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Your Name on Barbelith

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10:55 / 24.01.03

I've been thinking about this for some time whilst reading past topics and posts and looking at who says what and how they go about it. As different "personalities" are evinced I wondered about the choice of names for these personalities - regardless of whether they mirror your "true" personality or not.

I'd just like to make a pre-emptive statement to the effect that this is not a personal attack on anyone or their choice of name on Barbelith.

That said; I have noticed that people's choice of names on Barbelith reflects their identity to a degree. This may in part be owing to me as a reader bestowing certain characteristics on you the writer and if this is true, the only `sign post' I have for this is your name and previous posts.

However, I think that people choosing their respective names is something quite different and much more important in so far as how you want to be perceived. After all you write what you say under this assumed name - the name came first!

When you meet someone you automatically take stock of them - whether you like it or not - right or wrong, you take stock and you act on these first impressions, even if you are more than willing to keep an open mind and be possibly proved wrong. This includes things like their physical appearance, how they talk, their clothes, and their name.

Now - as Barbelith is on the internet, most of these impressions are taken away, and so we are left with what you say, how you say it, and you're name. And as one can choose their name, I contend that we choose them because we wish to be perceived in a certain way. What I'm interested in is what led you to name yourself what you did? What factors did you include in your decision? Was it even that much of a deal, or more like "ah, that sounds good"? and if so why did it sound good to you? Did you think having such a name would lead you to be perceived in a certain way?

11:10 / 24.01.03

Not at all

12:03 / 24.01.03

funny. I do like that. well done.

12:17 / 24.01.03

Hey, Jub - I've been thinking of starting this same thread for a while, well done! Having read through most of the Fictionsuit thread on ?Headshop or ?Magik, I still couldn't find any clues as to what gave people the idea for their original 'name'.

So...I'd been lurking at Barbelith for quite a while thinking How can I join, how can I join, then in December I found I could finally register! I was so excited that I couldn't think up a name, so I looked to the left of the PC for inspiration. Spilled Drink - no, Pile Of CDs - no, '80s Curtains - no. Then, looking at the radiator I got my inspiration: a pair of my son's pyjamas hanging there to dry, black with stars, planets, spaceships, astronauts and the name Cosmic Kid. Well, that seemed to lack a certain gravitas, so Cosmicjamas I became.

Hattie's Kitchen

12:35 / 24.01.03

Well, i put a minimal amount of effort into my fiction suit - it all started off with an in-joke at work concerning the dietary habits of Hattie Jacques..sometime later I began to lurk on Barbelith and then a few months later I joined, and Hattie's Kitchen was the first thing to pop into my head - the "man and fish" bit came from a quote George Dubya allegedly made, and I find this very believable, stating: "I see no reason why man and fish cannot co-exist peacefully"...I have absolutely no idea what context this was made in, and was unaware that mankind and fish had been engaged in such a power struggle. So there you have it.

12:55 / 24.01.03

This name (and if you're mis-reading it allow me to introdue Mr Adam Swish) has been my internet alias sine 1998. Anything I'm signed up to on this wonderful medium is under this name (apart from the stuff to get me employment, bad enough getting to the employers without having to explain what they would see as a "comedy" name).

The origins of Adam come from an attempt to go into self-publishing and make "someone else" the editor, and a bastardisation of Madame Swish.

Five long years I've gone under the name of Swish and it's got to the point where he is making his presence known in other parts of my world too. The little sod has even got himself a starring role in the on-line novel I'm currently writing, pushing the original character I had to second billing within the story.

As to whether it reflects my online personality I don't know. To be honest I don't think there is that much difference between how I type here and what I say out there in "3-D land" (to quote Daffy Duck). I have the same thoughts, principals and ideas where ever I am.

14:12 / 24.01.03

The question posed in this thread is an egregious offence to decency and symmetry.

Your ever-loving working boy,

Ignatius.

:-)

14:25 / 24.01.03

Adam Swish? Really? I always read it like Adam's wish. Gosh.

Whisky Priestess

14:46 / 24.01.03

Yeah, I was never entirely sure myself. But then I spent the first 5 Discworld books mentally pronouncing Rincewind's name with 2 hard "i"s.

Damn. I have just revealed that I occasionally read Terry Pratchett. Please don't burn me alive.

