From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
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Published on February 4, 2008 By Zoomba In Blogging

Here's a fun question to start everyone's week out:

How did you pick the handle/nickname you use online?

We have an odd collection of names out here.  Ranging from Little-Whip and EmperorOfIceCream to Locamama, DrGuy, Frogboy and more.  It's always interesting to see what names people pick for themselves when they are given the chance to create a completely new persona for themsleves. 

So, how/why did you come up with yours?

Mine?  Everyone alwasy figures there's some great story, or weird inspiration behind "Zoomba" but in reality it was almost completely random.  About 15 years ago, I had Internet access through my dad's office at Penn State.  This was even before the WWW mind you.  I was surfing gopher and such one afternoon and joined a chat room.  Now, it asked me for my handle, and I'd already been warned against posting my real name so I had to come up with something new.  So what did I do?

I made a random noise out loud, and typed that in.  Thus "Zoomba" was born!

What's your story?


Comments (Page 1)
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on Feb 04, 2008
I was working at a sporting goods store in '91 an the warehouse manager had lost a shipment of Zubaz pants. So there he is yelling "ZUBAZ!!!" over and over again at the top of his lungs and I happen to walk in and say something like "Yo!" Thus I was branded Zubaz, and I have been since.
on Feb 04, 2008
Mine's easy to explain.  I'm a crazy mom thus locamama en espanol. 
on Feb 04, 2008

My first handle was "JavaBrain".  I picked that since my brain runs on coffee.  However, everyone thought I was a Java programmer.  So, I needed a new name, and I wanted people to know that I was no a programmer and that I was not male.  At the time, I was reading a book on Zen Buddhism, so I picked "Karma", and "Girl" because I'm...well...a girl.

Nothing too exciting there.  lol

on Feb 04, 2008

My youngest son's middle name is Tobias which in Hebrew roughly translates to God is good.

I went with the female equivalent...Tova and added a 7 because in scripture 7 often is used as the perfect number, or to mean "completely."  So God is good completely.  heh.  Get it?

Actually I like Tova so well I want it to be my REAL name. hahaha

 

on Feb 04, 2008
Neither of us knew it at the time, but there is an old poem by Wallace Stevens of the same name. In the poem, The Emperor of Ice Cream is death.


I thought he picked the name because of the poem. That's a great coincidence!

on Feb 04, 2008

Mine is from different jobs I've done.    I came up with the handle about the time I was getting ready to graduate from Ricks College with an AAS in Paramedicine.  I had been a Paratrooper and Parachute Rigger before, so the Para part pretty much came naturally.  Ted is my first name, and I was graduating in 2000...

 

Before I was ParaTed2k, I was TP72085, that one goes back to the 1994, when I did tech support for Prodigy. (ick!) ;~D

on Feb 04, 2008
I created mine when I was joining chatrooms many years ago on Yahoo when that was the cool thing to do. I was looking for something that was cool and of my taste. I chose 2 things I liked a lot and matched them. it took a while. I remembered I was a big fan of Smokey and the Bandit since I loved the car, thought Burt Reynolds was cool and he lived a lifestyle I was too afraid to try except in my dreams. They were also giving a more modern 90's version of this movie on a TV show wthat I thought was great but only lasted a few episodes.

Since Bandit was taken I had to come up with something more elaborate so, since I was a big music person and was trying out being a DJ online thru shoutcast I figured DJBandit was the name to be.

I use my real name here cause I wanted to be taken a bit more serious since DJBandit seemed a bit ignorant when trying to debate current issues. But that's just me, I just might change it back someday.
on Feb 04, 2008
I use my real name here cause I wanted to be taken a bit more serious since DJBandit seemed a bit ignorant when trying to debate current issues.


I know what you mean. I started using "Gene Nash" because no-one was looking beyond the handle "SmartAz." They were responding to the handle instead of what I wrote. |

on Feb 04, 2008
I went with the female equivalent...Tova and added a 7 because in scripture 7 often is used as the perfect number, or to mean "completely." So God is good completely.


Very good. But "tova" is the female version of "tov", which means just "good". There is no direct female version of "Tobias", I think, so you chose the closest equivalent.

I chose "Leauki" originaly because it is easy to type, unique, and can be pronounced like the Norwegian god.

I also found it an interesting name to spell in Hebrew: Lamed Alef Vav Quf Yud.

The Hebrew version transliterates to "L'VQY" or "LVQY" depending on whether you want to read the Alef as a glottal stop or as zero.

"Tova" is feminine for "good", as in "shana tova" ("good year") as opposed to "yom tov" ("good day"). The root for "Tova" is TB or TVB.
on Feb 04, 2008
Mine came from my short college radio career. It was my first night and the girl on before me who was about as nerdy as any person could be gave me the name Just John. She wore coke bottle thick glasses and snorted when she laughed. I should have known better than to reply to her question the way I did.

Her - What do you want to be called?
Me - Huh?
Her - You know, your radio name.
Me - Just John, that's it.

I've had a few other internet handles but that was the one that always stuck.
on Feb 04, 2008

You could always try 'BeanHead' next time, heheh.

Hmmm...  I think I'll pass.  lol!

on Feb 04, 2008
I have no persona online, except myself as a priest. Therefore, I use my real name, my dharma name, that is, with my real last name. I was given this name when I took the precepts as a Zen Buddhist. It is three characters meaning, "Priest" "Great" "Dharma".
on Feb 04, 2008

I chose "Leauki" originaly because it is easy to type, unique, and can be pronounced like the Norwegian god.

I always thought it was because you thought the water was key.

Mine is simple as well.  My great uncle was a doctor (and so were many other relatives - I was the failure as I cant stand the sight of blood), so I picked his name as my handle.  He is famous for his work with Lepers and the treatment of the disease.

It is pronouced Gee (hard G) not as in Gee Whiz, but as is Grog

on Feb 04, 2008
My handle originally was going to be (Bulldog), as this proved to be a popular choice for many more accounts out there it was more sensible to miss-spell it, possibly a useless piece of information for many but as the question was posed I was sure to answer.
on Feb 04, 2008

I always thought it was because you thought the water was key.


Well, there is that, too. I found it an extremely international handle. It has something French, something Germanic, something Hebrew (the interesting Hebrew spelling), and something unique.

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