Something that's fascinateded me for some time is where everyone acquires their names (having seen some of the interesting usernames here and other groups/boards).

How did you get/find/get given/make up your username?

I'll start the ball rolling:

reason 1: I originally wanted horsedancer as an aol email address, but it was taken, so I was mulling over what to use instead, staring out of the window. At a hawthorn tree. Hawthorns have been important to me since childhood, when I spend most of my free time in a nearby hawthorn wood. Also, I look to Rhiannon (Welsh, associated with horses) so horses have been quite important too (and I have been around horses when I was young). The two things blended in a strangely meaningful way.

reason 2: (actually a specific example of 1) Last-but-one time I was in Cymru, we camped at a farm called Yr Ynys y Draenen Wen (The isle in the white thorn) and they had a retired pit pony who liked to visit in your tent (ours was quite large, luckily) for breakfast. horse + thorn again. Synchronicity?

reason 3: It's unusual.

reason 4: you can get quite a few anagrams from it (short heron is my favourite at the moment).

So that's me. horsethorn.

How's about yous?

blessongs
ht

it's a rock.

I like rocks.

and the name found me before I even knew what Galena was.

Esk Smith is a discworld character, a witch in training and caught between two types of magic, this combined with it also being a river that runs through this part of the world (not Aberdeen itself, but not far) and a distinct lack of imagination became my online ID when I was faced with having to make one for Yahoo, it's now become such a part of who I am that some of my 'real life' friends call me Esk by accident sometimes! I've never liked or suited or my real name so I take Esk with me wherever I go.
Once I start my course next month I'll start silversmithing too, so I'll be Esk (the) Smith!

I have a special liking for rowan trees despite the folk myth of protection from witches (!) and Alba is Gaelic for Scotland....then I found out a voluntary agency is using it too...supported accommodation for vulnerable women ...not quite sure what to make of that!

Okay, so don't laugh (some of the older members will remember this), when I first joined UKP I was not pagan, I was curious (after all living with a norsie who's followed his path for over 18 years your bound to be curious).

My initial name was "Taffette" - the female version of Taffy.

Anyway after about 3 months decided that didn't represent who I was and I changed it to Welshwytch - after all - I'm Welsh and I am a witch.

Blessings


Welshwytch

Stenness is the huge neolithic sacred complex of circles, standing stones and passage tombs on Orkney - my favourite place in my favourite part of Britain.

More importantly it was during a meditation at the Stones of Stenness that I finally admitted that I was pagan right throught like the word stenness through a stick of rock !

'Freebird' by Lynyrd Skynyrd. My all time favourite rock track (especially the extended 9 minute version ).

Its a name I've used for more years than I care to remember, for all sorts of things, so it just came automatically when I needed to pick a user name.

A friend on a swedish mailinglist suggested this name for me and I instantly liked it. She knew that my totem is the deer and I had told her of my encounters with it during journeying (sp?). He is a handsome, proud and courageous animal and I´m trying to learn to be more like that myself. Sounds a bit silly... but there it is!
Anyway, it felt just right, and it is in honour of "my" deer.

To quote the great, the one and only Morrissey; "If I seem a little strange... well, that´s because I am"!

Blessed be

Deerheart

weatherwitch came about from my old neighbour. In the good old days when I could cut my own lawn, I had the miraculous ability to bring out the lawn mower on a clear blue skied, cloudless, hot sunny day, and have it rain in minutes - guaranteed My neighbour knew I collected witchy ornaments and coined the term 'that bloody weatherwitch' I needed an online name and weatherwitch seemed perfect even though he never knew I was Pagan

quite basically read it backwards

well mines fairly simply....I'm SCOTTISH.......I love watching the MOON...and i'm a bit of a DREAMER..put em all together and wat have you got??SCOTTISHMOONDREAMER!!! lololol...sorry it isnt anything exciting or interesting

It's one London's many hidden rivers.

Pasher was a brand of cigarettes many years ago (before the computer was invented, and before I was born I hastily add ) For some reason when I needed a screen name for sites like this, the name sprang into my mind.
Being a lazy sod at heart, I just stick with the same name on just about all the sites I visit.

Pasher.

