Username origins

[TimBone]

Allow me to create one more stupid thread before the season starts. I often wonder about every bodies usernames when I'm scrolling down the page.

I want to know more about how you guys came up with these names. Do they have personal meaning to you?

Now, you guys with Chiefs references in your names, like OTWP58, we obviously don't need your explanation.

...and you guys with obvious names, we'll be alright without yours as well.
For example:

Inmen - We know Inmen obviously has his name for sexual preferences. Why he would choose to put that out there on a message board is beyond me...but to each his own.

JASONSAUTO - it's very apparent that he's an Asian dude and went with the super boring first and last name username. Step your username game up, dude. This ain't a late 90's chatroom.

Rico - we know his name is a character that he's put together for himself. A handsome character, I might add.

The usernames I'm Interested in are the more vague ones.

The ones that aren't obvious references.

Names like Simply Red, bufkin, Donger, Bwana, etc.

And those with initials...like PGM, SNR, etc.

In fact wasn't there a thread last offseason where people were trying to guess what SNR stood for?

I believe that we also learned that Milkman was an actual Milkman at one point.

Amyways, just a thought. If a ghey thread, flame away.

[TimBone]

Originally Posted by Why Not?

After years of lurking, I was debating joining and starting to post. I figured "why not?" Pretty lame now that I say it out loud in a typing it kind of way.

Interesting, nonetheless. Thanks for sharing.

There's also a dude here named unlurking. I thought that was pretty cool.

I also liked Saul Good's name.

[listopencil]

I don’t live in China, but I’ve been learning Chinese for a few years. Many of my fellow students have Chinese names. I decided that it’s high time I got one. Or three.

Three? It’s an insurance policy: China is full of westerners with abandoned Chinese names that have been tried out a few times on the locals—and failed. In the real world of the China street, they look or sound…weird.

So, I needed a Plan B. And C.

My first Port of Call was Boston’s Chinatown, where I go once a week to wrestle with the Chinese language.

Wenjing Li, my teacher, grew up in Shanghai. And this is what she came up with when I asked her to give me a Chinese name: 博刻思 (Bo ke si).

There’s a nice lilt to that. It has a passing resemblance to my English name, which Wenjing says is all you need. Mandarin and English have such different phonetic systems that it’s pointless to try to force one language to sound like the other. You’d end up with one of those weird names.

Bo, the first syllable, means plentiful. But it might also imply a certain, shall we say, seniority, which Wenjing tells me is appropriate, “because you are older than me.” I ask her if it’s a name for an old person. Not necessarily, she says. Just someone who’s been around the block, and seen a few things.

The second and third syllables—ke and si—mean constantly, and thinking or considerate.

Wenjing has thrown in some wordplay too. The first two syllables bo and ke, pronounced differently, mean podcast. Very clever. She’s also included a potential banana skin in the final syllable, si. Pronounce it the wrong way with the wrong tone, and it sounds like the word for to die.

I tell her that it’s fitting that Chinese teacher gives me name that demands that I get my tones right.

For my second name I go to meet Tony Huang at the Great Mandarin Restaurant in the Boston suburb of Woburn.

Tony is the co-owner, and he’s the father of a friend of mine. He was born and raised in Taiwan, and here’s his name for me: 白翠克(Bai cui ke).

Bai cui ke has some similarities to Bo ke si. Both play off the sound of my English name; they’re both three syllables, also like my English name; and they both include a ke, albeit different ones. But Tony’s name is assembled according to totally different principles: numbers and elements.

Numbers have traditionally played a key role in Chinese names. Older generations of parents would visit a fortune teller with date and time of birth of their child. The fortune teller would then assign a name based on a series of calculations involving, among other things, the number of strokes it takes to write the name in Chinese characters.

For my name, Tony didn’t need to go to a fortune teller. “I went to the fortune teller website,” he says.

I have trouble following all the calculations that Tony is doing. He leafs through page after page of notes. He has spent hours checking charts in books and on websites so he can be confident that my name is sufficiently auspicious.

