What's in a name? Tell us about your chosen pseudonym or character name.

You are welcome and encouraged to use this thread to let all of us know a bit of the history behind how you chose your login name. To kick this off, I will tell you a bit about mine.

My main login is Valis, but previously I used Horse. We are one and the same. It would appear that they are not at all related, but in fact -- they are.

The name Valis comes from a Science Fiction book by Philip K Dick entitled, VALIS. In that book, Dick introduces a rather interesting idea about the existence and dual nature of God. He attributes one part of that nature to a machine intelligence called VALIS - Vast Active Living Intelligence System. In that novel, he brings back a character named Horselover Fat, which is an anagram of sorts of his own name, Philip Dick.

My login name, Horse, is a contraction of the name Horselover Fat. In VALIS (and elsewhere, but only covertly in his book UBIK, a searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation) Horselover Fat is Philip's alter ego. More specifically, another personality that split away in his throes with schizophrenia. I use Valis to indicate my role as technical god of my web sites. You know ... admin and web templates and graphics. That sort of thing. Horse, on the other hand, is an alternate personality less admin and more generally bizarre. Much of my dark humor and aberrant flights of fantasy reside in that persona. Neither Valis nor Horse truly represent who I am, personally. Although I tend to post my thoughts more often as Valis than any other pseudonym.

On a side note: Valis does not roleplay. Horse used to, but he quit. I roleplay as Itzl, Akiel, Darwick, Akadia and a host of others as needs be. I also roleplayed as Omega and Prime, but they are now dead. Yet when I log in as one character or another, I tend to take on certain of their characteristics. This is the side effect of roleplaying for as long as I have. Logging in is just part of 'suiting up' into character. It helps, usually.

So .. how about you? I admit that I over-think stuff a lot, so I would not be surprised at answers such as "I dunno. I liked the name," or "He/She's a character in ___________." It's all good and part of the fun!

Over to you, now ....

Guess I'll start with my name on this log in, Milla.

On my trip to Europe last year, Mina introduced me to a song titled "Milo Moje."  Translated, it means "my adorable."  I grew to love this song and constantly listened to it until people would actually threaten to take the CD from me *sheepish grin.*  Well, I was going to name Milla - Antigone- at first, because I'm a Greek and Shakespeare drama lover, but found myself listening to the song again as I was brushing through names for my character.  So, I named my character Milla, the female form of Milo.  So, Milla in fact means adorable.  She's proven to be a great character and someone I can relate to at times...sometimes *laughs.*  She has my temper *yes I know, bad lol* and has grown into some of my other habits, plus hit the danger factor I love.  


Moving on, I have the log in name I started with on this site-- Fayte.  Actually, it's quite freaky how I came up with this one.  Thinking of a name for my all-around character or rather nick name for myself, I brushed across the name "Fate" in my head.  Shrugging it off, I drove on for a few more miles through some town I had never crossed, and parked in the street I saw a gold Camero with the plate reading "Fayte 09."  Well, I thought, what better word for me having the name than fate .

And there you have it, ma' friends.

The name Vysnij resulted from searching for Russian names that begins with 'V'. Why V? Well it's because I have an older name I that use here that is called Vevaphonic, which is another story by itself. Anyway Vysnij looks neat and stuck to it. Vevaphonic is a derivative of the word Vevaphon which I've changed slightlty because other people had used the Vevaphon as a login elsewhere. Vevaphon is a fictional shapechanging creature from an obsure modern source reference.

There is a long history behind Danteya. Originally, she had started out as Christianna, a vampire that was different from the rest of her kind. She had the privlage of meeting Horse, and together they revealed her true identity, a Daemon of Seduction, a rather powerful one at that. Christianna, happened to have just popped into my head. Danteya on the other hand, was a combination of Dante with an addition of a letter from my first and middle name. ^.^

Krysondra is my name... Or at least the name, my father wanted me to have. He read it in a book that he can't remember, and my mother misspelled it on my birth certificate. (Maybe that's why I rely so heavily on spellcheck these days... *ss*) My father wasn't at the hospital at the time (out on a bit of an I-have-a-daughter-now drunk, I suspect but no one will confirm nor deny), and my mother didn't feel like having a "BABY GIRL", even if I was legitimate. So... *shrugs* It's the name that I was meant to have.

My other main character is Tepin. The concept for her character came to me whole cloth, and I knew exactly where she was from. Then, I had to find a name to match. It was simple (gods love google). It means "little one" in the Nahuatl tongue (sometimes "flea"). *shrugs* You win some, you lose some, right? *G*

There really isn't anything too special about my name. My sign in name, being SternMorder, was something I cooked up a million years ago and only remember that Stern means Star in German, but I'll be damned if I remember anything else, :roll:

Isis is just name that I use sometimes use in stories, rpgs, etc. Its the name of the Egyptian Goddess of fertility and also the sister and wife of the God Osiris. Yes, sister and wife.