I've often wondered about yours Pasher, it's unusual

Mine is the name of the goddess of love in the Medalon/Harshini books by Jennifer Fallon
And, as I've said before, the reason I picked her name was more along the lines of her habit of appearing as a small child, in order to gain lots of hugs, than her coercive, troublemaking attitude, and I think all speculation on that point should cease immediately!

When I first got into paganism, I went to a pagan chatroom and had to have
a name and Whisperedwind, just came to me. Which is always right and special, to me, when things like that happen..

and that was that, and its suits me well, tho many would say I'm more of a tornado then a whisper!! lol

Blessings Whispered~

Faith has been my nickname since 1995 when I was at school and my friends had the online nicknames charity and hope. It's stuck with me through many changes in my own beliefs, and seems almost a part of me now.

Faith was, at one rebellious teenage stage, my alterego , but if you want to know about her, you'll have to ask me

Perhaps the most boring explanation ever. Ready? Okay. Oxon - abbreviation for Oxfordshire which is where I live. Pagan - me!

OxonPagan.

Many thanks for everyone's input - Isn't it amazing the range of reasons we pick (up) names!

I've also recently discovered that 'horse thorn' is a plant that grows on the Siberian plains!

Hope to read many more

Diolch y fawr
ht

oh i wish i'd thought harder bout a name!!!!!!!!mr chazza comes from..my wife was on a non smoking chatroom..she called herself chazza..short for our cats name charlie...when she got talking bout me..i became mrchazza...i used it first to sign up to ebay..i had to come up with a nic quick...when i was registering here....i panicked..damn ..i need a nic..interesting..thoughtfull..meaningfull..and in the end.......well..i guess when i think of a better one theres a way to change it....

ps....im not as shallow as i sound.......honest

mrchazza

Being named after the family cat is fine by me

Well I suppose Lunar is a bit of a give away It's just that when I look at the moon it just takes my breath away and I find it so inspirational.
My email is Psyche I love the idea of Eros = love & Psyche = soul.....joining together, bringing the love and soul together ........wonderful

Me, well I love anything Purple and we all have the Goddess in us one way or another. They even had my name down as Purple on the tills at work for a while and my boyf calls me his sexy little Goddess!

Well I got my name because a friend of mine said that my aura is like an electrical storm and I always dress in black like a raven.

Storm Raven

mine is because my nickname used to be badger, or badgerboy.

All of my online usernames are either badger, badgerboy, or thebadgerboy.

On the last UKP, badger and badgerboy (i think) were taken, and so I stuck moon in front of it for no reason except that I saw the graphic of the moon at the top of the page.

I hated it and thought it was so fluffy it could almost be mooncosmicdolphin, but when the valley came along I got to change it to badger

Oh, I've got loads of online names, although Elswyth and Freyaulfsdottir are the two most common.

Elswyth

a. I like the meaning 'elf from the willow trees'.
b. I like the sound of the name
c. I was trying to learn anglo saxon at the time and had a fascination with all things AS.

Freyaulfsdottir

a. this is the oldest screen name I have. I've been Freyaulfsdottir since 97 when I first got email access at college.
b. I know a lot of people think that naming yourself after a deity is pretentious but that wasn't my intention. Freyja was the first deity (other than the Earth Mother) that I dedicated myself to. I wanted to name myself in a version of her name but always spell the Vanadis's name with that extra J. I saw it as a way of honouring the Lady Freyja. The ulfsdottir bit is from my father's and my own animal guide. We both have wolf guides (either that or there is just one wolf that looks out for us both) and I'm his daughter. I've had Icelandic people msg me online before now thinking that I was icelandic because of my online name!

Same really! Rhiana for Rhiannon the welsh goddess that first came to me as I climbed back onto the pagan path.
Nickname -
DDM - dinky dark mistress DONT ASK!

Hi
Morrigan is an Irish goddess of war and sexuality.My ancestors on my mothers side came from Ireland,I'm interested in the celts and I'm an independant women who can look after herself.As for the sex bit,I haven't got round to that yet and I'm not going to say any-more as I'm going to embarrass myself otherwise.

Morrigan

I just based my new name on the Anglo-Saxon name for Thor. That, in turn, was inspired by my finding out that my birthday is the day sacred to The Thunderer, and my IRL name of Carl is a name that was used as one of Thor's nicknames.