The character stroke count of Bai cui ke is 26, which, Tony tells me, has both good and bad points. (It depends on a bunch other stuff, which you can read about here.)

When Tony points out a couple of aspects of the math that are “bad,” I ask him if he’s giving me a bad name. He says of course not, though I have trouble following his reasoning. There are apparently issues with the number of strokes of the first and second syllables combined (19) as well as the second and third (21).

But Tony knows what he’s doing. He’s configured things so that the name’s negative aspects indicate bad times for me in my 30s. I’m older than that—as Tony says, who cares what my name says about the past? From my mid-40s on, it’s all wealth and happiness.

There’s one more problem. Because the last two characters add up to 21, I apparently may not have a good relationship with my boss. We may just have to live with that.

I now have two names that I love. I may not need another Chinese name but I’m getting greedy. I want one.

I visit a friend, artist and calligrapher Wen-hao Tien. Wen-hao grew up in Taiwan and she lives now in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“I like to find names that are a little vague and are humorous,” she says.

No stroke calculations here. Just intuition—and the look and sound of the name.

“You strike me as a very energetic person," Wen-hao tells me. "Sporty. Somehow the sound of Cui is a good fit.”

Cui is pronounced “tsway.”

Wen-hao continues: “Actually, there’s a famous rock singer, his name’s Cui Jian.”

How can I resist?

Wen-hao decides that like Cui Jian, the rock star, my name will have just two characters: 崔可 (Cui ke). “Ke means doable, OK, achievable,” she adds.

She paints the characters on a sheet of paper. She asks me what I think. I tell her I like it but I don’t have trained eye for these things.

“Oh, I think it looks pretty cool,” says Wen-hao.

Listening back to these interviews, I hear myself laughing—much more than usual. It’s giddy getting a new name. And judging by the laughter from Wenjing, Tony and Wen-hao, it must be giddy giving one too.

I realize now how much thought goes into giving someone a Chinese name, so much more than the other way round—calling someone Lucy or Lily or Tony. Tony tells me a Chinese waiter will change his English name if that name is already taken at his workplace.

As for my Chinese names, I’m not going to pick one, at least for now—I like them all. So American of me: spoiled for choice. I just went with listopencil.

[The Franchise]

Four Horsemen. Plague.

[Dayze]

I don't even remember how I came up with mine.



....then I got high.

[TrebMaxx]

Originally Posted by TimBone

What system are you on?

PC but I don't play much any more.

[Mojo Jojo]

Running joke with friends is "bad monkeys"...Mojo Jojo is the bad monkey from The Power Puff Girls...a fav of my kids back in the day.

[TribalElder]

Originally Posted by listopencil

I don’t live in China, but I’ve been learning Chinese for a few years. Many of my fellow students have Chinese names. I decided that it’s high time I got one. Or three.

Three? It’s an insurance policy: China is full of westerners with abandoned Chinese names that have been tried out a few times on the locals—and failed. In the real world of the China street, they look or sound…weird.

So, I needed a Plan B. And C.

My first Port of Call was Boston’s Chinatown, where I go once a week to wrestle with the Chinese language.

Wenjing Li, my teacher, grew up in Shanghai. And this is what she came up with when I asked her to give me a Chinese name: 博刻思 (Bo ke si).

There’s a nice lilt to that. It has a passing resemblance to my English name, which Wenjing says is all you need. Mandarin and English have such different phonetic systems that it’s pointless to try to force one language to sound like the other. You’d end up with one of those weird names.

Bo, the first syllable, means plentiful. But it might also imply a certain, shall we say, seniority, which Wenjing tells me is appropriate, “because you are older than me.” I ask her if it’s a name for an old person. Not necessarily, she says. Just someone who’s been around the block, and seen a few things.

The second and third syllables—ke and si—mean constantly, and thinking or considerate.

Wenjing has thrown in some wordplay too. The first two syllables bo and ke, pronounced differently, mean podcast. Very clever. She’s also included a potential banana skin in the final syllable, si. Pronounce it the wrong way with the wrong tone, and it sounds like the word for to die.

