this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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This has probably been asked before but I wanted to add another layer/an alternative.

So, I ask, where did your username/pseudonym/nickname originate from? What's the meaning behind it?

Or alternatively, which is the most creative/interesting nickname origin you have come across?

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[–] Birch@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago

Birch, please.

My poochie was clinically depressed

[–] Resol@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Resol - can mean a number of different things. It's the first 5 letters of the word "resolution". It's also the word "loser" spelled backwards. It's two notes on a keyboard (D and G in Anglo-Saxon music notation). And it just looks and sounds cool in my opinion.

van - the Dutch word meaning "of" or "from". Note that I am not referring to actual vans (the German equivalent being "von", which also appears in a lot of names). Also I prefer spelling that word completely in lowercase.

Lemmy - isn't it obvious? It's this wonderful website.

Put them together, and you get "Resol van Lemmy". It sounds pretty nice, don't you think? Especially since I really hate my real name.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 5 days ago

I had a job doing QA where I had to create user accounts. Some Guy was one of the three that I created every day.

[–] white_nrdy@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago

I really liked Weird Al when I was like 12. Still do.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

CB radio user names are called handles. One of my nicknames is The Vandal. I think Subterranean Homesick Blues is one of Dylan's best. Violà.

[–] nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago

I opened a physical dictionary to a random page and pointed to a word without looking.

First attempt was diarrhea

I was eating something when I made the account. Make a wild guess what it might have been.

I was promoted from the rank of Commander.

[–] TheBraveSirRobbin@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Username should be pretty self explanatory. If you still don't get it you can either ask me or bravely run away.

[–] hollerpixie@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago

My husband’s nickname for me. I was born in the holler in Appalachia and am a woodsy pixie. It stuck and is now my trail name.

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I was playing some crappy F2P MMO (Perfect World, maybe?) and I made a warrior of some werewolf race. Just played with random wolf-related combinations and settled on this. Quit after two days and the username carried on for probably 15 years now.

I don't even really know all that much about Stalin. I just pulled it out of my ass.

[–] antiquity2038@reddthat.com 2 points 6 days ago

Bitwarden username generator 👍

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Way more years ago than I would like to admit, when I was in my teens, I learned to play a Fender Mexican Stratocaster. It became my name on my BBS, and has stuck ever since.

Most people think it has to do with FM radio.

Edit: Also, this question has managed to get replies from almost all of the prolific participators on Lemmy. Nice.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Do you play the Steely Dan classic FM on your FMstrat?

[–] legopika@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago

I liked Legos and I liked Pikachu at the time(I was 11 or so? Trying to make a Minecraft account lol)

I don't think I'll be able to use this name for anything commercial if I wanted to do that...

[–] Masamune@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago
[–] ChaoticCookie@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

I’m chaotic and I like cookies, nothing more to it!

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Title of a book by my favourite author Jonathan Carroll. Almost all of my various handles over my time online have been some variation of one of his book titles because they're so unique. I used one on Reddit and some Nazi started stalking me, and it turns out some lady on Twitter uses it as her handle there, so he kept messaging me and calling me Stephanie.

I studied abroad while the Two and a half Men season with Ashton Kutcher aired. A guy at a pizza place always wanted to chat but he barely spoke any English and somehow he really wanted to tell me that I look like Ashton Kutcher. Had similar length beard and hair at the time. A few days after that I signed up on Reddit.

[–] LouSlash@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I used to play GH3 on PS2 a lot and i played boss battles quite frequently

One time, in another game called Soldat, when a clan was recruiting they told me to change my old nickname since it was bizarre (i was 15 yo). I was looking for inspiration and quickly came up with Lou (final boss in GH3), added ` so i would be recognised easily while also not impersonating anyone unintentionally.

Few months passed by and i saw someone on some Soldat-related IRC channel chilling with my nickname and that person wasn't actually impersonating me (he/she used that nickname for much longer time than me since "Lou" is actually a first name which for me, as a native polish speaker, wasn't that obvious at the time) so that huge coincidence made me come up with an addition to my nickname - 2nd boss in GH3, famous guitarist - Slash. In the end i started using LouSlash`

As time passed by, in some places/websites/games i couldn't use ` so i drop it occasionally.

[–] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

First shiny Pokemon I ever got. Basculin carried my team a lot, hence the name "CaptainBasculin".

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I love airplanes and was excited to see a “modern” one where you could slide back the canopy just like in all those old WWII movies! It’s even ok to fly with it open (a little)!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_American_AA-5

[–] Binette@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

it just means emoticon in french canadian

[–] callyral@pawb.social 1 points 6 days ago

Tally Hall (band) → callyral (pseudonym + username) → cally (nickname)

[–] Patrik@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

Patrik/Pat is just my name, sometimes use Legendbird on sites because once it was the first thing I thought about (Zapdos, to be exact).

[–] M137@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

M is the letter my real name starts with, and 137 has been my favourite number since I was a kid, and I still think is the coolest number (has nothing to do with 1337, as some people have previously thought).

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

Just a greeting used in an RPG I really liked. As pretty much the only formal greeting in its setting, it seemed very overused, so a friend and I started using it in our friend group as a meme, and I decided that it actually goes pretty hard as a username.

Finn from Enderal

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 points 6 days ago

I like the word argyle and I'm angry

[–] DampCanary@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

no imagination and I thpught it was funny image (current acc avatar)

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 70 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

Mine stands for "Divided by Zer0", based on the programming error "division by zero". Amusingly, people keep assuming it stands for "database zero" or "dragonball zero".

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