Let's Talk About Your Username/Penname

[Manyana]

Most of us don't use our real name when writing. We use pennames and we come up with names that are either weird nonsense or well thought off names. I wanna hear the story behind your penname. Let me start.

My penname/username is Manyana Hobbit. It is derived from the Filipino term mañana habit which can be interpreted as postponing your plans and doing it later. In short, it's an act of procrastination. We, Filipinos love to say "Mamaya na" and as a proud Filipina... I got that habit too... which isn't something to be proud of... dude can't even finish what she started. I was surprised with myself for having the drive to continue the book... which I WOULD LIKE to finish and WOULD finish.

How about you? What's the story behind that name?

[carafox2121]

There's no particular meaning for my penname, but I did take a looooooooooonnnngggggggg time to figure it out. Lol. I do love foxes, but probably more importantly, I wanted a name that would flow naturally for me, and after many nights of thinking I finally came up with Cara Fox.

[PaulDevers]

I believe I've told this story before on here, but I still think it's funny.
My username is Paul Devers or Paul's Tower. Paul is not my real name! What happened was this: back in high school I was the most introverted and non-talkative kid around, but I was able to get into a bonus tech campus (basically a bonus hour of school) cause of my grades and interests. I wouldn't talk to anybody pretty much at all, and one day, a classmate called me Paul, cause she thought that was my name. I didn't bother to correct her, because I was too nervous, sooooo... that entire year of tech campus I became Paul. XD It kind of stuck with me after that!
The tower thing is my logo. The top of the tower, the diamond with the smaller diamond beneath, was a symbol I would make with my hands whenever I got nervous as a kid. Would calm me down. i put it on top of the tower as a memory of that. So, that's the tower part done!
I probably don't need to use a pseudonym anymore, but I don't know. I like it!

[VibrantFox]

i've cycled through a bunch of online usernames and pseudonyms but settled on vibrantfox; vibrant because I'm addicted to colors and fox because it's one of my favorite animals.

The only other I've started to go by is Monobun, which might sound like a play on Danganronpa's Monokuma but was actually my idea of a persona opposite to the vibrantfox with mono being short for monochrome and bun/rabbit since it's a prey animal to the fox but also another of my favorite animals. There's even a second level to that one since it's associated with my more mature/"dark" stuff so when it comes to drawing the sona/avatar associated with it it's got a "wolf in sheep's clothing" or "fox in rabbit's skin" kinda look with sharp teeth and sometimes claws.

They're both basic names but at the very least they're easy to remember.

[reddinggray]

Red and Gray are one of my first OCs. I like them, and I like their names a lot. At first, I really wanted Red and Gray but it was already taken on twitter. I tried a few more words until I came up with Redding Gray. Is Redding even a word? I have no idea. At least I'm using the word Red and Gray.

[Dialusion]

Dialusion has a weird, but fairly long history.

So it started when I was a kid (circa 2005) and had a dream where I was protected from an incoming fire by a Knight in Golden Armor. That dream was so impactful to me I ended up drawing what I remembered from that knight next morning. I named the knight "Dias" derrived from Diamond (not Days in Spanish, but it's funny in hindsight). Eventually I used that character as a base for a planned Tokusatsu style live hero show that never went anywhere. I wanted to design a superhero performance with heavy audience participation using imagination as substitute for most special effects.

I created and named the hero "Dialusion" in 2013, drawing inspiration from Metal Heroes, who just had new life in the form of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie (2012). Specifically Juspion, cause the hook of the song was catchy. The name "Dialusion" was also chosen because it's a pun. The Allusion / The Illusion. As in, The Allusion to heroes, The Illusion of Dreams, etc. Plus I thought it was a cool hero name and still do. It also retains it's original meaning of Diamond Il lusion .

I intended to have Dialusion (character), be more prevalent and be a feature in my art, but eventually became more symbolic of myself as an artist, occasionally as a stand-in for me. This gets confusing as now there's a Dialusion (character) in a local comic I'm apart of, Dialusion (brand) and in the SUMMON series: Starmour (who is an older version of Dialusion (character) under a different name but canon to each other). If anything, I'd retcon Dialusion (character) to use a slightly different, but related name as I have pretty much solidified Dialusion (brand) for over 5 years no.

[FancyDreamer]

Mine just kind of fell out of the sky, lol. I usually name my character in games Dreamer. I have done that since I was a child. There really is no rhyme or reason for it. I liked it as a kid, and I still use it now. The Fancy part of my name came while I was playing a visual novel game, and I needed two names: first and last. Initially, the name was Dreamer Fancy because it asked for a first name first then the last name. The last name was actually auto generated for me because I couldn't come up with one on my own, but I decided I kind of liked this combination of words and switched it to Fancy Dreamer, Ironically, it sums up my life pretty nicely, lol.

[noenoh]

Noenoh or Noe Noh

Noe is my name, and Noh comes from 2 things I mixed, the inner joke of all the ppl has mocked my name(the No and used to change it to Yes in spanish, or just repeating the first syllabe No a lot 9_9 ) but since I love my name I decided to accept it and adapt it to my username plus my liking of Noh theatre.

