Names, Nicknames, and Their Origins

[Otohiko]

1. My mom named me mostly. My dad originally wanted to call me Ivan (I would've then been born Ivan Andreevich Krylov, but it was settled that I would be named after my late great-grandfather. He was a doctor (as well as a field surgeon during WWII) and according to relatives he indeed had a similar personality to me. He was rather intelligent and wanted to write books and memoirs, but by the end of his life had only written a couple of pages. On the other hand he was a real family man and was loved by his children and grandchildren. Didn't take life more seriously than he had to. He was also known as a very jolly vodka drinker.
I like my name, never really had an issue with it. It seems like Georgiy/Georgy is a pretty rare name for people my age (never met another George yet who was less than 50 years old), so it always immediately stuck with people. For some reason people never called me by my last name.


2. For most of my life, most of everyone I communicated with (in Russian) always called me not by my full name but by the dimunitive version of it, Gosha. That's what I consider my actual name, really. I wish it didn't sound so silly in English.
There is another dimunitive version of it in Russian, Zhora, which I absolutely despise because it resembles the word for "glutton". People should never call me that. Otherwise there's tons of other sub-dimunitives that can be derived from Gosha, and I'd been called lots of those. Goha (my brother's preferred variant), Goshara, Gosharik, Goshan and even Gohan (lol) came up pretty often.
As a result, always had a lot of nicknames in Russian that started with G. Gus' (Goose), Gusenitsa (Caterpillar), Gashish (Hashish) were some of those.
Some of the more exotic ones would be Chingachgook the Great Worm (by my karate sensei, because I would always get kicked down to the floor then not get up) and of course the Mayor of Crotchtown (uh, ask Ileia).

I don't really like making up nicknames for people, not sure why, though I pick them up pretty easily.
One thing that people probably don't know though is that since I think in Russian a lot, I often Russify names of my friends when I think about them. I just don't tell them cause they sound dumb in English.

3. Otohiko came from a sort of merger between my old nick (Otoko no Hito, "man" in Japanese) and Love Hina character Otohime Mutsumi. Although it is an actual Japanese first name. I like it cause it's relatively unique as far as nicknames go, but also kinda sticks. I don't mind being called Oto, and I answer to Oto about as well as George, when I'm around .org people. I don't really have a preference between the two to be honest, although it seems like over the last couple of years most of the .org people I know in real life have permanently switched to George.

[LantisEscudo]

1. Who named you? Why did they pick that name? Does it mean anything special? Do you like your name? (If not, what would you want to be?)

I'm pretty sure my mother picked it out, though I don't know the reasoning behind it. I do remember one story she told where she claimed one criteria for all of her kids names (me and my three brothers) was that if she had to shout it in a public location, it wouldn't sound stupid.

Some "meaning of your name" places claim it means "gifted," but I don't put much stock in that stuff. Symbolism is all well and good for fictional characters, but trying to apply it to real people is pretty stupid. The only part of my name I'm not entirely happy with is my last name, since is seems to be impossible to spell by anyone in this state, unless I'm literally standing over their shoulder dictating it (everyone wants to swap two letters' positions).

2. What about nicknames? What do people call you? Do you have any interesting nicknames for anyone else?

I generally go by the shortened form of my real name, though I answer to both that and my full name. I despise the diminutive "Mikey" and refuse to answer to it. A small group of people also call me "stat boy" for my behind-the-camera work on a local sports show for the last several years (mostly the crew of the show and a couple of the regular callers).

I'm pretty much crap at coming up with nicknames for anyone else (or even myself), so I don't bother. I go by what everyone else is calling them, usually.

3. What about your username(s)? Does anyone call you by a username in "real life"?

My username is actually my second here, though I wasn't a very active participant with my first one (JHU Battousai). I came up with it by mashing two proper nouns from my favorite series together (Magic Knight Rayearth) like a full name. Bashar and some of the other New England editors call me by that (or at least the first half), but I generally have the rule of thumb that my real name is for real life, my username is for online; immediate family and cons are the two exceptions.

[Prodigi]

One thing that people probably don't know though is that since I think in Russian a lot, I often Russify names of my friends when I think about them. I just don't tell them cause they sound dumb in English.

