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?

  • Jeena
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    95 months ago

    This is a question I was asked all my life, so already in 2004 I wrote a blog post about it: https://paradies.jeena.net/weblog/2004/oct/jeena-paradies but it’s in German so I’m posting the translation here:

    It was sometime in the year 2000 when I had already been DJing at small parties for a while, playing house, drum’n’bass, big beats, and electro. When people asked who the DJ was, everyone just said, “That’s Richard.” Naturally, that didn’t sound very cool for an alternative DJ. Then my cousin, who was also a DJ but played the more mainstream style of techno, chose the name DJ Alec-tron, which put some pressure on me. Since we often DJed together, and I didn’t want to go down in history as “DJ Richard,” I needed a proper DJ name.

    So I started looking for a suitable artist name for myself as a disc jockey. One day, we took the train to the Love Parade in Berlin. We stocked up on canned beer the day before and opened the first can as early as 3:00 AM (in the middle of the night). The fun and drinking continued merrily. I occasionally glanced out the window, hoping to find inspiration from some distant land (aka eastern Germany).

    And then it appeared—like the Holy Grail once revealed itself to King Arthur and his knights—from out of nowhere: the station sign “Jena Paradies.” I instantly knew that this would be my new artist name. It was as if the hand of God had guided me along the tracks to Jena Paradies station and bestowed this name upon me.

    Jena Paradies train station

    A month after the Love Parade, I had my first gig as DJ Jena Paradies. There’s even photographic evidence from that time:

    People at a party, a DJ spinning vinyl records

    But over time, I didn’t want to be named after a station in eastern Germany anymore, so I started thinking of a new, better version of the name. I realized that if I added an “e,” the name would be pronounced like Gina Wild’s first name. That sounded much cooler to me, so it became my stage name to this day.

    Pronunciation: First name pronounced like Gina Wild’s first name roughly "Djeena" and last name pronounced like the German word "Paradies" paradise

    I now use it almost everywhere related to me as an “artist”—very often online, with my band, and for photography, which I want to do more of in the future.

  • @[email protected]
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    55 months ago

    My nickname was originally “Stoy On” but over time it got shortend to “Stoy”.

    “Stoy On” comes from a small Swedish comedy film by “Galenskaparna och After Shave”, a fantastic group of theatre actors who has had a very long and successfull carreer of comedy theatre, television and film. They specialized in musicals, with plenty of amazing wordplay and some fantastic songs.

    Anyway, the film I am talking about this time is the TV film “The Castle Tour”, the summary of it is that a group of Swedish tourists are going on a tour of a castle in Sweden, the guide has them confused with an English tour, and the joke is that the guide just speaks a nonsense language.

    Now, one of the nonsense pharses the guide used was “Stoy on!”, which is meant to mean “Se upp!” in Swedish, and that experssion has two meanings in Sweden, the normal one “Look out!”, and the litteral one “Look up!”

    At the same time I was getting annoyed at not having a standard nickname online and when gaming.

    And since I thought it was fun to have a nickname that meant “Look out!” in some ways, and I liked the sound of it, I adopted “Stoy On” as my standard nickname, and since it got shortend I mainly go by “Stoy” online, or, if it is taken, “Stoy On”.

  • @[email protected]
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    35 months ago

    I made this account shortly after watching Jackass 4. One of the new guys brings his dad on, this guy served time and did not look like he was one to fuck with. They put his head in a fishbowl with a tarantula and he instantly went into full bitch mode. That man’s name was Dark Shark.

  • @[email protected]
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    45 months ago

    Found a Kraken in Ultima Online. Thought it was rad and didn’t know how to spell it as an 11 year old.

  • @[email protected]
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    25 months ago

    Star Wars Galaxies I was on a red wine kick at the time and had found Ecco Domani to be a good low priced red. I meeded a character name for SWG so I looked up “to seize” in Italian to make “seize tomorrow”.

    It’s actually “squeeze tomorrow” or “tighten tomorrow” and should have been “cogliere il domani” which is cooler. But c’est la vie, or questa è la vita.

  • @[email protected]
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    35 months ago

    Ambian, maybe? I don’t especially like disco, and my name isn’t Doug. But I felt it in my heart at some point that isn’t exactly clear to me.

  • @[email protected]
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    55 months ago

    As a bookish child, I made weekly trips to the library. To get to the kids section I had to pass the large print shelf, and there was one book that was always there: The Spitting Image. The gargoyle on the cover scared me! But when I finally looked him straight in the eye I found that he was trying to look furious, but came across as a little goofy. That’s the way I imagine myself, too.

  • @[email protected]
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    45 months ago

    HUM - The Scientists

    Keep this benzine ring around your finger, and think of me when everything you wanted starts to end

    The song is one of my favorites. About a couple scientists, probably in a relationship, testing drugs

    With HUM, you never can really tell what they are talking about but it’s always pretty poetry and awesome music. With a good imagination.

  • @[email protected]
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    25 months ago

    My display name is a short-version of my nickname which is a phonetic amalgamation of my first and last name.