Let’s Talk About Your Username/Penname

EncryptedWriting,

Well back on my wattpad days, we had only so many names we could think of without them being all gone. I wanted to do somehting writer, so I thought of EnchantedWriter, taken, will shoot what next? I probably spent a good 10 minutes being told that all my names were taken. So then I started to look darker, more fantasy orriented and, BAM, EncryptedWriting came to mind. Why Encrypted, though? I don't know, it came to me as being writing encrypted on a wall, there forever. How something can be encrypted into writing, and it never goes away, either being a light for some or a darkness to others.

My penname/username dates waaaaay back to my late childhood years/ pre-teens; I have always been a Chemistry gal, it was the only subject involving numbers in which I've thrived in my whole school career. And as I was researching about the Periodic Table, I really loved reading about the element Iridium.

It's one of the rarest elements we find in Earth, and most of the reserves came from space comets and debris that got stuck in here, so it's like a natural "alien" resource; also, it's mainly used for spacecraft devices, such as rocket gears or even their shells can be made of an Osmiun-Iridium alloy. Iridium shines in rainbow colours, and that's the origin of its name (comes from Ancient Greek, if my memory serves me well). Needless to say how amazed I was by such metal in a way that I decided to always go by Iridium in any media that I go, and, if the pure name isn't available, I always mix something else at the end.

There you go, that's why I go by Iridium: it's exotic, colourful, filled with possibilities and sometimes out of the silent planet, which embodies how I feel about the world in general and how I sometimes feel out of it.

It was supposed to be Aiwille Carreon, which when read sounds like I will carry on.

Mine is a reference to my first name, which is Evangeline. The pen name refers to the epic poem "Evangeline", written by Henry Longfellow. Below is an excerpt from the work, which can be read in full here: https://poets.org/poem/evangeline-tale-acadie.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

It was based on my OC Suren. Since I draw her a lot, you may call my works 'surenlicious'

In the early days of the internet (in the 90s) I used the name "alven" which is "elf" in swedish ( I do love elfs) but for some unknown reason I switched over to rumpenstiltzkin and been using it ever since. I did use just stiltzkin very early (final fantasy moogle) but after some jokes between friends about the grumpy child stealing imp from the grimm story I started using my current name.

I actually kinda miss using alven but now it feels weird to change after having a nickname no one can ever spell properly for over 20 years or so

Crystalrook isn't really my penname, it's just the name of my brand for my creative publishing. I typically use the name MG-Zero. It originated back in like...2001? I made it up for a zelda website, zeldagames.net (now long gone) and it was MasterGohan6000. Somehow through my days spent on IRC on a different zelda website, zeldapower.com (...also now gone) it just became MasterGohan, and then eventually MasterGohanZero once I got into Megaman. Fast forward to yet ANOTHER zelda site (zfgc.com, this one still exists!!), and it eventually shorted to MG-Zero.

The nobility title thing started as a joke in high school where my name was h-queen bc I dared to draw sexy dudes at a table full of guys, though it was rather tame looking back at it. I liked the haughty feel of the name but realized it wasn't that fitting as I branched out more on what I liked to draw.

I met a gal who was really fanciful in college and didn't mind my hyperactive imagination and would encourage it to the point that all my friends accepted it as true and then all my fictional crushes were put in a palace. The Bishie (short for Bishonen - Pretty boy) Palace where everyone called me Lady Cupcake (at the time my favorite pretty dude was dubbed cupcake for reasons I can't even remember anymore lol).

I graduated and started looking for work and started to think about how I wanted to present myself next to my art and design work so I went with Lady T Arts & Designs not the most creative, but it said what I did and used a part of my real name. The T for Toya.

After a few years of getting tired of typing that all out and trying to make a cool brand stamp with it I decided to keep the Lady T. and ditch the rest for something a bit more whimsical. I picked musings as I love the word and reminded me of my art history classes that I really enjoyed. When I finally settled on Musings I was like....yes...yes...this is me.

Lady T. Musings, all day all night.

It's nothing special,
Eli is a part of my real name. And I just wanted something that starts with F next to it. And I like to go hiking in the forest so... coming up with the penname Eli Forest didn't really take time.

True true. It's leagues better than dragonsparking which was just the name of my comic XD
Also better than my old Machine_Fish and Friendlypiranha usernames. And 1000% worse than the best username I ever had: Godzilla Maximus. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@nathanKmcwilliams @ar-ninetysix
Lol for me it's a little weird reading that because I do actually have a nephew from 2018 called Nathan (obviously he's not on this site lmao)

atleast not that I'm aware

I like cats and anime so, Neko.

I don't remember why I have I.S. in front of it.

I originally started based off of my username on minecraft, but the name itself no longer applied to me, so I came up with Pastel Dreams! I really liked pastel colors, and dreams intrigued me. Eventually, it turned into Dreamy Pastel, not sure how, but that's about it really! It's not the most unique username, but it just kind of suits me well I think haha

Uhhh, my current pen name doesn't have any special story tbh. I had (have) a lot of internet names. Before this pen name, I wrote fanfic and used a weeb pen name which I didn't want to use any longer, and my other internet names just didn't sound right to me. One of my names, Ad, didn't sound half bad tbh, but imagining the name "Ad" on a cover seems empty (lol). It was also around the time that I became serious in writing, where I, if I ever publish, didn't want to be recognized irl. So, I picked Szafir, which is in a way a meaning of my real name, especially since out of my full name, I have an attachment on the part of my name that means Sapphire despite it not being my first name. Also, that way, I still "link" my name back to myself without pointing directly at me. A perfect amount of anonimity without erasing my identity, I guess.

Rhonder became my go-to username back at the end of middle school/start of high school when I needed a name for a MMO that I wanted to start

Prior to that I hadn't really used any one name too consistently. I had users ranging from pop culture references like "Hyper Lugia" and "Neji-san021" to "Raguna" which was the main character in the story I started writing in middle school. At the time I was starting to try and use the "Raguna" name more and more, but I found that it was semi-consistently taken on many websites already, and as well for this game. I mulled it over for a while and decided to try the name of the jerk-y anti-hero rival from my story, Rhonder, and it was available, so I went with it.

Over time as I started joining more and more websites I found that "Rhonder" was more often than not available, and so now it has become my primary username~ Nowadays if it's not available as-is for art account purposes, I just amend "_Art" onto the end, Rhonder_Art. It works well enough~

It was unintentional but it's also a partial anagram of my real name and has similar sounds, although rearranged so... I guess that's neat too? For my creative works I usually still write my real name on as the author, but like to hang out on websites with my username I guess.

MichiTheThird is a fusion from my real nickname (Michi) and Thirdly, which was/is my online pen-name. Thirdly was what I named a golden cat character I had drawn as my avatar. I can't remember exactly how I chose that word as a name, but if I had to guess, it was because it was one of my favorite words to write on five-paragraph essays (for the points, I would write: Firstly, Secondly, and Thirdly since it was easier...I'd also end the essay on a "Finally..."). Another reason might be because I was the third child born of the third-to-last (but later on I found out that wasn't true, I was more like the sixth born since 3 siblings died before me and one was my undeveloped twin). Sixthly doesn't sound nearly as smooth as Thirdly, though, so I just kept it.

I made a whole music video for twitter about my penname. You can watch it here: https://twitter.com/brightside_jack/status/1375261574412300290?s=201
It has my real face and everything.

"Jack" is the main character from Fight Club and "Brightside" is from "Mr. Brightside" by the killers. I came up with this pen name when I was like 14. I should never be allowed to live it down