Dungeon Master Forum

A while ago, we had a thread where ADDF_Toxic asked what his name could mean. What I wonder is, what do your usernames mean? I mean, some, like Paul Stevens, are pretty obvious. Others, like Ameena or Sophia, are pretty well-known among the forum regulars, but not for everybody. I'll start with my own:

As some already know, Trantor is a character that appeared in the Starkiller comic strip that was present in the German Powerplay magazine in the late 80s and early 90s. My avatar was made by Ameena who tried to mix Trantor with Boris, my favourite DM hero, and she did it so well that I use this avatar in almost every forum now. Here is a picture of the original Trantor:

http://www.skriptorium-vd.de/99-downloa ... g-0640.jpg

The big guy in the background is Trantor, known for his lack of language skills and his flamethrower.

Jfyi, anyone who doesn't know - I made up the name "Ameena" for a story we were told to write in English back in about Year 10 (so, 1999-2000 some time). She was a centaur. Anyway, after a while I decided I really liked the name so I just started using it everywhere. A few years later I found out it already exists, and handily means "loyal" in Swahili - that's cool 'cause she (as a character in stories, RPGs, etc) is .

i guess it's not to hard to figure out where my alias came from

Fantasy novels brought me to DM, DM brought me to computer RPGs, computer RPGs brought me to paper&pen RPGs, paper&pen RPGs brought to LARP, LARP brough me to celtic and medieval reenactment, celtic culture brought me to druidism, shamanism, neopaganism, okkultism, hinduism, to myth and art and spirituality.

When I was into celtic reenactment I was to give me as a reenactment character a name; with only little basic knowledge in Irish Gaelich I took a book about ancient Gaelic, and while being aware that the result would probably not be very correct, I choose "bheir na lhu" to mean "Bearer of Light" (bh is like v and the h after the l is not pronounced as far as I know), and took the writer's freedom to inverse it for sound reasons to Lhu na bheir, draw it into 1 word (Germans always do this...), so it was Lhunabheir, simplified the writing to its pronounciation Lunever (similar to Ghwenwyvar to Ginevra or Guinever). Thus it contains a connection to the celtic sun god Lugh, to the romanic word Luna and to the brightest of Angels, Luzifer.

My Avatar picture was made for my by Cowsmanaut. At first I had used his picture of the DM character Linflas, which has a moon in the background. When he agreed to my request to draw an Avatar for me he gave the Avatar Lunever that moon for a background, which again reflects the lunar syllable and the connection to the light.

I'm gonna say this:

No. It didn't come from Ghostbusters.

Lol, I must have said mine a few times by now. I had managed to get hold of DM on PC and playing it on a friends borrowed comp a while before so DM was still back in my head. Meanwhile, the 'beouwlf' epsiode of voyager had been on recently so that name was in my head

Anyway, needed a webspace, so tried to register with geocities, and every name I oculd come up with was taken - ratehr than goign with a stpid number on the end, kept trying. Think i eventualyl tried beowulf, that was taken, so just beowuuf in honour of DM came to mind (still a little weirdly, I wasn't actively playign the game) and it was accepted

Well, i then got a yahh e-maill address later when the two merged, which I never used.

Fast forward to six years ago when I left uni and found this site, and wondering on an alias i suddenly realised i'd made one up, that would be perfect ans was even a perfect e-mail address for purely DM stuff should Imanage to release my dungeon and get feedback - so beowuuf was born and I just kept using the udsername for other stuff too!

(Althoug hthere is some hacker guy uising it, i'm pretty sure he's stolen if from me though due to a weird reference in one site, ah well)

Mine originally came from my first network gaming session I had at a friend's house. Quake, I believe it was, and I must have been about 13 or so.

I had never played a network game before and wanted something quick and witty but I couldn't think of anything as I was having a mental block. My friend's name was a play on his own (I can't remember, it was quite a while ago) and it triggered off a thought in my head.

I chose 'Sir Pad The Mad' as it was the first thing that came to mind and I've used it, minus the 'Sir' ever since (although in online games with my friends I sometimes reinstate Sir, or something silly relating to the genre, like Field Marshall Sir Pad The Gallant!)

Mine doesn't come from anywhere special. How dull! Although, I do like it because of the meaning of the word in the context of chess: Sacrifice something small for a greater reward.

Most people think I must be a fan of the X-men because of it, but not really. The number is not my age, it's just a reference to a line in the film Clerks.

I'd rather think on B5's credo "Some must be sacrificed for all to survive."

Mine's from an old computer game character from the Ultimate Play The Game stable, starring in such games as Sabre Wulf, Knight Lore and Underwurlde... basically some of the first computer games I played on the dear old Speccy.