*huge fan of mythology* Isis also picked up all the pieces of Osiris when his brother tore him up and scattered him. Woo.

Kiera was taken from the name Kieran which I actually found on a baby names site I found, a looonnng time ago. I can't remember if it's from one of the groups of the British Isles, but regardless, it's just a name I'm rather fond of. And I needed something quick.

Talbot means "wise dreamer" and his last name, Nox means "night." I had a friend from Britain named Talbot, and it sounded so incredibly cool...plus, it gave me an easy personality to borrow from with my character!

Well gosh, all these fun stories about names...

Trahern is my second name.

Anti-climactic. I know.

Edited to add: The name after Trahern means 'of the Valley' in another language, but in order to preserve some mystery (and rip off Douglas Adams), the language in question shall not be revealed. In any case, those of you who know me as Trahern Valley now know why.

It's because I'm the Highlander's worst enemy.

Hm...in all honesty, there's really nothing too special about my character's name. My username as well as character name for the Lost Souls RPG, Xiyla, is just a random combination of letters put together when I was creating a character name for a friend's RPG. I knew that I had wanted something different then noticed that there were few names on that board that started with X...except maybe Xander as far as I can remember. So I figured, "Hey, why not make up a name that starts with an X?" And from there it was simply playing with letters. *grins*



I also have a different character name for the Septentrio RPG-Lei Su. I didn't want to use Xiyla because she had already been created as a child-like form in some of the other forums on this site, and I didn't want to change that (consistency issues I suppose *_*). The creation of Lei Su was rather simple; I wanted to have a character of Asian descent, and I began with looking up Chinese surnames and their meanings. Granted information isn't always correct when looked up in books or sites, but I was scrolling down the list and saw that "Su" meant "gaining consciousness." There was also a little explanation of the name:

Quote: The 41st most common last name in China. Sus are the descendents of ancient king Zhuan Xu. Zhuan Xu had a son called Cheng, and Cheng had a son called Lao Tong. Lao Tong gave birth to Chong Li and Wu Hui. Both brothers were in charge of sacrifice during Di Ku's reign. Wu Hui gave birth to Lu Zhong had six sons, with the first son called Fan. Fan was awarded the land of Kun Wu (east of Xu Chang in HeNan province), during the Xia Dynasty. Among the descendents of Kun Wu, the land of Su was awarded (vicinity of Wen in HeNan). Its people began to bear the last name Su. (Su means regaining consciousness). Hometown: 40 miles east of XianXi Province.

As for the first name, Lei...that was even simpler. I went to babynamesworld.com *grins* I searched for names of Chinese origin, and I got four results-one of them being Lei, and everyone probably knows the meaning, so I won't explain. *_* Anyway-that's basically it.

My character's name is Maeve. It's of Irish origins (like myself *grins*), and of Irish mythology (myself, not so much).

It is from the Gaelic name Méabh, meaning "intoxicating." *grins some more* And, in Irish legend, Maeve was the name of a warrior queen of Connacht who organized the death of the hero Cuchulainn.

I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do with this character before I determined a name for her, and Maeve just seemed to fit not only like a glove, but the name's history offered a little inspiration as well.

I have a second character here (in Lost Souls) named Zosime. I haven't had time to do anything with her yet, but just for kicks:

Zosime is the feminized version of Zosimus, which is the Latinized form of Zosimos, which is an ancient Greek name. It is derived directly from the word "zosimos," meaning "viable" or "likely to survive." And it was also the name of several early saints and a pope. *shrugs*

Finally, my name is Daria. To be brief, it means "to possess good," and has English/Polish roots. I have no idea why my parents chose it for me. *grins*

The name Jaliena actually was a name that had just happened to pop into my head, just like most of my character names. :/ Not a very intresting concept, but effective none-the-less. : )

The name Emaline is from a Cab Calloway song by the same name.

Don't you hear my heart
Whisper through your window, Emaline?
It's a lovely night, Emaline,
To meander with me.

Have you told your friends,
Have you told your people, Emaline?
Hurry up and write them a line
Of our wedding to be.

In the church, there's an old bell-ringer
Just waiting for the time,
When I place the ring around your finger,
Daddy's making you mine.

All I do is pray
For that Sunday morning sun to shine,
When I promenade down the line
Hand in hand with Emaline.


The character name I use in LS is Jace and I actually got it from a friend's poem entitled Jupiter Aligned, Catcall Evening.

Now that we have my characters covered, hehe, my name is Marcotta. No pretty stories behind it other than my parents wanted something unique. I personally think it was a clever method of torturing me. :razz:

My father was a pastor.  He gave us all Hebrew names.  I'm the first of four siblings and my name ingloriously means sheep, more specifically, ewe.  A Bible's concordance will try to spiffy it up by mentioning a sheep's gentleness or meekness, but really their just herdable animals that grow coats and get sacrificed.