I tell her that it’s fitting that Chinese teacher gives me name that demands that I get my tones right.

For my second name I go to meet Tony Huang at the Great Mandarin Restaurant in the Boston suburb of Woburn.

Tony is the co-owner, and he’s the father of a friend of mine. He was born and raised in Taiwan, and here’s his name for me: 白翠克(Bai cui ke).

Bai cui ke has some similarities to Bo ke si. Both play off the sound of my English name; they’re both three syllables, also like my English name; and they both include a ke, albeit different ones. But Tony’s name is assembled according to totally different principles: numbers and elements.

Numbers have traditionally played a key role in Chinese names. Older generations of parents would visit a fortune teller with date and time of birth of their child. The fortune teller would then assign a name based on a series of calculations involving, among other things, the number of strokes it takes to write the name in Chinese characters.

For my name, Tony didn’t need to go to a fortune teller. “I went to the fortune teller website,” he says.

I have trouble following all the calculations that Tony is doing. He leafs through page after page of notes. He has spent hours checking charts in books and on websites so he can be confident that my name is sufficiently auspicious.

The character stroke count of Bai cui ke is 26, which, Tony tells me, has both good and bad points. (It depends on a bunch other stuff, which you can read about here.)

When Tony points out a couple of aspects of the math that are “bad,” I ask him if he’s giving me a bad name. He says of course not, though I have trouble following his reasoning. There are apparently issues with the number of strokes of the first and second syllables combined (19) as well as the second and third (21).

But Tony knows what he’s doing. He’s configured things so that the name’s negative aspects indicate bad times for me in my 30s. I’m older than that—as Tony says, who cares what my name says about the past? From my mid-40s on, it’s all wealth and happiness.

There’s one more problem. Because the last two characters add up to 21, I apparently may not have a good relationship with my boss. We may just have to live with that.

I now have two names that I love. I may not need another Chinese name but I’m getting greedy. I want one.

I visit a friend, artist and calligrapher Wen-hao Tien. Wen-hao grew up in Taiwan and she lives now in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“I like to find names that are a little vague and are humorous,” she says.

No stroke calculations here. Just intuition—and the look and sound of the name.

“You strike me as a very energetic person," Wen-hao tells me. "Sporty. Somehow the sound of Cui is a good fit.”

Cui is pronounced “tsway.”

Wen-hao continues: “Actually, there’s a famous rock singer, his name’s Cui Jian.”

How can I resist?

Wen-hao decides that like Cui Jian, the rock star, my name will have just two characters: 崔可 (Cui ke). “Ke means doable, OK, achievable,” she adds.

She paints the characters on a sheet of paper. She asks me what I think. I tell her I like it but I don’t have trained eye for these things.

“Oh, I think it looks pretty cool,” says Wen-hao.

Listening back to these interviews, I hear myself laughing—much more than usual. It’s giddy getting a new name. And judging by the laughter from Wenjing, Tony and Wen-hao, it must be giddy giving one too.

I realize now how much thought goes into giving someone a Chinese name, so much more than the other way round—calling someone Lucy or Lily or Tony. Tony tells me a Chinese waiter will change his English name if that name is already taken at his workplace.

As for my Chinese names, I’m not going to pick one, at least for now—I like them all. So American of me: spoiled for choice. I just went with listopencil.

[Mama Hip Rockets]

[Mr. Flopnuts]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

Four Horsemen. Plague.

3 of my buddies growing up did that. Assholes thought they were funny giving me famine...

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by Mr. Flopnuts

3 of my buddies growing up did that. Assholes thought they were funny giving me famine...

[RINGLEADER]

Originally Posted by TimBone

Dude...totally should have lied and said anything else.

Side note: I was tailgating outside of Lambeau for a week 16 Pack-Bears game a couple of years ago. The group we were tailgating with had a guy that ran the chains for the organization. Even they get Super Bowl rings. Obviously it's not the same ring that the players get, but it was super nice and it was huge.

It's a beautiful ring. Love the white gold.

