homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Slightly OT: Where did you get your Forum Handle from?

Hey all,

Sometimes you see someones forum handle name and you wonder, "What's the story or reasoning behind why they chose that nick?"

I've often wondered what was the genesis of "Winding Man", "Polovski", "Olham", "OldHat", etc. So if anyone at all cares to share, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it! I'll start.

"Hellshade" was name for my first World of Warcarft Undead Warlock. Actually, when I first created him...he looked a lot like Ronald McDonald the clown after he'd been dead for 10 years, so I named him "Killerclown" as a bit of a joke.

When I went to transfer off of that particular server, it wouldn't allow me to use that name on the new server (I guess someone on the new server already had it), so I thought about it and decided that basically what my Undead Warlock did was to summon up ghosts and demons from the underworld. In ancient times, ghosts were sometimes referred to as "shades", so in a nod to his ghosts from the underworld roots, I renamed him "Hellshade" and stuck with it for many years.

He became pretty popular as a damage dealing kind of guy in dungeons and raids, so even when I played other characters, players still called me "Hellshade". It basically carried over from there into all other types of gaming and sims. It seemed as good a call sign as any too.

Who else is up for their "origins story"?

In case no one has figured it out, I play the banjo.

My friends called me elephant because of my strong memory...

and you are a man.

I've been known as MikeC all my life, way before computers. Ever try to get first in line for MikeC? Wiiired just isn't used anywhere at any time. It means nothing, absolutely nothing, it's just unused.

MikeC

But people always think it is because of that:

If I had to go about what my wife says, I'd be BEAR. Or Roman Legionnaire.

Komemiute comes from a good spy book, but mainly because I like the word.

Tango Charlie 717 from the ship Theodore E. Chandler DD717 the first FramII Gearing Class U.S. Navy destroyer that I served aboard in 1973.

A 30 year old but sleek greyhound of the sea.

Tango

Welll, nothing creative on my end. It is what it is!!

The first forum I did a posting was the Dynamix Redbaron forum. I was gathering information about what Vcard (Voodoo3) and what Joystick (MS FFB) is best to use. To publish that I did need a nick name, I'm from the Netherlands, not Holland btw, so I did use this name from start on.

When I first started playing my first PC game - Red Baron 3D, I needed a handle for the Dynamix Redbaron forum, so I used Panama Red. I picked that because grew up in the Panama Canal Zone and I used to have red hair (years ago), not because I used any weed.

Bucksnort is my real name. We put up this sign to help our friends find our house

Aris, what my friends name me, Fuser because it was Che Guevara�s nickname when he was crossing South America as a youngster, my girlfriend says I very much look like him in the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries".

Funny thread! Winding Man must be a name for a turn-fighter pilot, who is always squirming like a toad in combat?

Hellshade sounds like a game figure indeed!

Banjoman, when I see posts of you I always see a guy like J.J.Cale before my inner eye,
on his front veranda, with a banjo on his knees.

elephant, same here - some friends think, my memory is TOO good!
(But I say, some of their bad deeds were just too bad, and I remember...)

actionjoe, I guess that's joe Strummer from The Clash?

komemiute sounds Japanese to me somehow.

Robert, I had though it was a perfectly unconspicious avatar name for a secret agent!

Dutch, is "Holland" just one province in the Netherlands?
I know, that the right half is called West Friesland (while I am from East Friesland, no joke).


Well, and my own is not much more funny than Robert's - it is my family name, backwards.
In English, it would be "Marlowe".

Age of Empires 2 had a tutorial that played using the 'Celtic' (i.e. Scottish) civilisation. Because you could put in a player name I tried to come up with a Celtic sounding version of my own name (Mark). I came up with Maeran. Aoe2 was also the first online multilayer game I ever played, so I used it online too.

The name stuck and I've used it in every online gaming thing since.

From Captain Hans "Hasse" Wind, a Finnish WW2 fighter ace with 75 confirmed kills:

Do you look similar to him, Hasse, or is it just the many kills you have in common?

Trooper, because when I first joined the army many years ago I was in the cavalry... but later I passed 'P Company' and became an airborne soldier, a paratrooper.

'117' because that was the army number of the first horse the army gave me, also because later I was issued a parachute No'117'... That number for various reasons keeps cropping up in my life

I have used 'Trooper117' everywhere I go online in the gaming world...

ah...my parents gave it to me.

I realize I am in the minority on this, but much prefer to see "real" names.

I guess that's two of us in the same boat!