The Seven Varieties of Username

[Immortal Wombat]

It would be a lie to say this particular revelation came to me whilst browsing the "How Did You Come Up With Your Username" thread, or even Apolyton in general. But to admit that I was struck by a revelation about usernames while I was doing utterly unrelated activities and daydreaming about Apolyton is one admission too far in my book.

So, while I was perusing the "How Did You Come Up With Your Username" thread, it occured to me that broadly speaking, all usernames could be categorized as one of seven varieties. In my opinion, three of these categories should be discouraged, one should be illegal, one should be punishable with extreme mockery, and the other two are wasted on the likes of most net-dwelling pond-life, and aren't worth the bother. I'll let you figure out which is which.

The seven categories are:
1. Your Name(s).
2. Other People's Name(s).
3. A/N Names.
4. 1337 haxor Names.
5. "Lazy" Names.
6. In-Joke Names.
7. Things That When You First Heard Them Sounded So Unbelievably Cool You Just Had To Make Them Your Username On [Forum]

1. Your Name.
You people all know who you are. Well, everyone else does too, because you couldn't be arsed to put in any sort of effort and come up with an amusing/cool/memorable sounding name. You thought to yourself "Ooh, its asking for a name. I have one of those, lets use that."
Well a) That's very brave of you not to fear weird net-stalkers. b) Was there really nothing better to use? (*hunts for beseaching smilie*)
e.g.s Imran Siddiqui, Paul Hanson, Jon Miller, Jon Miller

Oh, one other small point, descriptions are also included in this category. It's just the same, because chances are its a label that has at some point in your life been attached to you where your name escapes someone.
e.g.s Dialectic Materialist/Logical Realist ( /****/whatever...) tiny p3n1s. You get the idea.


2. Other people's names
Now you're bordering on original. There are actually three subgroups here which bear their own peculiar interests.

The first is "Real Other People". These names are generally chosen either because you bear a striking resemblance to them in person; you can do a damn good impression of them using only a keyboard, a net forum, and several thousand kilometers of telephone cable; or they are your idol/hero/God/mentor. Or something.
e.g. Evil Knevil, Albert Speer, Mao (though I understand this is only second-generation real-person idolatry)

"Fictional People". These names are usually chosen because they were a particularly good character from somewhere, or "they hav a really cool name lol". Not much to say about the people who choose them. In most cases, these are names most likely to be changed, as the user realises actually, that character was "kinda gay", kinda gay, or just soooo last year. Or they last ages, as the poster in question becomes the character. Incidentally, if anyone got any spare mercy for Christmas, I believe our friendly neighbourhood moderator is still lacking.
e.g. Locutus, Ming, Aragorn (have you seen how many "Aragorn"s and variants, Apolyton has? Go check it out, seriously.)

"Fictional People who only exist inside the poster's mind"
Not so many of them here, but these can be really funny names (the first time you see them - after that they get boring). Elsewhere I have seen:
Santa's Gay Lover, Ming's Gay Lover, Alan Partridge's Lovechild, and so forth. (Seems to be a theme occuring, Need I say more?)
Oh, there is an Apolyton one: Gareth Edmundson to the best of my knowledge was a fictional name. Not even google turns up a hit on that one.

3. A/N Names.
What the hell does that mean, I hear you ask. Simple: The A is for adjective, the N is for noun. A/N names consist merely of one adjective followed by one noun. If you have only one browser window open, chances are the last username you read was one such name. Now personally, I hate this kind of name, because there are a million possible name, and their all* really boring. I can speculate all owners of such names are equally boring. If you feel mistreated, please come up with a reason as long as this post why you are not boring and I may consider it.

* exceptions apply. If you fit into another group, you are exempt from this one. ColdWizard, myself, and probably UR (cos I can't face reading your reasoning post)

True A/N egs: DarkCloud, DarkStar, RedBull

4. 1337 Haxor names.
You know exactly what I mean. Excess numbers, too few vowels? That's the one!!1!1!!
These come in two varieties, one male, one female.
male: common themes: latest First Person Shooter game, death, satanism (satanism-for-kids that is ), nu-metal bands.
example name: -=HARD_MAN=-
female: common themes: nauseating cuteness, the dreaded *, boy bands etc.
example name: QT314, *End is Forever*

5. "Lazy" names.
You didn't think you'd be here long, or couldn't be arsed to think of a decent name, but realised if you used your own name that people would realise you couldn't be arsed to think of a decent name, so you had to think of a pretend decent name. You grabbed an object handy, or used a name-making device to help you. Or something.
e.g. Calc II, Cold Wizard

6. Private In-Joke Names.
/me waves*
These I'm undecided upon. Either they are deeply mysterious, subtly humourous, and fascinatingly diverse; or they're a crock of ****. Face it PINJers, its not really an in-joke your friends shared at school, it's not really a cute nickname your g/f gave you. It's not really a hugely popular cartoon show waiting to happen. It wasn't one of those things that somebody mentioned, and spiralled madly out of control. Its the mad ramblings of your own pathetic little mind. You and only you found it funny the first time, now you've got it forever!. Give it up - NOBODY THINKS YOU'RE FUNNY. YOU CAN'T HAVE IN JOKES WITH YOURSELF. YOU LOSE!
egs. Oh bollocks, go read the other Username thread, dig up your own. There's enough weirdos here, I reckon about 20% are PINJers of some form or other.