As for my name, I just thought it sounded cool, plus I have a liking for whisky and altar boys. The Whisky Priest is a story by Graham Greene, and also refers to a man of God who does not practise what he preaches, so it seemed a nice name that would let me be a big hypocrite and a sly lit-ref know-it-all at the same time. There have been other threads on this topic and I think I probably gave a completely different answer last time, but for now that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

14:53 / 24.01.03

Cholister, you're not alone. Although I was surprised the first time someone mentioned the alternative reading.

My own fault I guess that I don't use spaces in my internet name.

Damn. I have just revealed that I occasionally read Terry Pratchett. Please don't burn me alive.

I'd be more worried that you've read five of them Whiskey.

15:30 / 24.01.03

Well, when I decided to join I was casting about for a name, and the first thing I could think of was the one of my favourite albums - I suppose this has the factor that it's recognisable to other people into Hip Hop, but this wasn't intended as a real major benefit.

Now that this serves a basic point of recognition, all the other bollocks I keep adding onto it is simply a pathetic, and probably useless attempt to be funny.

I am attached to it though - maybe the generally light-hearted ton undercuts some of the more portenous posts I write in the Magick forum. Hope so.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:32 / 24.01.03

I'm with Chol on the whole mis-mental-pronunciation thing adams... or I suppose I should call you "Mr Swish".

Mine? Stoatie was an imaginary Biggles character I came up with many years ago... I thought using his name would give me some of his flair and panache, but it didn't. (Although I do have a scarf.) Then, as so often happens, the moomins got involved. Then some crazy foo' posted a link to a "Which Dictator Are You?" test. Thus Chairman Maominstoat was born.

(And btw... I know it's not in my name anymore, but afaik- having missed the Archers for most of the last week- Brian Aldridge is still a wanker.)

Dances with Gophers

15:37 / 24.01.03

A colleague once jokingly called me Dances with Gophers after a ground squirel tried to nick a sandwich from my mouth. I tend to pop up from my hole occasionally to post on the board.

pointless and uncalled for

18:10 / 24.01.03

In the late eighteen hundreds there was a progressive politician that was able to divine that all poverty stemmed from social discourse on the importance of Andalucian pipe music. Now whether he was right or wrong was never proven owing to the proliferation of small underwear but what is important is the nessecity of onions in soup which clearly ties in with the median here.

Quite obvious really but as you asked I thought I should clarify.

18:35 / 24.01.03

Stoatie - I was prompted to look up the Dora Suarez reference on Google. The first reference contains the immoral phrase:

"... the fun starts at coprophagy (if you have to ask, you don't want to know) and necrophilia, and moves up from there."

A very subtle description of the (almost) saying "Eat sh*t and f*ck the dead". Very dexterous change of fiction suit...?

18:41 / 24.01.03

I was born 20odd years ago and after some basic few, harmonic years with my mother, the cyberentity that is my father came from the future to try and cure me of a techno cancer, that threatened to devour me alive. Without going into specifics, I was allowed to tag along to the future, where I was taught the best from Ashanti's school for gifted, chromatic students. Something was not right about the fabric of reality, and I was commissioned to investigate the cause in our current time but along the way, something went horribly wrong. The timetrip blew up, undoubtedly tinkered with by my archnemisis MonoHomo, leaving me facially scarred for life, and I remember not much but I awoke one morning in an asylum for the insane.

A ridiculous charge had been brought against me, which I was barely able to escape, in an ellaborate stunt of special effects and masterful sequential cut between scenes. After a brief nomadic journey, that included Denmark, Brazil and Holland, I went to Greenland and lived there for a few years, while meeting many dangerously, exciting people and having discovered Barbelith, I began a psychical spell that would attract others of my kind, because I am not the only one from the future, and rather unimaginatively, I logged on as ReformedRobotMan, a nod to my physical state. With the passing of time, I invented Chrome, dear old RRM was unable to contain me and the ficsuit carried on as a cross between hardware simulation and a magickal spell.

19:09 / 24.01.03

It's the name on my driver's license, the way I sign my letters, and (more importantly at the time), the name on my only real web presence when I first signed up here.

Me, Beck and Cher, we like *hang out* at the first-name-only club. Oprah keeps trying to get in, but at least she stopped accusing us of racism when she found out about Sting. The poncy poser.

