Nicknames and Usernames, how did you come by your's?

[Gryphon]

Well I got my nickname Gryphon from a character I player in a Roleplaying game. My character was Gryphon Pier Noir, being non of the players remembered my name of Dennis I got called Gryphon. When I moved to Seattle, a guy asked " I dude what's your name?" I replied, "Gryphon" and it has forever stuff since then. and that was back in 1997.

[SOU Fan]

I'm a big fan of NASCAR, and Tony Stewart is my favorite driver. He has the nickname "Smoke".   He also has his wn barbeque sauce named "Smoke"

-Smoke

[jalajoie]

My first name is Jacques, middle name is Wilbrod and last name Lajoie

It is the combination of the first two letters of JAcques and LAJOIE thus jalajoie and I sign

Jack W. 

[Fortkentdad]

My children went to college and we discovered it was fun to chat on line via MSN, so I needed to create a Hotmail Account and an on-line name,  since I figured my only use would be communicating with my children at college.  I was Dad, and I live in the tiny hamlet of Fort Kent, hence I became Fort Kent Dad, fortkentdad.  I discovered the on line model railway community and often found my name abbreviated to FKD and it has stuck, and works for me just fine. 

 

FKD  aka Fort Kent Dad, aka David

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Mines the first and last part of my real name. Jeffrey Scott Reneau-Wimberly. My grandparents, being hardcore Native American (Cherokee) called me Running Bear.

[MOJAX]

Mine came about as a shortcut of sorts. MO are my initials and the JAX is the designation for my home airport. After I quit flying the name just sort of stuck and my pilot buddies still call me by MOJAX.

[ChessieFan13]

welll lets see...................my home town is Huntington wv so there is csx main line that was chessie system b4 that it was thc c&o i model thoes 3 roads.

 

!13 well that is my lucky number!

[Anonymous]

Always blowing off steam or hot air, your choice. Ive been told constantly to watch that temper when I was younger. Now I feel too old to care. =) But if you didnt hear it from me, I doubt anyone would.

[Robby P.]

Mine is not that hard to figure out.  First name is Robby last name Putnam.  Now, my yahoo name for messanger and email is rich handsome.  HAHAHAHAHAHa.

Jeff, I use to live like 2 hours from the Cherokee in NC.  I went there alot as a kid and took my wife a few times before we moved to Pa.  Great people and VERY nice.  You have some good blood in you.  They say if you can prove you are cherokee, they will give you some land up there.

[pcarrell]

It kinda started with my parents.

They named me Philip Carrell, and I shortened it to pcarrell.

Pretty unbelievable story, huh?

[howmus]

howmus, came out of my business: Howard's Music Services.  Couldn't think of anything catchy so I just used that.

[Darth Santa Fe]

I get my name from a combonation of one of my favorite Star Wars characters (Darth Vader), and the railroad that made one of my favorite paint schemes for diesels (Santa Fe). A lot of times it gets shortened to "Darth" or "DSF," I guess mostly because it's so long, so the shortened names would be easier to type.

[Anonymous]

First is Fred last starts with a K.  Go by FredK almost everywhere except Altas somehow that got messed up years ago when the first computer blew up.

[WCfan]

I came up with my name beacuse I model, and rail fan the Wisconsin Central (WC). But don't be fooled by the name, I also like Soo Line.

[Gandy Dancer]

This thread runs quite often.   I can't find a screen name I like.  I keep trying different things at every opportunity but no luck yet.  All my D&D character names don't seem appropriate.  Maybe it is because I like my real name so well and can't use that.  Someday Gandy Dancer will give way to something way cool.  Maybe it will take a game or two of Railyard Wars to find a good name to use.

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/689176/ShowPost.aspx

[Printer]

I have to chuckle about this.
I guess I've explained this in another post but a Printer is what I am.

My born name is Scott and friends have called me Scooter for more than 35 years. Scooter was already in use here. We have a Scott running around here somewhere too, but I really don't care for using that name. I was 22 years old before I ran into anyone else with the name of Scott. I hated it. When a teacher would walk into the class room and call SCOTT, I knew it was me. We had 25 BOB's but only one Scott.

So to sign this with a name...
Scooter (Scoot)

[myred02]

Well, mine is a little different. I'm named after my car! You see, I have a red 2002 Chevrolet Camaro. It's mine, it's red, and it's "02" for short. I got my first screename on a car website, and I figured I'd keep it for other sites.

Here's a picture.

Pretty good for a 17 year old, eh? And hey, if you want to race me sometime, meet me on the Hopkinsville dragstrip, *ahem* I mean "Ft. Campbell Boulevard"  here in Kentucky.

-Ricola (otherwise known as Brandon, my inner circle just calls me that sometimes cause I look Sweedish with my blonde hair lol)

 

 

[tgindy]

The last name is Swiss heritage with thirteen letters, Gindlesperger, and I learned early-on that many high school scholars couldn't pronounce it correctly let alone spell a name including 1/3 of the alphabet.  So, it became Gindy.

There are two other ways we describe it...

1st, what is Gindlesperger spelled backwards?  Answer:  "Ridiculous."

2nd, when asked if the last name is German...  the answer is...  we heard our ancestors were Irish, and they were told by Customs to take off the O' because our last name was way too long. 

