I'm very interested.

I've been using this username for most my life, funnily enough. It was originally the name of a Webkinz character (forgive me, I was approx. 7 yrs old).

When I can get it, I use this same name everywhere. It's pretty rare that it's still available, though. It's my Overwatch battle tag and my name on MTG Salvation, from when I used to post there.

The Legend of Zelda holds a special place in my heart.

That's wholesome :)

I'm an edgelord and choose edgelord usernames.

When I first got on an internet forum waaaay back in secondary school in the late 90s (IIRC, it was the Science & Vie online forum, which was setup in a fashion not unlike what we'd now call a chan), I was very into greek Myth and botany.

I was mildly obsessed with a plant genus by the name of Circaea and picked up the username "Circée", after the Greek enchantress, which was in retrospect pretty frickin' stupid seeing as I am male. I'd later masculize it to Circéus, which has been (with or without an accent) my default online username ever since, though it is oftentimes already used up.

@Circeus: Woah! Now that's an interesting story! Ancient Greek mythology and botany :), what a combination of interests!

I also like Sorrow's very simple approach to picking an username :P

Hm... I guess i never noticed, but a lot of people on this site have super original usernames. It's not surprising any of them are sometimes already taken up by someone.

I've never actually had my username taken up before, except one time my computer glitched out mid-registration so I had to add some 9s to the end, IIRC. Actually, I think this was when I downloaded minecraft 7 years ago, and it ending up glitching out twice (my mom still only paid once, luckily), and I went with something totally different.

Am dude. Am 1818. Are you jokester?

LOL :)

How have you survived for 1818 years, though? Or am I missing some significance to that number?

@Froggychum: I was also into YGO (both the anime and card game, predating my interest into Magic) Latin, and IUCN nomenclature. ADHD+Asperger leads to a weird tendency to swap interests. I didn't come to actual card design and languages (both major interests that have been more lasting) until significantly later.

In actuality, my parents' nickname for me growing up was Dude, and 18 is a lucky number in Judaism. I've been using this username since I first joined the internet, when I was like 10 or something

That's... um... that's my name. John-Michael Gariepy. At one point I decided that if I was going to be writer, I was going to be on the Internet, and I wasn't going to use a pen name, that I should start using my real name as a handle so people could follow me and find my work.

It's an admittedly scary thought. It is made less scary, however, when you can't seem to find your audience anyways. But even in a very minor capacity, I still come across people who've read a few things by me then seek me out. Only came across one person who tried getting romantic that way. That was a trip.

It can be odd meeting people who you don't know a damn thing about, but it turns out you've been having a one-way conversation with them for months and they got a grasp of your personality. I wouldn't recommend this for an introvert. As an introvert/extrovert switch, however, I think it's opened doors enough times that it's been worth the occasional social discomfort.

It's lovely reading all these origin stories :)

I used to use a regular online handle which had a whole explanation, but then about the time I started using multiverse it seemed to be increasingly common to have real names online and I just used "Jack V". I think the optimum might be a combination, a real first name so it's easier to get to know people in real life, but a handle instead of a surname so you don't have to go by wallet name everywhere.

@jmg fwiw I love all your writing :)

I agree this thread is awesome :) (is a series of card comments a thread?)

@Circeus: I can definitely relate. I swap interests almost as often as I swap clothes (hyperbole). I've had many collections of weird toys/things from when I was little, that I ended up agreeing on selling, since I'd lost interest. My mom's wallet eternally cries.

@dude1818 That's an awesome nickname :) Lucky numbers can be great, too!

@jmgariepy I do remember your name from somewhere... I think it's how you introduced yourself on the first (or one of the first) NTCs... I didn't know you were a writer! Prepare to be Google'd!

Also, agree. That sounds like a trip (maybe even one and a half).

The one downside to this nickname is that when I was pretty involved with playing Ingress, I'd often to go irl meet-ups. Trying to get a specific person's attention by just calling out "Dude!" was quite difficult XD

@jmgariepy What always struck me about your username is how it is so markedly French-Canadian. At least if you're familiar with French Canadian family names, as there are plenty of far more marked names out there XD (my own included).

I mean, technically it's Basque (Garibay) by way of France, but nowadays "Gariépy" is far more common in North America than in Europe.

I wouldn't have guessed that to be a name with a French origin. The phonemes don't look quite right.

As I said, it's ultimately a Basque name as evovled through French.

Yeah, alternate opinion says it might be German, closer to Alsace. It's mostly just a really old French name that is clearly not French in origin, and people like to argue about it.

The Gariepy line in our family can trace back to the 1600s in Newfoundland, well before the British drove them out in the expulsion of the Acadians. Most Gariepys ended up inland in Quebec. Some, instead, went further south into Brit territory and ended up in Massachusetts. Couldn't take the sea out of those folks. Some signs in New Hampshire are still written in both English and French.

Whenever my parents went to Canada, they used to take pictures of the phone books, back when phone books was a thing. Pages and pages of Gariepys. If I meet a Gariepy around here, however, I just presume they're related twice or thrice removed.

Parents still make split pea soup. And I went to a French Catholic school with old-school French nuns and learned rudimentary French. But that's about all the French there is left in this family; WWI did a number on Franco-American nationalism. We still have a Lafayette Square in our city with a big statue, but it's no longer the French cultural center of town it once was 100 years ago.

(I love French Pea Soup, it tastes amazing.)

I've got unorthodox ancestry, my mom's side of the family is French-Canadian, while my dad's is Moroccan. That means I win the genetic lottery, because I have access to authentic recipes for:

• French food (Croissants! Crepes/Eclairs/etc! French Pea Soup!)
• Canadian food (Poutine! Beaver Tails! Ketchup chips (LOL) & peameal bacon)
• Moroccan food (Harira! Lamb dishes! Dates and prunes!)

I'll still spend the rest of my life eating TV Dinners and tapwater, though... damn finances.

Ugh. Now I just want to go to your parents house for dinner. ;)

When you're a little Irish, you're Irish. So even though the family is mostly French, most of my Mom's cooking leans towards Irish cooking. But boiled dinners and soda bread aren't particularly tasty. Just... don't tell any Irish I said that.