What is the meaning behind your GWJ name?

Way back in the early 90s I discovered IRC. At the time I kept trying to use "Skeeve" as my nickname, being rather infatuated with the Myth series, but it was always being used by someone else. So I grabbed one of my latin literature books, Rudens and Other Plays to be exact, and started going through the character names. Trachalio was the slave to another character, Plesidippus, and he was a rather witty character who was described as a "fiendish rogue." I really liked the sound of that, so I took it for my own. Because it's such an obscure reference, I've managed to keep this nick for pretty much everything I do online.

Long ago in a far away land called New York my parents named me Alex.

Hmm... mine started as one meaning, and over time shifted to another.

The original way I wrote it was PürEvil (Pure Evil). I made the name back in '94 when my family finally got on the net, and as I mentioned in other places around GWJ, I was unknowingly struggling with depression. Having very low self-esteem, I decided that I must be evil, because there was no way I could be good... so, PürEvil was born (and yeah, this was right about the time that Pür Water filters became popular; I guess I'm not real creative).

A few years later, I started playing Asheron's Call. Since the character "ü" isn't allowed in the character's name, I just settled for "Pur Evil". Occasionally I'd get people who assumed that my name had to do with cats, given the pur (thinking I had just left off an r from purr). Since I love cats, I just never saw any reason to correct them, and started associating my name with cats as well (hence all the kitty avatars).

Edit for current times: I also use Veloreyn a lot now to get away from PurEvil. There is no real meaning to the name... the WoW name generator spit out Veloren, but it was taken, so I tossed a "y" in there.

Play on the theme of the Chosen One. Geddit!?

Mecha - Short for mechanical. Often used as a prefix to show something as now being robotic or cyborgy. I.E. MechaGodzilla, the robot version of Godzilla.
Slinky - A spring toy that walks down stairs through nothing more than simple physics.

A while ago I was reading lots of books about natural history and evolution. One was called 'Problems with evolution' and in it someone refered to evolution as 'the law of higgledy piggledy' and I thought, 'Oh Higgledy. That would make a great name.' The only down side is that, in game, people always ask where piggledy is. My sig is stolen from someone who posted it after I made my first post on the iFanboy forums.

MechaSlinky wrote:

...cyborgy...

Someone please remember this when Mecha's tagging thread comes up.

Tetanus. I just hate how it looks so I changed it to Tetnis. Normally though everyone calls me TetRis or tet. Either way don't matter to me. It has the side effect of adding to my persona though as it makes me happy to be a "pain in the ass."

93_confirmed that sniper, what is the actual title of that book? I need to pick that up. Sounds like an incredible read.

Marine Sniper is one of the books about him. It's pretty good.

Winsor McKay, all the way.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Marine Sniper is one of the books about him. It's pretty good.

Thanks.

Back in junior high I'd walk around pretending I was a super secret agent by the name of Zeta Peronthious Prime, with a supercomputer embedded into my glasses that could display 3D projections of things and had tachyon beams on sides of the frame. That went out of vogue in my mind for a couple of years, but later into high school when I was thinking of a name for myself on the internet I remembered Peronthious and put it down on various IRC servers, internet sites, and XBL. The picture is actually of Juan Peron and came after several people started calling me Peron, and one guy equated that to him and started calling me Juan.

I picked Strangeblades because I am a huge fan of compound words. (False)

I picked Strangeblades because I think it's cool, sweet imagery. (True)

I also stuck with Strangeblades because I found this awesome picture of circular saw blades I could use as a forum pic. (Very True)

Years ago one of the Splinter Cell games referred to tracking down "ballotechnic" materials to keep them out of hands of terrorists. Turns out that ballotechnics are a class of material that undergo a chemical reaction when exposed to extreme pressure (which is an amusing notion for a person), making them a potential primary on a fusion bomb.

Obscure+interesting+(1/2 funny)= Xbox live and GWJ forum name.

I created a character in Kingdom of Loathing and mistyped "ClockworkHorse," a misremembered version of the Magic: The Gathering card "Clockwork Steed."

Also, I love the two-yeard-old necro.

Holy Crap! this thread disappeared for 2 years!?

I am Groan.
Came about only because I needed a name. I wanted it to be an acutal word and i wanted it to illicit an emotion when read.
when I cant be Groan, I am Groaner. I own groan.ca and would have groan.com but the pron company that owns it wont let me take it. jherques.

I've been groan for ages, at least since EQ.
Before then I was Garzon. (nozraG backwards) which was a name I used for years in D&D.

I may also be known as MarcyBob.
IMAGE(http://blog.rezscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/nutshell.jpg)

Slumberland wrote:

Winsor McKay, all the way.

Hey, now that this has been resurrected, I can appreciate the reference. We read a collection of McKay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend for class. Great, but bizarre, stuff. We also saw a few of his Little Nemo in Slumberland strips.