7. Things That When You First Heard Them Sounded So Unbelievably Cool You Just Had To Make Them Your Username On [Forum]
You know just occasionally you hear those words or phrases that just sounds so amazing? They roll of the tongue like liquid gold (only cooler), they inspire awe, passion, magesty in just a simple pair/trio of words? Them. The name we've all been searching for, to make anyone new to the board think to themselves "Wow - they are my god" (No points for the first Allah DL). Those mystical names that everyone aspires to, and a chosen few attain.
egs: none around here I'm afraid.



Don't post here saying "Ooh, I'm in category xxx" - I don't care, I've known for ages what category you're in.
Don't post here saying "I'm not in any category, I'm special" - Yeah you are, you just haven't admitted it yet.
Don't post here if you think you can fit in more categories than me. You can't. It's rigged.

edit: Jon Miller

[Frozzy]

[loinburger]

So what kind of responses do you want? Or do you want this thread to just sink and die?

[Immortal Wombat]

Or just ignore my brief attempts to silence the spam, and flood this thread with inane bullkaka.
Either's good.

[Tuberski]

I think that is what we should aim for.



ACK!

[orange]

and which category do I fall under, dear?

[loinburger]

Inside joke, of course. "Orange" obviously refers to your baboon ass.

[Immortal Wombat]

Inside "joke" of course, since it's an abbreviation of OrangeSoftware.

[orange]

so what if someone registered with the name "green" just because, no reason...or "purple"

[orange]

i think I need to change my name to Samus Aran just for the hell of it

[Immortal Wombat]

Depends on their reasoning. There's no such thing as no reason. There will be a reason, and it will place their name in (probably) either category 4 or 5.

Although I get the point you are making. There is a category missing, which can broadly be defined as "Things". The entry for "Things" should go as follows:

Things.
See: A/N. Omit either the A or the N.
e.g. Kassiopeia, lightblue, Trip

[Tuberski]

Okay, this is going to turn into a "what category do you think I am?" thread.

Well?

ACK!

[orange]

i prefer a category for "Colours" and then one for "Fruits and Vegetables" Then it wouldn't be that I don't fit, but that I fit in too many

[Immortal Wombat]

Hmmm, very few Tuberski's around. Unless it really is your surname (There are some Mr Tuberski's believe it or not), it's not a deliberate 2 I would think. So I'll take a guess at 6 or 7

[Ari Rahikkala]

You people all know who you are. Well, everyone else does too, because you couldn't be arsed to put in any sort of effort and come up with an amusing/cool/memorable sounding name. You thought to yourself "Ooh, its asking for a name. I have one of those, lets use that."
Well a) That's very brave of you not to fear weird net-stalkers. b) Was there really nothing better to use? (*hunts for beseaching smilie*)
e.g.s Imran Siddiqui, Paul Hanson

My username used to be a mix of 4 (cute BiCapitalisation), 5 (I didn't exactly think it up on the spot, but I didn't consider it too carefully, either) and 7 (well, I liked it...). Since your post didn't have anything about reasons to switch to this category, I'll list some of mine here - semi-ordered by importance:

- being "myself" - I like the personality I have on the Internet a lot more than the personality that I have in real life and prefer to think of the "real me" as the former
- "intimacy" - when everybody just calls me Ari, it feels like I actually might have friends online
- consistency and recognizability - I prefer that wherever I go (IRL or online), people that I have told about myself know who I am. I'm no privacy freak
- example - it was either Harvey or Scott (both of whom I refer to only by their first names nowadays) who started the trend of using your real name as your EzBoard login name in the FIoJ. This was when I originally started using my real name on the 'net
- uniqueness to Google - I don't know of any namesakes of mine who would be active online, so you can get ten pages of results about me by just asking Google about me. I consider that a minor prelude to whatever my fifteen minutes of fame will be . Oh, and I dare you to find any reference to my old username among all the misspellings when searching for "LightEning"...

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Hmmm, very few Tuberski's around. Unless it really is your surname (There are some Mr Tuberski's believe it or not), it's not a deliberate 2 I would think. So I'll take a guess at 6 or 7

It is, in fact, a deliberate 2.

2 also includes fictional people.

ACK!

[Graag]

There ought to be a category for names made up to sound good in crappy fantasy games. Why the hell else would I be called Graag (other than that it means "yes please" in swedish)?

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Depends on their reasoning. There's no such thing as no reason. There will be a reason, and it will place their name in (probably) either category 4 or 5.

Although I get the point you are making. There is a category missing, which can broadly be defined as "Things". The entry for "Things" should go as follows:

Things.
See: A/N. Omit either the A or the N.
e.g. Kassiopeia, lightblue, Trip

Hey now, Trip is obviously a #7.

[Zopperoni]

Originally posted by Graag
(other than that it means "yes please" in swedish)?

In Dutch as well

[cia]

figure my tag out and you get a cupie doll

[Graag]

In Dutch as well

Even better

[Boris Godunov]

What about those of us who are in category 2, but it's a fictionalized representation of a real figure we're going after?

Oh wait, I forgot...you don't care. Anyhoo...off I go!

[tinyp3nis]

Place me

[monolith94]

Mine is more of an homage than any of those categories!

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
Place me

Self-image.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Okay, this is going to turn into a "what category do you think I am?" thread.

So where exactly would I fit in?

[Kaak]

luckily, i'm an anomily (sp)

[aaglo]

So, in what category do people with real-life nicknames go to? The first category?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
So where exactly would I fit in?

[4]

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
* exceptions apply. If you fit into another group, you are exempt from this one. ColdWizard, myself, and probably UR (cos I can't face reading your reasoning post)

Com'on, I am not MtG