[ouengr]

OUENGR 

OU = The University of Oklahoma

ENGR = Engineer

I graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Oklahoma 

[mathman47]

I use to use just "mathman", but I had a hard drive starting to go and had to set-up a lot of user names new.  Unfortunately, my son got there first and started calling me "mathman47," instead of just mathman.  I use mathman because I have a B.S. in math and a M.B.A in Quantitative Methods and Analysis, which used to be called Operations Research.  Needless to say, this requires a lot of math.  My university doesn't even off this major anymore!  The 47 comes from my year of birth, 1947.  Whenever I sign-up for something new, I usually find that mathman is already taken.  Guess people like the moniker.  P.S.:  I am a retired manager from EMD, and if you have to ask what EMD stands for, you have the wrong hobby!

[csmith9474]

I will give everybody one guess why many call me Smitty. The csmith9474 is just some generic garbage that I started with because I didn't plan on being on this board that much. Oh well.

 

 

[railroadyoshi]

railroad...well, err...well, you see, I thought of the word "railroad" after many weeks at a covert underground lab deep in the White Mountains...

Yoshi, that's my alias. Back in the day (the day being a few years ago), I had an obsession for a puffy green video game dinosaur named Yoshi. 

[tomikawaTT]

My handle is actually the short form of the name of my original, freelance Japanese prototype model railroad.  The Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo (Tomikawa Valley Railway) dates from my birthday in 1960, and a gift of a Japanese prototype steam loco from the young lady who would become my wife later that year.  (I still have both the wife and the locomotive.)  The discovery of my favored prototype, railroad (Japan National Railways) and location (upper Kiso Valley) had to wait for a second dour of duty in Japan, as the date indicates.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[leighant]

My last name is Anthony, not a terribly unusual name, chances are there are other people who would use same name as part of username.  Not unique.  However, my middle name is "Leigh".  Sounds like "Lee" but less common spelling.  Vivian Leigh was popular star when I born...  SoI use leighant for a username not so likely to be duplicated.

[conrail92]

Conrail92 aka Conrailv92

Let's break them down.

Conrail-92

   Conrail: A railroad company I like.

   92: My favorite Number
 

Conrail-V-92 

   Conrail: A railroad company I like.

   V: My intitial of my last name. Also Favorite Letter. 

   92: Favorite Number.

[MisterBeasley]

When I was a Boy Scout, I achieved the lofty title of Junior Assistant Scoutmaster.  That entitled me to a name tag, which was first-initial-last-name: B. Leslie.  My train buddy, who had the nickname "fungus," did some scrambling and started calling me L. Beasley.  This name, acquired in middle school (The School Formerly Known as Junior High) has followed me until as many people know me as "Beasley" as do my real name, Bruce.  I've had this nickname for 45 years now.

Mrs. Beasley, by the way, was the name of the little girl's doll in some old sit-com that I didn't watch.  The most obscure Beasley was Mrs. Drysdale's chauffer on The Beverly Hillbillies.

[wm3798]

See the picture at the bottom of this post.

3798 was re-numbered by the henchmen at CSX in 1983, and as 6573 was the last locomotive on the CSX roster to still wear her original Western Maryland heraldry (except for the sloppy numbering....)  At a WMRHS convention, the good guys applied the new number in the proper WM script, and touched up the nose herald, as well.   I believe that's when the tag "The Last Western Maryland Diesel" was put on the battery boxes as well.  Anyway, a short time later, Chessie's goons patched out the original looking numbers again, and slapped their far less authentic version back on.  Anyhoo, 6573 - nee 3798 soldiered on into the 1990's, being retired without ever having to endure wearing the Cat Leisure Suit, or any CSX paint scheme.  She was sold to some shortline in the midwest, which gave her a thorough overhaul, and finally a fresh coat of their paint scheme.

I think of myself as something of a hold-out, so I chose to use this venerable number as my handle.

 

Lee 

[UP2CSX]

I'm from California and my favorite railroad was the (old) UP. Left California a few years ago when my wife died. I was lucky enough to find the second love on my life here in Alabama. No UP down here but the CSX runs through town. Hence, UP to CSX.

[selector]

In my latter military career, I was a Personnel Selection Officer (PSO).  The specialty was part of the wider work done by the branch of Military Psychologists, which included applied psych research, teaching, recruiting policy, departure programs (for those leaving/retiring), and selection*.  When I was considering joining the forum, I had learned a bit about DC ops and found that there is such a thing as a selector.  Personnel Selection, selector.  What are the odds?

*This process involved several facets of military psychology, but under the auspices of the greater Industrial/Organizational Psych.  We would do the research to validate selection tests, and then use them to predict success in primary or basic training, or for specialized employment, such as on submarines, for the Joint Task Force (special ops...the secret squirrels), Search and Rescue, and so on.  So, a person comes to me, with permission from his CO, and wants an occupation transfer.  He has served in the Combat Arms for a minimum of three years, and wants to be a transport driver, a Medical Assistant, a Search and Rescue Tech, whatever.  I was the selecting officer who would rate the person's candidacy in terms of potential, but mostly his chance of not wasting a training space and have him//her fail partway through only because of a lack of aptitude.  The other factors that might contribute to failure are not often foreseeable, so not measured.  Also, they are poor predictors of success anyway.  As is the MBTI, for those who know what that is.  And FWIW, the grad entrance exams in most cases are not strong predictors of success.

[larak]

The name of one of my first RPG characters. I first thought of it while looking in a mirror.

Karl (spelled backwards sounds like ...)