Staff rings go for about 1/3 of a player ring. If it is a specific player of note all bets are off. Speaking of the Packers I own Paul Hornung's rings. But for the most it's a mix of scrubs and staff.

[morphius]

I was morphine in college, someone said don't use your name when you pick out our ID and I went with it as it fit my personality. Decided later that being named after a drug wasn't the best and changed to morphius when I got out of college, sort of combined morpheus and morphine. Plus I had been able to do some lucid dreaming, so morphius sort of made some sense. A few years later the Matrix came out and I decided, screw them, I'm not changing it.

[Rain Man]

When I graduated from college, I wasn't sure what to do with my life. I didn't really want to join the corporate rat race, and I'd run out of NCAA eligibility. The military wasn't an option after what I like to call "the incident in Bentonville", and the Peace Corps rejected me after I misunderstood their interview question about laying pipe in Thailand.

So I took some time off and traveled a little. One thing led to another, and I ended up playing piano in a small cafe in Morocco eavesdropping on some Cuban Marxists talking about the Angolan Civil War. Cubans are bad tippers, by the way, and none of them know the words to Piano Man.

Anyway, back in those days the Cold War was still going strong, and Angola was on the front lines as a proxy front. I didn't like what I was hearing from the Cubans, so I headed there. I was a naive kid, so they handed me a gun and I went and fought Bakongo and Cubans. I collected ears and worked my way up the ladder, first to a squad leader and then on to run a rebel battalion. After a couple of years I became an advisor to Savimbi himself.

It went well at first and we were a great team. But like John Lennon and the Beatles, a woman came between us. She was a Turkish anarchist, great with a gun and a knife, and we had a sexual tension that was palpable. Yazgul was her name, and she could melt a man with her smoldering eyes.

But Savimbi wanted her too.

It was a delicate game to play, and dangerous. It eventually came to a head during a hot, tropical August night. We had just routed the Bakongo and Eastern Bloc forces in a battle about 50 miles east of Lucapa, and Savimbi threw a victory feast. Some of the soldiers brought moonshine, and all of the village prostitutes showed up. The feast turned into a party and the party turned into an orgy, the way such things often do.

Yazgul and I had always maintained a public propriety, knowing the risks, but that night, oh, that night. Amidst the moans and sweat and the turkey drumsticks and the sounds of REO Speedwagon blaring across the jungle, the glass wall between us shattered. We found ourselves in an intimate embrace on a leopardskin rug in the tent of a regional commander when all hell broke loose. We were caught.

Savimbi was a dangerous, dangerous man, and he was enraged. With a hundred seasoned Angolan rebels on our trail, we bolted naked into the jungle. Without going into a lot of detail, we cut the number of pursuers to 56 over the next two days, but at great cost. I'd been hit four times and had a nasty machete wound, but they were survivable as long as I kept the flesh bugs out of them. Yazgul, on the other hand, had only taken two bullets, but one was slowly fatal. She knew it and I knew it.

I carried her for two more days, fighting off Bakongo and trying to get across the border to the Congo, where I knew some people. But I couldn't move fast enough.

It was a clear night during her final hours, with a billion stars visible over the jungle. It was unspeakably beautiful. We lay together in the roots of a baobob tree, looking down from our hill, watching the distant sweeping lights of the rebels who were looking for us and listening to the hoots of the colobus monkeys. A storm rolled in, lightning and thunder rolling across the landscape.

There in the jungle, hungry and exhausted, pursued by the toughest men on the planet, with flies swarming our wounds, and a bounty on our genitals from an iron-fisted rebel king, the heat broke. A cool, soothing rain began to fall. As the life slowly left her eyes, Yazgul and I embraced, and she smiled. Her last words to me, the words that ended a major chapter of my life, were "Rain, man".

[Psyko Tek]

http://youtu.be/8GFq6usPg6U


and the next day Psyko Tek was born
A name, no a title, given to me by my peers, for my rage outbursts


but I am much better now

[Psyko Tek]

http://youtu.be/8GFq6usPg6U


and the next day my peers at work bestowed upon my this title