I used it as a name the first time I connected to the net with my Dreamcast back in 1999 (it was just the first thing that popped into my head as a username), and I've used it almost everywhere ever since.

errrm... you know...

No, go on Linflas, where's your name from....?

but i made my avatar by myself !
and i'm over 1000 posts, you HAVE TO respect this !

so Gambit, YOU are the hidden member ! i knew it ! i knew it ! i knew it !

oh btw.. i thought Trantor's name came originally from the planet in the center of the galaxy, in 'Foundation' series written by Asimov.

I've heard that several times linflas, but I actually never read Asimov. The Trantor in the comic is also not inspired by Asimov's planet, but by an old computer game called "Trantor - The last Stormtrooper". I have used the name ever since 1990, in Highscore lists, for character names and so on.

Oh, and Gambit, I once made a joke about the 37 coming from Clerks - nice to know that it was actually correct!

Trantor was one of the few really enjoyable action games on Schneider CPC, but the adaptions to other systems were rather poor. Basically its a 2D sideview shooter, where you run around and fry soldiers and later I think aliens by using your flame thrower.
The Starkiller comic was just a small mini-series in the German PowerPlay computer magazine and made fun of all kinds of computer games. One of the crew members was Trantor who was extremly stupid, single-minded and always ready to ignite something.

My name, Well besides the obvious connotations to my favourite character in DM. I had thought black hand when initially registering onto a php roleplaying forum that my brother and I set up.

I believe there was a monty python line going through my head at the time:
...and suddenly should he feel the black hand of death...
(in the background) OOOOHF!
(shouts a voice) Oh! He died....

So then any gaming related forum I go in generally has that name. Although I don't think it's intimidated any players that I DM though.

mine is an incorrectly spelled mixture of a cosmonaut and a cow. I was agreeing to be signed up to a site called CollegeClub.com by my friend who worked for them and he made commision for each person he signed.. so we were trying to find a name. "Drake" which is what I had used for years even on the old BBS systems.. and as well what I had used here when I first joined the community was just too common to not be taken. I tried many others and finally I just blurted out SPACE COW!! which then occured to me was probably taken too so I used cowsmonaut as my next idea.. which is also a space cow.. russian space cow.. so he typed it out.. but spelled it incorrectly.. So I just left it for convienience so people didn't need to remember two different spellings of the name..

I've no discovered others trying to take on the name, and with the incorrect spelling.. which seems to me must be coming from my name.. the cooincidence seems too unlikley otherwise. or maybe I'm just paranoid..

anyway.. there it is.. so to close the deal on the name, my first 3D project was a cow with a rocket strapped to his back.. and thus the character was fully brought to life.. and that's where the story ends

wow, there is a lot in a name. i chose chaos because it made a change, an influence in my life, enough to have kept it over the years, even though common. i hope no one finds it offending... lol

I've no discovered others trying to take on the name

Funny you should mention that Cowsmanaut,
I thought I saw someone on the bus a while ago that had t-shirt that had a cow logo rolled up into a ball
and I believe it said Cowsmanault - UBC.

That wouldn't of been you, would it??

My name is just a random spelling, sort of from my last name,
but mostly just poped into my head.
Doesn't mean anything (at least to me).

Nope not me, but could be anyone who knew me, or of me, or someone I know. I've had now about 6 years of students at least who know my email which contains that as well.. at the time I chose it there was nothing of the sort.. and the more I exposed myself.. I guess at about the 4 year mark I saw things appear that were close.

they say there are no orriginal ideas left, and that anything you think of someone else will too.

so perhaps just a matter of time..

linflas wrote:but i made my avatar by myself !
and i'm over 1000 posts, you HAVE TO respect this !

We do! And you are getting closer to the big old Archmaster by the post! However, you avatar seems to have gone walkies

cowsmanaut wrote:I've no discovered others trying to take on the name, and with the incorrect spelling.. which seems to me must be coming from my name.. the cooincidence seems too unlikley otherwise. or maybe I'm just paranoid..

Yeah, there is a warez guy with my name (and no capitalisation) on one of the warez boards, who had a DM picture as avatar...so yeah, I'm guessing false identity incase anyone came after him - goodness knows why me

Otherwise I'm unique...or was, but now there is a beowuuf as a WoW layer somehting too

Poor me

i had put my avatar on imageshack.us.. seems that many people have problems with this dns domain.. :/

It's back if that helps!

yep, i just changed it

My real name, with last name reduced to initial letter...

Yeah, Toni. I've been waiting for someone to say that their 'handle' is simplicity.

Ian Schofield

Yeah, well, being aberdonian I get enough jokes without going on as mhutton thank you!

mmm.. mutton... tasty mutton... mmmmm....