Summary

When i began working as an illustrador here in my country I used my real name, it didnt ended well in various ocassions (stalkers and ppl commiting fraud using my name) I wanted to use a penname but my country laws dont help with it, so even if the editorials published with the suggested penname I requested the second time, the laws here always forced them to register the works with the real name and make it publicly anyways.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

Ohhhhhhh boy. Where to start. cracks knuckles

So, I have a lot of different usernames across a lot of different platforms. Sometimes it was because I couldn't find my previous name on a new platform, other times it was me trying to use some new character or interest as the basis for my identity on a given platform. Let's see if anyone here recognizes any of these names.

Several of my names stem from a superhero character of mine, whose alias is Nyx. For reasons that made more sense to 20-year-old me, this character has pointy ears, and is no relation to the Nyx of Greek mythology. Regardless, she forms the origin for my main Deviantart username: Pointy-Eared-Fiend, and a handle I used on various messenger platforms: KhaosDaughter.

On a different forum, I have the username TeaThief, in reference to a different character, who is a British cat burglar.

On Tumblr, my primary username is Toxinfox, which comes from my enduring fascination with poisons (don't get me started unless you want a monologue...), and the fact that I (also) like foxes.

On the Twitter account I technically have but have literally never used, my username is Stabsinthe, because I enjoy sharp objects, and also absinthe. (I do not typically use them at the same time, fortunately.)

And on Instagram, Webtoon, and Tapas, as well as a side-account on Deviantart, I'm Scarlet_Cryptid, because I like the color red, and would really like to haunt my local woods as a cryptid someday. (Only half-joking.)

Using any variant of my actual name is right out for two reasons: 1. I have a secretive streak and don't really like giving out that information, and 2. My name is so goddamn common that all variants have long since been taken. It'd be like trying to find a non-cumbersome version of John Smith or something.

[Kaydreamer]

Mine is just a smooshed together word consisting of the first syllable of my real name, plus 'dreamer' It's cute, it sounds like 'daydreamer', and it suits me and my personality pretty perfectly.

[ar-ninetysix]

I'm like the only regular here who just used their initials and birthyear while everybody else has all these elaborate ways they arrived at their name lmao I feel like I weirdly stand out for the most basic reasons possible

[Eiranyx]

Well my actual name is associated to spring, a name with the meaning of 'flower' and my second name has the meaning 'fairy' -- which clash with my actual personality I decided to choose a pen name for it. because Eira means 'snow' and Nyx mean 'night' -- like if I were to describe myself my personality is like a cold snowy night.... IRONIC isn't it?

[Aleksei]

For my part I have a couple of names on different medias.
First Sin_nombre. Its 'no name' in spanish. I didn't want to think in something so I took that one, or a variable if available. There was a lot of sin-nombre's here at Tapas, so I coudln't take that one, that takes me to my second most used pennames...
I often use on games, and now here the names Aleksei Belokoniov if boy, or Ludmilla Tereshkova if girl (great for pokemon games where I can trade with myself!). Both comes from the same lore. I took them from the soviet cosmonauts program, or what we think it is. Aleksei Belokoniov its the name of one of the ghost astronauts of those programs, while Ludmilla Tereshkova is the name of the sister of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to go into space.

[Pony_wearing_a_hat]

I am named after a very specific My Little Pony character who only appears on a single christmas special. His name is Pistachio and he has my entire heart.

[cyborgmermaid]

Got mine from the Battle Angel Alita song. Plus the thought of a mechanical mermaid tail is cool.

[WinterFall]

...My penname is literally just my two favorite seasons combined.

And, as a Filipino myself, I can confirm that we do love to say "Mamaya na lang" whenever we have stuff to do, haha!

[caelinalexis]

Sorry to say my penname is pretty boring, haha.

It's just my first name + first middle name: caelin alexis

However, Caelin is Irish for warrior, which I think is ironic since I do wrestling and judo (martial arts, lol). I was actually almost named Alexis, but my mom didn't think I looked like an Alexis. So, that's really more of how I got my ACTUAL name, haha.

[ButterflyEmpress]

I used to have a magical girl comic called Butterfly Rose. The mystical being who gave the girls their powers was named Queen Mariposa (I just really like the Spanish word for butterfly). I ended up using the name on my DeviantArt and other accounts as a form of advertising the story, even though I never got around to finishing it. The concept for Butterfly Rose changed over time and since Mariposa isn't a character in it anymore, I decided to keep her as a somewhat mascot. When I rebooted my DA account I couldn't use Queen Mariposa anymore and instead went with Butterfly Empress. Only on Twitter that I still use my old name.

[sorible]

"Sori" is actually my name, and it somehow combined with the word scribble/readable.I have a lot of strange pen names including morris, yebby, etc. that I don't know where they come from, but I've just had them for so long that I just go with it.

[allenT]

'Allen' is my self-given western name, and 'T' is the first alphabet of my Chinese surname.