I'm curious to hear some of them :O

1. I'm the youngest. My brother was the second child and the first boy, and my mother loved the name Callan and wanted to call him that. My dad hated it and made her a deal that the first born boy would be Andrew, and the second son could be Callan, fully intending to never have a third child/second son. Hello? (this story irks me since I've always hated my name and I was so close to avoiding it)

2. I pretty much kept it as Callan for most of my life until the last few years when I've shortened it to Cal. Over the last few years I've been called Jesse a lot (particularly when I was in Chicago at the same time as other Cal) which is a shortening of "Jessica", which I think Aes was the first to dub me? Either her or Ileia. Some people such as Yue still just call me Jessica anyway :p I've taken to Jesse a lot. Thinking about legally changing my first name to Jesse and making Cal my middle name.

2. In terms of username most people shorten Prodigi to Prod, and previously iProd.

[godix]

1. Who named you? Why did they pick that name? Does it mean anything special? Do you like your name? (If not, what would you want to be?)

Esmeralda: What is your name?
Butch: Butch.
Esmeralda: What does it mean?
Butch: I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean shit.

That being said, for the last several generations there's been a tradition of switching middle and first names. EG Great great grandfather was X Y, great grandfather was Y X, grandfather was X Y, dad is Y X, and I'm X Y. I don't like my middle name, so even if I do have male children this tradition will be stopping. And no, I will not be saying what my middle name is. I know the org, if I did then that's all anyone here would call me.

I have no idea where my first name came from, but even though I don't like my middle name it has a cool story behind it. *WAY* back when, there was a pirate in my bloodline. Not a music downloader, but a real honest to god walk the plank type pirate. He wasn't one of the famous ones that anyone would have heard of though. He raided English ships and, considering politics at the time, my family took pride in that. Early on, males got his name as their middle name in tribute. Hundreds of years later, the moronic X Y - Y X thing got started.

2. What about nicknames? What do people call you? Do you have any interesting nicknames for anyone else?

I've always introduced myself with the full name Robert, so that's what most people call me. I don't comment or complain if Rob is used. I usually do not even acknowledge the person was speaking to me if any other name is used. The only exception is a girlfriend I had a long long time ago who picked a cute rhyming nickname (which I won't say for the same reason I won't say my middle name). However, she sucked my dick regularly so I didn't get violent about it. Although she did stop calling me that when I told her I'd nickname her 'whore' if she kept using it.

For other people, I generally call them whatever they introduced themselves as. Generally I figure that's what they want to be called. For example, my wife introduces herself as Cat rather than Catherine, so I don't think I have ever called her by her proper name. That's in speaking.

In writing, I tend to shorten a lot of peoples names. It's not uncommon for me to pick somewhat insulting names to call others as well, it's especially amusing when other people pick up on it and call them that too. I also remember calling someone Two Tabs for reasons that I'm sure made sense at the time.

3. What about your username(s)? Does anyone call you by a username in "real life"?

I almost never talk verbally to people I meet online, so I rarely hear anyone actually saying my username. The times I have heard it, no one says it right (usually go-dix or god-iks). Oddly, the few times I say it I don't get it right either (I tend towards god eye eks). I imagine most people online would use my username if they were speaking to/about me. My real name isn't secret, but it's not common for people to use it online either.

[Nessephanie]

One thing that people probably don't know though is that since I think in Russian a lot, I often Russify names of my friends when I think about them. I just don't tell them cause they sound dumb in English.

I'm curious to hear some of them :O.

Me too, I wanna know what mine would be

1. My legal name is Lisa, no one but my family, or people who've met me through my family call me that. Originally I was going to be named Larissa (a female version of my dads name, Larry) but somehow that turned into Lisa by the time I was born (I do wish I'd been named it since my dad has passed even though I never saw myself as a Larissa). I never had a problem with Lisa other then I find it kinda plain, for the last 7 years or so I've wanted to legally change my first name to Elisabeth cause I think it's prettier (and still has Lisa in it), I plan to change it after I'm done with US immigration stuff.

2. Most people call me Liz and it's the name I prefer (though as I said I don't mind people calling me my legal name, it just feels very formal now compared). I get called Nessie by people in the amv community and I like it, it's cute. When I was younger I had various nicknames that have since passed like Lizard or Babydoll. My auntie calls me Midget cause I'm short.
I use the common nicknames for some of my org friends (like Kit and Moonie/Mewn) but for most I use a combination of real names and usernames depending (usually real names). I call Brad, babe but that's about it. Oh, and I call Kit, Kitkat.

