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Fionnula the Cooler inspired me to start this thread but not because of anything he said.
Everytime I see his screen name I'm reminded of the mythical daughter of Lir, condemned to die by her stepmother but "rescued" by being trapped in the form of a swan for 900 years. Along with her brothers. The allusion comes via an only half-remembered folksong that I don't expect many people to share (apart from maybe Fionnula?) and probably says more about the naffness of my musical education than it does about the writer with the moniker.
But still, the reference is there and I can't shake it. I have similar problems with flimsy, whimsical feminine Mimolette, who just does not sound like cheese - or a man - to me. So it got me to thinking...
Names: what possibly unintended things do they say to you? How attached are you to yours - in real life or online? Are you down with the trend for calling your children Hubris and Agrippina or will you be sticking with Jack and Emily? Or you could just tell us how you chose your screenname and why.
By the way, I was OJ before OJ Simpson's televised getaway and stuck to it doggedly despite the occasional suggestion that I may be fresh and wholesome like a glass of juice. Because nobody calls it that here really do they? And I'm either to stubborn or too strongly welded to my ego (cod-psychologists-r-us take note, I said it first) to switch to another name.
While we're at it, if you've ever had an urge to change your screen name to the force that through the green fuse drives the flower in the style of some boards we could not bother mentioning, you may as well confess it here too. But not that particular one you understand, I saw it first.
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Erm. Melissa reminds me of butterflies. Does that help? If I had children, chances are I would be trying to distance myself from them, rather than name them, but if I was somehow dragged into it then simple one syllable names would do just fine. Maybe with Welsh heritage? Any children unlucky enough to have me as a father aren't likely to move in the kind of circles where Hubris and Agrippina would be acceptable or pronouncable.
As for my screen name. I was reading a lot of William Burroughs when I registered on Seethru, back in 1992.
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Mine is dull, it's just my first name and my surname initial, no thought, no great story, no nothing.
As far as children’s names go, as most posters on this forum are aware I do like the more unusual names, I've called my children Summer Rain (Girl 9) and Beckett Archer (Boy 14 months) but that doesn't mean I think that there's anything wrong with Jack or Emily it's just not my personal choice.
On other forums I frequent if I'm not Darryn.R I tend to use dibble, he's the bumbling policeman out of the Top Cat cartoons - For some reason I always liked him..
Even though I use Darryn as my username I have to say I don't like it as a name and wish I was called something else. I like the D part so maybe Devlin or Devon or something, even Darcy.
Darryn is so late 60's trying to be cooler than you are kind of name, there were like 5 in my year at school (various spellings Daren, Darren, Darrin, Darran) so it's not much of a personal identifier, if anyone shouts Darryn in public at least three or four people look around to see if the call is aimed at them.
How attached are you to your real name then OJ ?
(I hate to see a thread go unanswered)
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scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
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My online name is the name my dad used to call me when I was little – scrawnyscroggins, to give me my full title.
Superficial to tha extreme:
I always find it unusual that certain names can have connotations of attractiveness, which becomes interesting when you have a job which involves dealing with most people via email. The Joshua that I am currently working with gets attention in my inbox a lot quicker than the Brian. I have never known anyone called Joshua or Brian before this, so it’s not based on previous experience of hotties or notties with those names. Other fit names for boys – Patrick, James, Charlie, Jack, Oliver, Joseph, Sam William. Fit names for girls: Delphine, Annie, Madeleine, Lucy, Imogen and Jessica. Please note I have deliberately left any posters out of this except me. I like my name.
I think a good rule of thumb for establishing which names are fit and which aren’t is to imagine if you could feasibly call a cat by that name without the cat becoming an immediate object of ridicule. ‘Pamela’ is a good example of how this works.
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I hate my real life name - it's kind of like a stupid comedy name that sitcom writers always give to their bland, uptight, unfunny characters. It's like it's considered to be the opening humiliation, before the plot sets about kicking them even further. Often, characters called Ian have no other reason to be gleefully turned into objects of ridicule other than the fact they're called Ian. Hi Fidelity, Men Behaving Badly and Red Dwarf all contain examples of this.
I quite like my online name - in fact, disturbingly I've been starting to think of it as my actual name. Whenever I picture getting a book published, or na script made into a film 'Thorn Davis' is the name I see on the poster, before I have to mentally readjust it to my stupid real life name.
