Persona names

[Vienna Fahrmann]

     The title is pretty self-explanatory.  There is such an interesting variety of names here, I'm curious how people chose them.

     Vienna

[Jacob Squirrel]

I always thought that Jacob was a cool name, so I've always used it when I didn't want to give away my own. And squirrels are pretty kickass, and I've always wanted one as a pet. So, I stuck the two together, and it had a nice ring to it. My actual name sound like a law firm, and is kinda boring when said fully.

[Augustus Dayafter]

I actually got the name Augustus from a guy at work. Our boss has a habit of calling everybody "Buddy". So I walked in one morning and looked at my co-worker and said: "How's the mornin treating you Buddy?" to which he replied "Just fine Augustus... just fine." Now, everybody at work calls me Augustus, Auggie, or Gus. The Dayafter part came from Second Life, it was the coolest last name I found on the list. So, I slapped the two together and Bob's your uncle... or rather Augustus is your doctor. 

[Gentlemens Handbook]

I was planning on building a website and I needed something catchy to go along with my steampunk art. I bought the url and the site is almost done.

[cantus]

Cantus means "song" in latin. The last name that goes with that is "Lemuria" which, I was told, meant "ghost." I don't even know how accurate any of that is, but a long time ago the name "Ghost Song" was given to me, and I kept it. It's my typical online alias.

A law firm? Stuffy business sounds perfectly victorian, and you should love it!

[Flynn MacCallister]

Well, I am Flynn. The MacCallister part comes from -- and I'm sure you won't believe me -- warping Fionn MacCumhaill until I got something I liked the sound of, and which happened to be a real name, and also happened to be a name in my family. I'm Australian-of-Irish-descent (and look it), so I have a bit of a soft spot for Irish mythology.

[The Mechatronist]

Had I been born a hundred years earlier I would have been The Mechanician.  However, to quote my introductory post:  As a practitioner of the art and science of mechatronics – the blending of mechanics and electronics, I can legitimately claim the title of Mechatronist.  Indeed, the name was suggested or - bestowed - by the editor as the title for a regular column that I write in the Digital Machinist magazine.  Sorry for the shameless plug...

[Hex]

Mine comes from the Discworld novels.
Hex is the name of the computer at Unseen University.

[IvanDrugostrov]

Ivan Drugostrov is a direct translation of my name into Russian. It is also more international sounding. Yeah, imagine that.

[Ettie]

I picked mine from the main brass goggles website from the Steampunk Name Generator !

[Stanley_Kadwell]

I picked mine from the main brass goggles website from the Steampunk Name Generator !

That's where i got mine as well... i thought it sounded very gentlemenly (is that a word) while being sky captain like at the same time...

[Hikaro Takayama]

Hikaro Takayama is the name of the main charachter in a Japanese fantasy/alternate history manga that I've been (very, very) slowly working on for the past 5 years.  I used that name for the Anime/manga forum I first registered to (megatokyo), and have used it on every forum I've registered to since to avoid confusion....

...That and it kinda symbolizes my interest in Japanese history and culture.

[Gwen Grimm]

My fist name, Gwen, is a play on my real name, Jennifer, which I like better then Jennifer  anyway. "grimm" come from "Bother's Grimm", the writers.... I love those stories, sooo. Gwen Grimm it is... Has a nice ring to it too. 

[Miss Gadget]

Hmm, dunno really. 

[Drake White]

Well Drake White was/is the name of my Rogue Trader from Inquisitor/40k that I played way back when, that character was vaguely based on myself so when thinking of my Airship-captain-trader-pirate-tinkerer persona the name seemed to fit. As to where I came up with my RT's name, feck knows that was many many moons ago.

[Thipp]

Thipp is a long story indeed. About ten years ago I was playing a good old text based online rpg and I had to come up with a character name and my regular handle was taken so I hit four keys at random on the keyboard THPI which didn't mean anything but THIP sounded good. About a month later I became sick of that character and decided to make another but I didn't feel like making a new name so it became THIPP. I had a few friends who played the game and they started to call me Thipp outside the game, this was further reinforced when I played a character in a dnd campaign for a few years named Thipp. In an effort to fight my parents forcing me to go through Confirmation (catholic coming of age thing) I made up a story about a Saint Thipp and chose to use that as my saints name (part of the process). The priest asked me about it and I gave him the whole story and he bought it, the bishop gave me a funny look though. Since I have never used the middle name I was given at birth I simply took to using Thipp instead and now most people who know me outside of the classroom know me as Thipp despite the fact that in the ten years since I came up with the name I have not used it for myself except as a middle name (outside of the internet or games) until this past year when I chose Thipp as my SCA name.