3. Everywhere online I'm Nessephanie, it's a name I created myself when thinking of an RP character and it stuck. I'm the first and pretty much only nessephanie around. (I think I've had one person take the name for some website lol). People only call me my full nickname when they don't know me well, everyone else refers to me as Nessie if they're going to use my online name.

[ZephyrStar]

(Removed at the request of the poster - GloryQuestor)

[Ileia]

You forgot about Chaise! /me faints

[ngsilver]

1.
I don't think any one parent decided on my name, it was basically a joint effort. They picked the name Nathaniel because it came from the Bible and it meant "Gift of God" based on the Hebrew translation/meaning. My family is very religious so the choice doesn't surprise me. Though I do remember my mom saying that she picked my name because it sounds important in a business setting but can be shortened for personal dealings, which is why around home I'm known as Nathan. Since my parents wanted to also have a piece of themselves in the names of me and my siblings (it's kind of a tradition I guess) I got my father's middle name, Gene, my sister got my mother's middle name, Lynn, and my brother got my dad's first name as his middle name, Randell.

When I was younger I hated my name and wanted to legally shorten it but now I respect it for what it is and what it was meant to be. I still don't enjoy being called it, mostly because I associate someone using my real name as meaning I'm in trouble since that's what my parents would call me when they were mad at me. The extent to which they would use my full name (1st name, 1st + middle, full name) determined how pissed they were, but beyond that I don't mind it too much.

2.
As far as nicknames go I generally have 2 that get used, Nate and Nathan. I didn't really start answering to Nate and using it until I moved back to Michigan and introduced myself as Nathan to a few people who later dubbed me Nate. In HS my nickname was my last name.

I don't really have any real interesting names for other people. I don't tend to refer to others by their name in person so I often also don't really learn someone's name for a while either. I call my fiance Ruu but she's the one who told me about that since her name's Ruth and she goes by Ruu-chan online. Though, due to the sheer number of Chris's I know me and my friends have nick names to distinguish between them (asian chris, squirley chris, tech chris, other chris, female chris, chris with boobs, ect.)

3.
As I've said many times my username is a mixture of my real name. It started out as a pen name, N. G. Silver, but for online use I shortened it to just ngsilver or NGSilver. Generally people will shorten it to just NG but from time to time people use Silver when talking to me, though the use of Silver confuses me because I think they're talking to other people. A few people have called me engy or engie too, since that's kind of how you'd write out NG if you were pronouncing it. IRL I do sometimes get people calling me NG but rarely ngsilver. Though mostly people only call me that if they've never met me in person and heard me refer to myself as Nate.

[Kitsuner]

I also remember calling someone Two Tabs for reasons that I'm sure made sense at the time.

Pressing D and then tab twice used to bring dj_ultima's name up in the IRC.

[Kosmit]

1. Who named you? Why did they pick that name? Does it mean anything special? Do you like your name? (If not, what would you want to be?)

My name is Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz.
Seriously though, my parents named me Jan (pronounced Yan for all you english speakers), which is a polish equivalent of John. As to why I was called that, well, there's actually a story behind it. My older sister is called Małgorzata (Margaret) and my parents thought it would be cute and/or funny to call me Jan. This probably doesn't make any sense to any of you so let me explain. "Jas i Malgosia" (that's one of the many ways you can call me and my sister) is the polish title of the famous fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel...

2. What about nicknames? What do people call you? Do you have any interesting nicknames for anyone else?

I never had any nicknames. The main reason for that is probably the fact that I hardly needed any - throughout my whole life I've never met anyone my age with the same name, so there was no possibility of confusing me with someone else. The name is getting popular again nowadays, but for some reason it wasn't often used in my generation. As to what people call me - usually it's Jasiek or Jachu. The second one sounds particularly funny to english speakers since it sounds very similar to yahoo.

3. What about your username(s)? Does anyone call you by a username in "real life"?

I started using the nickname Kosmit quite recently, courtesy of my brother-in-law. He was writing an article on his blog and said something about aliens there. He posted my pic with the text 'Kosmit?' (bastardised version of the word 'kosmita' meaning extraterrestial) on it along with the article. For some reason I liked it and it stuck. Oh, and that very photo is now my profile pic/ Nobody really calls me by my nickname except for the polish AMV community.