In college, we found a Ron Mexico name generator. We thought it was hilarious. Coincidentally, I thought my Ron Mexico name sounded legitimately cool, so I kept it.

Before that I usually was Braeburn (I worked at a grocery store for six years, and stocked a lot of apples). In fact, I think I have a dusty old WoW Shaman still named Braeburn.

Lex Cayman always invoked a Miami Vice aesthetic for me that I found ironically appealing.

I'm about to overexplain what could be summed up as "a love of words." But anyway...

I love words rendered awkward when you remove their false prefix (dis- gruntled), names when you change or remove a letter (Destro -y), and portmanteaus (monarch + archaic = monarchaic), as well as homonym-like creations (spawn + spontaneous = spawntaneous).

Plus, when you've played dozens of MMOs over the years, it's great once you find a name that no one else uses across multiple games -- and you don't have to put xX [insert name here] Xx in order to render it unique.

But I also like things that make sense. My appreciation for nonsensical things is finite. Thus: non- Sensical.

I replaced the first word in Samurai Champloo.

Incidentally, I wish I could change it, not because I don't like it but because it takes too long to type.

Your handle drives me crazy, Gravey, because it makes me misspell "gravy." I'll be writing out my dinner menu for the week and write "biscuits and gravey" without thinking about it.

Sensical wrote:

I'm about to overexplain what could be summed up as "a love of words." But anyway...

I love words rendered awkward when you remove their false prefix (dis- gruntled), names when you change or remove a letter (Destro -y), and portmanteaus (monarch + archaic = monarchaic), as well as homonym-like creations (spawn + spontaneous = spawntaneous).

Plus, when you've played dozens of MMOs over the years, it's great once you find a name that no one else uses across multiple games -- and you don't have to put xX [insert name here] Xx in order to render it unique.

But I also like things that make sense. My appreciation for nonsensical things is finite. Thus: non- Sensical.

I think sensical is a perfectly sensible word.

wordsmythe wrote:
Sensical wrote:

I'm about to overexplain what could be summed up as "a love of words." But anyway...

I love words rendered awkward when you remove their false prefix (dis- gruntled), names when you change or remove a letter (Destro -y), and portmanteaus (monarch + archaic = monarchaic), as well as homonym-like creations (spawn + spontaneous = spawntaneous).

Plus, when you've played dozens of MMOs over the years, it's great once you find a name that no one else uses across multiple games -- and you don't have to put xX [insert name here] Xx in order to render it unique.

But I also like things that make sense. My appreciation for nonsensical things is finite. Thus: non- Sensical.

I think sensical is a perfectly sensible word.

Yes, it's perfectly cromulent.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Your handle drives me crazy, Gravey, because it makes me misspell "gravy." I'll be writing out my dinner menu for the week and write "biscuits and gravey" without thinking about it.

I actually pair best with a nice chianti.

I had a bunch of sh*tty handles throughout high school, and in university went with Gravey, from The Simpsons' "Gravey and Jobriath", in a moment of needing a goddamned name so we can start playing Counter-Strike. The Simpsons was our religion in high school (mid-90s, at its peak), so even though I now might like having a name that's unique and not out of pop culture, it's a nice callback. The pic of Gravey holding the pipe bomb became my spray, our CS server had a daily Simpsons quote, and I started us a "clan" called =dwk= (from "I gotta go, my damn wiener kids are listening"), just because I wanted my name to start with a prefix like everyone else's.

So I try to own the name, and the dwk gets used when "Gravey" has inevitably been taken. The pipe bomb always figures into my userpics, and lately they and maybe my handle have been sneaked into Half-Life 2 graffiti. Well, everyone's gotta have a shtick.

IMAGE(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d133/Salvaje1/1218831380282_f.jpg)

to make not a very long story short: I asked my wife to come up with a name for me on XBL so she could feel included while I ignored her playing games. It was original. It was more or less adorable, thus: me.

Also, 'greasypenguin' was taken (we pronounced it "greeeeeeezzay"). And no, I don't have a skin problem, this was all stemming from her thinking greeeezzay was fun to say. Which it is.

Misplaced bravado is why I end up reloading as often as I do.

I also figured that, without a space, it would be unique (and lo, the Google results for "misplacedbravado" currently consist of a few of my posts here, my Steam profile in a few random languages, and spam pages ripping off the former), and mildly humorous in multiplayer games.

If I ever really get into multiplayer gaming, that is.

IMAGE(http://www.nndb.com/people/240/000024168/sdo-SuperDave.jpg)

Because his name is my name. He was also on Arrested Development. There was a cartoon too.

First (and only) time I played D&D I was a thief. Called El Taco. But turns out Thief became Rogue ages ago.