[Sinjun]

Sinjun is a handle I've used since the early days of the internet. When I was quite young, I saw "A View to a Kill" where James Bond uses the alias James St. John Smythe. When he says the "St. John" part, it all kinds of slurs together and to my youthful American ears it sounded like Sinjun - I liked the sound of it, so I later picked it up as a character name and then an online handle.

...warping Fionn MacCumhaill until I got something I liked the sound of, and which happened to be a real name. I'm Australian-of-Irish-descent (and look it), so I have a bit of a soft spot for Irish mythology.

Fionn MacCumhaill is my favorite hero from any mythology. Irish mythology had the best characters.

[Sebastian Gaunt]

Sebastian Gaunt is a name I came up with for roleplaying but never really had a character to go with it. Briefly an undead gentleman and ex-captain in a Larp, and maybe one day a character in a steampunk story I hope to write. Also planned as a larp character for a victorian/cthulu event I have been trying to get to for a while.  A doctor, usually, but what he is a doctor of varies with each near-incarnation.

[Jake of All Trades]

I had been wanting a website of my own for several years, but could never come up with a decent name for it.  I have a habit of making rather poor choices when it comes to things like this, usually involving whatever silly fictional character I'm into at the time (take my email address, for instance  ).  While I invariably find this pseudonym cool and clever at the time, it always manages to turn embarrassingly dorky fast. 

As evident in some of the early Brass Goggles posts about my projects, I'm none too shy about my real (or is it???) name, Jacob W. Hildebrandt.  Suitably Steamy and all, but a bit long for a screen name...

I can't recall the circumstances under which I came up with "Jake of All Trades", though I'm fairly certain there was some daydreaming brief thinking about Bruce Campbell involved.  Questionable man-crushes and UPN TV shows aside, I've so far been quite pleased with this name and have gone on to use it as my forum name here and elsewhere.  The same cannot be said for my long-abandoned first attempt at a website, 007withglasses.batcave.net, which will never be mentioned, much less used, again...

The only downside to this name I've found so far is that causes some folks get a bit confused, thinking that I am either the malevolent Jake von Slatt or that my name is "Jack".  While the former is completely insulting and inexcusable, I have become rather used to responding to latter unblinkingly and do not mind at all. 

[Maurautius]

"Maurautius" is half of my middle name: Ian Maurautius-DeWynter Stone (no shit-that's really my full name). I've used Maurautius as my screen name for over fifteen years on hundreds of things.

[Quebrith]

I was envisioning a tinker-inventor character who descended from a family of alchemists-- "quebrith" being the alchemical name for sulphur.

"Grandpater, disown me if you must, but I shall bring this family into the modern age of steam if it kills me!"

[Anachronist]

People always try to figure out what my "deal" is. They want to know if I'm in a play, if I am a goth or a punk, if I am into reenactments, if I am going out somewhere, etc.

Over time, I refined my explanation of why I dressed like a freak and cultivated weird interests to something I could spit out rather quickly as I hurried to class. It included the word "anachronist", a neologism that is fairly understandable without further elucidation.

What is interesting is that when I started using the word many moons ago, it didn't exist - a google search turned up 0 results, except for places where I had said it. Now, it is an accepted term used within the, well, anachronist community. I don't necessarily claim to have "coined" it, as it is a relatively intuitive construction, and vocational anachronism is rising in popularity. But it's kind of neat nonetheless.

Regards,
Alexander

[Honeythorn]

Honeythorn is a name I use on every forum I am a member of. I stole the name from the 80's fantasy film Legend.

[Taluria]

When I was a kid, I was always making up words and names. In the little language I was working on, but have since sadly abandoned, Taluria means "laughter". I use it on all the forums I'm on.

[chicar]

In my young age,i invented (motivated by a mix of the last breath of my pre-logical stade and by a spiritual crisis caused by puberty) a pantheism religion where all the god of the world (all religion cofound) was ruled by a unifying god named Chicarée. Of course, this fantasy as fastly died letting for only trace the web nickname of chicar....and a personal theory than every god exist and than religion diversity his the effect of how they share the world.