19:49 / 24.01.03

I was corresponding with a college friend and we kept making up silly titles and names for each other on the envelope -- I'd address one to Maestro Allesandro de F'Inc and he'd respond to Colonel Mac Vrannaghan, and so on. On one particularly bulky pack of illustrations I put my return address as Sheik Qalyn Al R'anqun, and it took six weeks to arrive and had been opened. And I just think Qalyn looks kind of cool.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:21 / 24.01.03

I'm a word nerd. Some people collect stamps, others collect preserved bodyparts from their victims, I collect words. It's a thing. Mordant Carnival is just two of my favourite words slung together. I was aiming for an Iain M. Banks ship-name feel, but I fear I may have missed.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:23 / 24.01.03

(completely o/t] Cosmicjamas- just did the google search meself, and by jimminy you're right! Actually, the reviewer's right, too... it's kind of a fucked book- part psychological profile of utter lunacy, part "We're The Sweeney! And we 'aven't 'ad any dinner" bluster. [end completely o/fucking-t])

Brian Aldridge is still a wanker, though, and thus I maintain.

20:59 / 24.01.03

I had a great time visiting friends in Texas in 1986 and saw this memorable exhibition in Fort Worth.

Brought home a poster of Lady Xoc engaged in the blood letting ritual which was framed and on my bedroom wall ever since. An attractive image for a sadomasochist like me.

When we left Edinburgh and moved to smaller accommodation in London, Ganesh and I had less wall space and, since he wasn't taken with her, Lady Xoc ended up in storage. I miss her, Mayan babe that she is, and, to memorialise her, changed my name from ZoCher.

I was also a big fan of the German band Popol Vuh at the time, who took their name from the sixteenth-century document of Maya mythology that explains the origins of these rites of blood letting and human sacrifice in Maya creation myth, where the gods created all things through sacrificing of themselves, and shed their own blood to sustain the universe. The Mayans then gave sustenance to the gods through these blood sacrifices.

My print showed a scene necessary to the king's accession ceremonies, which occurred in 709 (October 28th). Lady Xoc, a wife of the Mayan king, Shield Jaguar, pulls a thorn-lined rope through her tongue to induce visions of ancestors and gods which would enable her to temporarily become an incarnation of the divine. The king's half of the bargain was then to do the same to his willy.

Here's a detail from the lithograph, showing my namesake engaged in this ancient SM ritual:

& Knob Goblin is my splendidly wrought Prison Bitch Name.

21:43 / 24.01.03

Deva is the ginger bureaucrat of the revolution in Blake's 7. Not capable of the intense emotion which burns between Avon and Blake (a living dog to their dead lions), but trying to do his bit quietly and behind the scenes regardless. Romanticizing the unmythical, c'est moi.

22:09 / 24.01.03

This explains so much. I picked 'Fred' because I thought it gave out the minimum of associations. I was 'Janet' elsewhere but found that people thought it was my name when they met me. I trust nobody will try to call me Fred offline.

22:16 / 24.01.03

Potus: In the world of Tom Clancy, POTUS stands for President of the United States...

Barry Auckland was just the name some friends of mine came up with when they started their 'email spam doomsday cult'. I took over the cult, made a website, and started emailing 800 people a month 'Warnings of the Apocalypse'. Most of these 800 didn't find it too funny, and a few got REALLY OFFENDED. hee hee. I gave up the cult almost 3 years ago now, but I got on Barbelith soon after and needed a good alias.
Given its history I've always wanted to change it, but I've had it for too long now. I even had a dream the other night where people were calling me 'Barry' and there was a package for me under the name Barry Auckland. It's too late!!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:17 / 24.01.03

As an aside: I'm compelled to admit that Lurid Archive came up with his nick before I came up with mine. It's not only a cool ficsuit, but an uncannily accurate description of the contents of his hard-drive.

23:38 / 24.01.03

My suit name actually really annoys me. It was bestowed on me during my first year at university by a friend who had a brief obsession with comparing his peers' heads to various foodstuffs. You can guess what he came up with for me. And then the MC, which is a self-mocking reference to the fact that I, around the same time, used to "freestyle" on public transport when I'd reached the necessary state of intoxication, just makes it seem even more goofy.