T

I was at a loss when it came to an online name, everything I thought of was taken. I'd always loved the Klimt picture, and to me it had become symbolic of freedom. I had a print that my sister had given me stuffed in the back of my wardrobe and I wanted to be in a position in my life where I was able to put it up, not be told, "that ugly woman wanking is never going up in my house, hear me." (It really wasn't worth trying to explain.) The choice of Danae as a name was a hope for the future. First thing I did when I got a house of my own, before I even made a cuppa there, was to hang the print in my room and thank the Goddess I'd made it so far!

erm...it's my name! lol

Mine is because I am a witch, and I live in a hedge just kidding In my naivety when I 1st exploreed Paganism I thought a Hedgewitch ws a solitary witch I now know it is much more and areas which I am exploring

I use this name on quite a few forums so to change it would be a real pain so it shall stay.

Hope that made some sense

I started getting heavily into punk way back in '77. Lost my way for a while and then a couple of years ago started listening to the newer stuff and going to gigs. Mamma comes from the fact that when I go to gigs there are a lot of teenagers that have adopted me as their surrogate mum. They come to me and ask for advice (teens won't listen to their own parents I've found), use me as a sounding board, etc. I'm often found with about 10 of them all yammering around me. About to become grandma-punk in October when my daughter- from- another mother has her baby. She's my son's best friend and adopted me about five years ago. Can't wait.

Drachenfach is a name I've had for about five years now, since I first seriously began to explore the path. I wanted something to reflect the fact that I liked dragons, but I didn't want to to go the whole 'wiged pixie moonbeam firebreather' route. I also wanted it to reflect the fact that i love different languages, and to honour my roots, both welsh and anglosaxon

So Drachen- dragon in german (as I didn't speak OE at the time)

Fach- welsh for small (feminine) as I'm a: female and b: not dragon sized

It's pronounced DRA ken vaK

Simple really. It's been through a few changes over the years, but I like it too much to want to change it, and I use it everywhere

Hi all

Twilight because it's that time between light and dark, between sleep and awake... My favorite time ...... and Dreamer because at the time I started looking at Pagan chat forums etc, I was having the most vivid and amazing dreams ...

Twilightdreamer

There was already a Twilightdreamer on Hotmail (I was not amused)
So I added my birth year to the end of my name

TwilightDreamer1979

TD.x.

(and I use "TD" Because my username is such a mouthfull lol)

Polar bears have always appealed to me. I like the way they look cute but are actually rather ferocious predators. I also drink the occasional beer, so it seemed like a decent name!

I got mine out of 17th century cornish dictionary. It basically means cat of the woods, or wildcat.

Several reasons really, I got the word stuck in brain after reading that dictionary, I needed a user name and that one seem to sit well with me, I tend be some what of a loner, solitary, anti-social, secretive, etc like a (scottish) wild cat and lots more little reasons which I won't go into. And the line in the old poem "I was the spotted cat in the tree" resonates with me.

This is so interesting! I have learned loads reading your replies. Thanks!


Deerheart

Wow, some really fascinating explanations. Personally I made mine up tho I have been told it means "Whisper of the Wolf" or something along those lines. Not to sure.
To be honest this isn't my regular nick but I wanted a new one for some forums so that I could be masked in a sense that way I can learn without anyone asking "what are you looking at that for"
So bring forth the knowledge
Thanks to Horsethorn for starting this thread, very interesting

Rainbowfairy really seems to fit me perfectly - I luv Rainbows - I collect anything Rainbow coloured and I also collect fairies! I think Rainbows have a very Spring feel to em, my fav season is Spring, I'm a Spring Baby and I just think Rainbows are beautiful but rare. The colours them self are significant as they represent my personality, moods and emotions! I find fairies to be quiet, fragile, vulnerable but magical and interesting, kinda of how I see myself!

I don't use this name on very many sites cos it's very special and personal to me as it is my Wiccan name!

Well I hope that helps - I can't fully explain it because my Username has so many layers!

Blessed Be! Rainbowfairy!

Rainbow Fairy - Are you old enough to remember the Rainbow Bright dolls?

TD.x.

Oh, i do! I thought I was the only one...

No, I do too. There are Rainbow Bright t-shirts in America and the year before last I went to an 80's fancy dress christmas party and dressed up as her. The younger people didn't have a clue who I was!!