Your Virtual Name.....Why?

[Dave23McMasters]

While frolicking on the beach with friends, Mom started fiddling with the shape sliders, searching for maximum absurdity. She found it by way of appearing pregnant. The look was so distressing that she worked up a story to allow for full gestation before she logged out. Being both a fan of Dr. Seuss, and unable to think of anything that made sense, she immediately gave birth to 23 baby octopi, all named Dave and with a mandate to devour any children we encounter.

Too lazy to create avatars for each of us, I'm the only one lucky(?) enough to survive. 

[Bree Giffen]

I named an alt Uni because I couldn't decide if they'd eventually be a boy or girl. Poor Uni sleeps and waits to be brought into the world. 

[Tari Landar]

3 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I tend to pronounce it as tar-ree. Is that wrong?

That's actually right, lol

Most people pronounce it like Terry

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

4 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I tend to pronounce it as tar-ree. Is that wrong?

Nope. Reminds on how you saw Taree ( the town in New South Wales down under).

[Kweopi]

i wasn't lucky enough to get a last name.When my avatar was sl born, last names was already history and all new avatars became part of the great /funny/ hated  Resident family.I wanted something original ( not 123456 of other) and with a cute sound.So, after lot of trial and errors, Kweopi was born. I am still not sure about the cute part, but, at least, if i google it, my avie show in first search.

[Lindal Kidd]

4 hours ago, BillThePirate said:

Never go up against a Smart Woman.

Is that like, "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line?"

 

[Stephanie Calavera]

Pretty straightforward. I joined 31/Jan/2008. I've always been a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series of games. My avi being named after the character Nastasha Romanenko. Unfortunately, unsurprisingly, Romanenko wasn't an available surname--I liked the sound of Szaberwick. What I didn't foresee is how many people would omit the first "s", and call me Natasha instead. 

[Pixie Kobichenko]

I used to have an email of "purplepixiepoop" that I had randomly created more than 20 years ago.  So Pixie it was.  I chose Kobichenko from the drop down list cause it was clearly calling out for an entire Russian character background.  For awhile I had a profile tab devoted to this bio about being an exKGB agent now in hiding.  

The number of times I've been asked if I am really from Russia is more than I've got fingers & toes.  & It's not always Residents that ask. That's funny to me, like they don't remember account creations in legacy days.

Now my display name is Shasta Zanzabar.  Shasta is from when I worked as a maid in Texas in the mid90s.  One home I was assigned to had a herd of Pomeranians.  Each one was named after a soda pop brand.  🤣 I always remembered the name Shasta & loved it.  No idea where I came up with Zanzabar but it seems to be unique 😃

[Panteleeva]

My name is regular Russian surname ,and when I joined sl I was deeply in love with dude from my college ,his surname was Panteleev:) once I told him about my feelings,but he reacted in a very angry way,so at first I called myself Panteleeva because of him. But now I don't  associate this name with him.I know,too long story just about sl name😁😁

[Resi Pfeffer]

I also had my last name to choose from a list. Pfeffer (pepper) was the one i liked the most, and as a german i was ok with having a german name in a virtual world, too. Resi is the shortened version of Theresa, my rl name.
End of story, not much creativity involved. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Resi Pfeffer
typo

[Love Zhaoying]

12 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Incidentally, as a tangential bit of history, science fiction author Keith Laumer once wrote a delightful short story in his Retief series that he set on the imaginary world of Roolit. Laumer was a retired member of the US Foreign Service and had been posted in Scandinavia, so was familiar with the languages.  His Roolit world was the sort of quirky place that I have found many times in SL.  I swear that my own name was not derived from his story, which I read some time later, but it's a nice parallel. (BTW, "Rolig" is pronounced Roolig with a very soft g -- almost like an H. When used to modify a masculine noun, it becomes roligt --- hence Laumer's Roolit. )

Enjoyed his stories.

[Ceka Cianci]

I've had this name since i was little and doing make believe with friends..Then when I was able to come on the internet,I used everywhere i go,that i could.