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Is there a sub-category of the cat/human name rule? That is, names which are perfectly acceptable in our world, but are so commonplace as to be ridiculous on a cat, such as Paul, Andrew, Mark and, indeed, Steven.
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Our last cat was originally called Flynn. So named, by me, for his cool-arsed moustache. It suited him, he was a cool cat. Then I went away to university. My next visit was a couple of months later and the fuckers had renamed Flynn. Isn't that against the law or something?
Apparently, in between deciding that the fucking Fall-Guy-cool visor on my never-to-be-owned space helmet was lethal, my dad decreed that cats must have a two syllable name. It seems that standing with a saucer of milk, barking out a single syllable is officially wrong. It forces the cat caller to crowbar a second syllable from the name - "Fliiii - iiin!", that kind of thing.
So Flynn needed a longer name. And what did they decide on in my absence? Rocky? Iron Paw? Monkeeeeeey!? No, CC. They decided to call him CC. That would have been bad enough but CC actually stood for….drum roll....Cat Cousteau! He fell in the pond, you see, so Cat Fucking Cousteau!
That cat was my enemy from then on. Actually, if the truth be known, our mutual hatred wasn't really cemented until CC started pawing me, sucking the pad on his paw and acting rather strangely. When I pushed him off, I clocked the cerise lipstick aimed at me like a love gun. I spurned his advances and Cat Cousteau never forgave me.
Thats my name. Not Mark the dog of course but just Mark. I really detest having Mark as a name. Every cnut in the world with a 'sense of humour' will call you Marky Mark and wait for you to lift your head back and howl with laughter.
Mind you, squeegy isn't a whole lot better. Once I am a bit more financially stable I think I will pay Darryn to have it changed. It'd be a bit cheeky to ask now. I own a fair bit in TMO back-taxes. I've never been very good at coming up with names. When it comes time to change it I'll get Jonesay to come up with a few ideas for me. Cuz he's my bitch.
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I hated my real name as a child. Well, let me say I hated my nickname (I didn’t know what my real name was until I was older, and then I hated that too). I wanted to be Jennifer, and had fantasies of changing my name in high school (along with a complete image makeover: hair and eye color, new style, etc.).
Now I love both, but you won’t see me going by the full version on anything that’s not officially signed and sealed. I like that it is probably one of a kind, and I like that my nickname is at least pretty unusual (though I grimace at how quickly it is rising in the ranks of popularity).
When it came to naming my daughter, ordinary names equated in my mind with ordinary people, so there was no way she was going to be an “Emma” or a “Meghan” (two very popular names right now) and certainly not a “Jennifer”. Luckily my husband agreed and we limited our choices to below the top 250 US names of the previous years. I think it worked out.
As for my screen name, I’m not too keen on it (especially with the new cock tag), but froopy helped to choose it, and we both had our reasons (both probably readily apparent if you know either of us in real life).
Edit for the whole conjuring bit: My real names only conjure other people who are named that (namely a no-talent actress, some Asian model and a Yu-Gi-Oh character). My screen name conjures, well...you know.
As for others here, I always read the posts first and associated names with posts, not the other way around, so I had preconceived notions to interfere with my preconceiving.
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Kovacs always mocks me for using his online name in real life more than I use his real name. Actually, I think I probably do this with Thorn and Benway too.
'Ben' tends to be used in tv drama as a shorthand for domesticity - either stable or under imminent threat. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with this but there are way worse names.
Look at Alan - that practically screams Anal. No 'Alans' here, I hope. Posts: 8657
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scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
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ALAN! I knew there was a better example. Alan the cat.
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Scroggins theory is a good un, if only because my mother has given two cats names (Rory and Finbar) that I am ecstatic I managed to dodge. I like my name.
Have to disagree on the Alan front though, reckon that goes round the other side to become a brilliant name for a cat. I think Dave also has this quality.
[ 20.10.2005, 10:42: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
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posted
Goldfish are pretty versatile in the name department aren't they? Pick any name, add 'the goldfish' and there you go. Nigel the goldfish. Simone the goldfish. Ezekial the goldfish.
This is mostly because goldfish are crap and nobody cares.
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