But, you know, it's mine and I'm stuck with it in a grudging affection kinda way. Plus the fact that I get people to refer to me as "MC Lentil" does amuse me slightly. Also, my email address begins with "mclentil", and I like the fact that when I give it to someone they're never sure whether or not I'm attempting to make some kind of fast-food related comment.

I'm not vegetarian, by the way.

15:09 / 25.01.03

Mine was inspired by the Invisigoth character on "The X-Files" episode co(?)-written by William Gibson (I think). Also, my degree is in Germanic Philology, not much help in my current position of legal secretary.

18:20 / 25.01.03

well, its pretty obvious how i can be percieved.

in fact, the game was given away a little when someone (one of those of the longer than hell, everchanging names) branded themselves 'a toxic person'. hey, maybe that was paranoia on my part. oh, but what a clever dig it was, i will surely let it slide. well, apart from being a lot like calling 'fat albert' fat, it was clever. never mind.

the real origins:

talk sick
toxic

and also the combining of two seperate identities, sik, and tok.

i first cam up with sik as a tag, a graffito to scrawl 'pon wall.

18:33 / 25.01.03

Cubby is just my name right now. I like the idea that a person's name can change to suit them more acuratly at different stages of their life, and, well right now I'm "Cubby". It's what every one calls me, I've had good freinds not even know my given name

Matthew Fluxington

19:06 / 25.01.03

Well, the most basic thing about my Barbelith name is that it ("Flux = Rad") is the title of a song on my favorite album by my favorite band.

I mostly chose the name because I knew it would open up the opportunity to play around with the variable, which is something that I'd always wanted to do after watching a few people have similar fun with their user name on the message board I was involved in before I came here. I'm especially proud of the fact that the changing variable thing makes logical sense - of course flux is always changing! Flux would never always equal the same thing. I would like to think that I'm always changing and evolving, and I guess the name fits into that rather well.

And well, "Flux" does have a nice sci-fi/superhero ring to it, too. That doesn't hurt.

20:13 / 25.01.03

(Off topic) I loved the name Flux = hacking yr computer right now!! Always gave me cause to look over my shoulder!

The Natural Way

20:20 / 25.01.03

I think I was the first Lither to comment on the Adam's wish thing. I always thought it was the most brilliantly annoying name. And I pride myself on having an irritating name: "Runce"...it just nags. Ideally pronounced with an extended "ssssssss".

Names have always been a big source of barbe-pleasure for me, whether it was "Dr. Bruce Packham" (my GP), "alan treharne", "Look! Nick Waddam!", "attack frunt" or even "mount the face", I've always had a wonderful time brain-trawling for irritating nom de plume. If it wasn't for the fact that I quite enjoy people being able to quickly identify me (something I really didn't give a shit about originally), I'd have changed my name a skillion times by now. I've wanted to be "Dassy!", "Ste" and "Good Old Boyce" for a very long time now.

Shame.

Matthew Fluxington

20:28 / 25.01.03

The "hacking into your computer right now" thing comes from the Matt Besser 'May I Help You (Dumbass)?' cd, which is a collection of improvised comedy in which Besser fucks with people accidentally calling his home telephone number expecting to reach a tech support hotline. It's hilarious, and there are a number of mp3s from the cd on that site.

That quote is on the cover (drawn by Peter Bagge!), but it comes from the track "Lesbian Download". I'd recommend downloading that first, along with "Automated Operator", "What Are We Talking About", "Car Wreck", and "Boring".

20:51 / 25.01.03

(Still a bit off topic) I previously had a phone number 1 digit different from Lords Cricket Ground - the MCC, people kept ringing and offering their credit card numbers for tickets, wanting to know scores etc. Was I tempted to play up to their desires or what?? Are you in the UK? If so, did you ever hear the early Steve Penk stuff on the radio, before he became "trite and tested"?

Now, lets hear some more reasons for choosing your names! Especially those with long and multiple fictionsuits!!

Tryphena Absent

21:08 / 25.01.03

She designs and creates shoes for theatre productions. I love shoes, heeled, flats, trainers, Mary-Jane's, courts, wedges, platforms, stiletto's. I love boots with laces, buttons, ribbons, no matter the material, fastening or height. The only shoes I'm not a fan of are Chinese lotus shoes because they're tiny little pieces of oppression. So I suppose a facet of my personality is revealed - the addictive human being is definitely in there somewhere!

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