The last name was on the list of names to choose from and really the only one that felt right..

No really deep story to my name..it's just always been around for me.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I chose "Rhiadra" from the drop-down list because I'd just read a novel with a lovely character named "Rhiannon," and the associations seemed nice. I chose "Scylla" (which I pronounce "Sill-a," for whatever that's worth) because I liked the idea of "monstrous" and dangerous women. And it was a reasonably unusual name.

For my main alt, Laskya Claren, which I made after last names were withdrawn, I chose Laskya because it sounded vaguely Slavic (I'm part Slav) and because it looks like a near anagram of "Scylla." I don't remember why I went with Claren.

And for my third alt (but actually the first I created), I chose "Parkes" for reasons I don't remember, and "Richard" because I wanted him to be a Dick. Which he was.

[Syo Emerald]

My first dip into Second Life was short and happened in May of 2010 on an account named Arelia Chau. Arelia was the name of my WoW main character at that time and Chau was one of the names on the selectable lastname list. It sounded asian to me and reminded me of Anshe Chung, SLs first milionair. I took it as a sign of good fortune. Silly, I know. Well...poor Arelia didn't make it past the newbie starting zone.

Later in the same year, Syo was born. Luckily she too managed to appear before lastnames went away a few months later. And just like my previous incarnation, her name was inspired by one of my WoW characters. Although not an important one, this time, since the character in question was just an alt. Syo is the short form of her name, Syorie. Emerald was the most fantasy-compatible lastname on the list, so I picked that.

The story behind my current alts name is equally simple: I knew I wanted to have a male avatar, so I needed to pick a male name. My name of choice was Jareth. Its taken from Jareth the goblin king from the movie Labyrinth. But since every somewhat resonable name is taken in the age of "resident", I needed to add something, so his full name is JarethEmerald.

[Selene Gregoire]

10 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Nope. Reminds on how you saw Taree ( the town in New South Wales down under).

Huh?

Hey! Whatever happened to that southern drawl? 

[TatianaNikolay]

My first name is a variation of my RL first name. Nikolay...I just liked the sound of it and I come from a Czech family, so it fit. 

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Long ago a very dear friend gave me a Romani name. As part of a long involved joke, I needed a name and Anglicised part of the Romani one. It fit. The original Bitsy was supposed to be a foil for him to bounce off of but he didn't take to it. Instead, another friend picked it up and oh my goodness he ran with it . Then this second friend got caught up in this thing called Second Life so when I followed him in here, there was really only one choice.

Buccaneer cause it made me laugh. From that came many delightful years of nominative determinism in which I utterly refused to be a pirate the way others expected me to. Tricorn yes! Sword yes! Skulls no! Japanese steampunk airship and flapper dresses, but of course! During all that we evolved a constantly meandering back story which involved time travel as an "explanation" for my shop of ancient art and mixed sartorial endeavours. In the Japanese steampunk air ship of course, with a velvet covered cannon planted with hanging geraniums.

Sometimes people look down on me because it's a silly name and it does sometimes seem to colour the way some people see me. On occasion individuals have treated me badly for it, using it as a focus for their negativity. Perhaps it would be useful to have something more neutral sometimes and to be less of a target. But it was always meant to be a humourous name and it comes from the love of dear friends.

[Skell Dagger]

Skell = a fascination for all things morbid, plus it's similar to the name of a longstanding roleplay character I once played (in the lore and language we used in that roleplay, his name meant 'death-bringer'). Dagger = because said roleplay character was good with knives.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Sometimes people look down on me because it's a silly name...

...prepares an itsy bitsy fire for you while listening to this...

I'm not sure what's most amazing about that video, the fact that it's got 155 million views, or that 1/3rd of the tagging viewers (105K!) didn't like it. I'm reminded of the old restaurant joke "The food is terrible and the portions are too small".

