comforting percussive riff.
After a few years I switched to ‘nishiki’ which was the make of my mountain bike. I still use that occasionally when I desire some anonymity. But that’s rare these days. I’d rather be known as Dav even though everyone pronounces it wrong.
My blogname ‘Aku Aku’ came from the usual desperate search for an unused domain name.I had just bought a book named Aku Aku at a public library sale and liked the sound of it and the two definitions. I still haven’t had time to read the book though.
I wonder how much the nature of domain name system, which allows really no more than three real instances of any word/phrase across the whole planet, and the similar need to have a handle that is simple yet unique in the set of people whom you interact with (a set which has certainly increased tremendously in the online age), has forced us into widening our lexicon?
When I first went online I used variations of names of the Devil as my handles, and Belcebu (Spanish spelling for Beelzebub) was my favourite. I was young and foolish and enjoyed flaming and being antisocial. Being ‘Belcebu’ I also had a lot of fun with people always assuming that I was male and even calling me impostor if I claimed to be a girl.
Later when I started having more meaningful online interactions I chose names like “Trillian” or “Alia” as my handles, all taken from female book characters that I like.
Nowadays I have decided to try and be in my “online life” as I am (or I try to be) in my “offline life”. So I use ‘ana’ now, if possible; if not, I use variations on ‘ana’ and my last name.
i’ve been “purr_verse” for years now – as a cat lover, a writer (especially of lyrical poetry) and of…unorthodox tastes, the triple meaning really appeals to me. i was actually hugely surprised to discover it wasn’t already taken on several of the sites i’ve used it on. the only other online names i’ve used has been “quite_lifelike”. 🙂 purr
I’ve used the same handle for 10 years now- it could be time for a change, but I’ve grown attached to it.
When I first ventured into the digital arena, I had the notion to link who I was in the physical world, to who I would become (identity-wise) in the digital world.
This led me to my choice of handle: lindharma.
My given name is Linda, and the sanskrit word ‘dharma’ translated refers to “the way” or journey towards truth. In my quirky way it satisfied my attempt to interface old traditions with new ones.
And I like how it looks- similar to me, but different.
my handles are all some variation on my online tone- boredom. i use it to try and accentuate the fact that well i use the internet (probably too much), i do so at an arm’s length away. And yet, i am intensely interested in study the social networks that have emerged from it. Anyways, the boredom is able to morph itself into a variety of handles- alwaysbored, derobmi, bored247, etc.
My various handles are usually “Lawrence Krubner” or “lkrubner” or “krubnerl”. I could never use pop culture references because I don’t identify strongly enough with pop culture. Pop culture is something I informally study, it’s not something that I use. I can only reference it when I’m being ironic. I did once try using “jakeBarnes” as a handle, he being the main character of the novel Sun Also Rises, which is my favorite, but it was an awkward handle to defend. My friends would tease me and say “You’re only using that handle because you like Sun Also Rises so much” and I had to admit they were right, so I gave that handle up to avoid further teasing.