Edited October 10, 2019 by Madelaine McMasters

[Scylla Rhiadra]

24 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'm not sure what's most amazing about that video, the fact that it's got 155 million views, or that 1/3rd of the viewers (105K!) didn't like it. I'm reminded of the old restaurant joke "The food is terrible and the portions are too small".

Because it's about the power of TRUE LOVE, you heartless woman!!!! True arachnid love!!!

(Thankfully, it doesn't show her killing and eating him afterwards.)

[malienna]

None of the names I wanted were available so I just made one up quickly. Definitely wish I had taken the time to do some research on a better name though

[Lewis Luminos]

Lots of people choose their SL name to match their RL name. It's much rarer to do it the other way round, but that's what I did. My SL name is inextricably linked with my transition (I am a trans man, for those who don't know).

When I was about 10 years old, I asked my mother what she would have named me if I'd been born a boy. She said "Stephen", and for decades, that was my plan for when/if I ever did transition, I'd be Stephen.

Well, I joined SL before that happened, and I wanted Stephen, or Steve, as my first name in SL, but I couldn't get it with any of the last names on the list that I liked. Rather than pick a last name that I hated, I decided to pick a different first, so I chose Lewis, which is the male version of my original middle name. And I picked Luminos because it begins with the same letter as my RL last name. Plus, I like having first and last names beginning with the same letter.

Three years later, I began transition for real, and I chose Lewis, not Stephen.  So the RL name I have now is all because of SL.

Some of my alts have interesting names too. One of them is named after one of my oldest and most favourite roleplaying character, who is now the star of a novel (and about to get a sequel). Another was named Ryder because at the time I made him, the Ryder Cup was showing on TV, and when I looked at the list of last names, one of them was "Palfrey" (which is a type of medieval horse). So he's Ryder Palfrey. Only one person has ever got the joke. 

Indra (actually IndraNoor) got her name because I wanted something Indian. Noor means "Light" which is the connection with Luminos. It was only later I discovered that Indra is primarily a male name.

And FrankieNoir, the bartender at my club, is named after Frank Sinatra, though I originally wanted him to be CharlieNoir (but that was already taken). Why Charlie?

Because of this:

In case you're curious about the lyrics, a "blonde in a black dress" is a pint of Guinness.

[ArgontheDevil Ormega]

My name was chosen as a joke on a friend.  He's an internet evangelist (yes, I have odd friends in RL) and claims one time to have cast a "demon of remote viewing" out of someone and the demon said his name as Argon.  (I had no idea that the patron demon of remote viewing was also the patron demon of welding.)  Well, as that cut a little to close to RL home, I named my av ArgontheDevil in his honor.  The surname, Ormega, appeared on the list and as that sounded appropriately mafiosi, I could not bring myself to resist.

[Selene Gregoire]

45 minutes ago, ArgontheDevil Ormega said:

My name was chosen as a joke on a friend.  He's an internet evangelist (yes, I have odd friends in RL) and claims one time to have cast a "demon of remote viewing" out of someone and the demon said his name as Argon.  (I had no idea that the patron demon of remote viewing was also the patron demon of welding.)  Well, as that cut a little to close to RL home, I named my av ArgontheDevil in his honor.  The surname, Ormega, appeared on the list and as that sounded appropriately mafiosi, I could not bring myself to resist.

Does your friend know that Argon is the third-most abundant gas in the Earth's atmosphere? And that the word argon is derived from a Greek word meaning lazy/inactive?

Sheds a different kind of light on things. 

[Selene Gregoire]

5 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

...prepares an itsy bitsy fire for you while listening to this...

I'm not sure what's most amazing about that video, the fact that it's got 155 million views, or that 1/3rd of the tagging viewers (105K!) didn't like it. I'm reminded of the old restaurant joke "The food is terrible and the portions are too small".

I never understood why he always had to climb up the inside only to get washed back down. Why didn't he just climb up the outside of the spout the first time? 

Most children's songs and rhymes never made sense to me anyway even as a child.