Where does your username come from?

[MLXXXp]

I needed a username for a certain audio/video forum. At the time I was setting up a home theater system. I then started using it for most other things that need a username.

Hints: roman numerals. HDTV.

[Andy Watson]

When I had to choose a user name I was in correspondance with a friend called Andrew - hence Andy, and (still) sitting beside me at my bench is a salvaged/recycled Microsystem70 Watson microscope.

Sorry, in real life I'm neither an Andy nor a Watson

[Rutherfordium]

I'm an element!

[SG-1]

It comes from the product that I make my living on, MV Switch Gear.

[gnavigator1007]

It comes from the product that I make my living on, MV Switch Gear.

I just assumed you were a fellow Stargate SG-1 fan.

[georges80]

Hi, I'm george and this is my 80 series, hence georges80 - though one of my sons appears to think it is his



cheers,
george.

[tautech]

I'm an element!

And named after a famous Kiwi ! 

[RomDump]

Found my handle when I started a project to get the contents of a flash chip to a binary file without a commercial chip programmer.  ROM Dumping I guess is the slang term. I abbreviated to Romdump to create my handle.

[High_vacuum_house]

High vacuum house.
Due to the large number of valve based electronic equipment I have here that I enjoy tinkering with and restoring. From 1930's radios and 405 line television sets to valve oscilloscopes and weird ex government or forces test sets with the occasional 

Christopher Capener

[retrolefty]

Retrolefty = Old left handed pitcher. Use to throw a decent screwball in my younger days. 

[Alex Eisenhut]

My parents!
Eisenhut, from the great House of Eisenhut in Bavaria. Just kidding, we're nobodies. But there is a Hotel Eisenhut in Bavaria. No relation AFAIK.
Alex from a Russian friend of my parents at the time.

[Fsck]

file system check, for linux.

[Halcyon]

Completely made up and not related to anything else.

[NiHaoMike]

The university I went to (Texas A&M) had a club called Cepheid Variable that's basically a hackerspace for software engineering, as in if you want to do hardware, you have to bring your own tools and supplies. (It's best described as sort of a study area that encourages conversation.)

Anyways, because I'm Chinese, they always say "Ni Hao Mike" when I arrive (it just means "Hi Mike!"), and the nickname stuck.

[geekGee]

I'm a geek of Portuguese ( 'Gee ), more specifically Azorean, ancestry. 

[Brumby]

Mine comes from the free roaming wild horses in Australia.


... but I'm not free-roaming and quite the opposite of wild.  Maybe that's part of the appeal...

[Rerouter]

Was setting up a username for Whirlpool forums, banged the desk because my old one was already taken, and an old Dlink router fell off my shelf and hit me on the head.

Funny how moving to an electronics forum made it even more relevent.

[Nusa]

I've run into people with the same first and last name that I have, and one of them is even in the same field that I am. I've even gotten email intended for him by mistake on my gmail account. I got there first, so I'm the one with the obvious first-initial-last name@gmail account. I'm glad my last name isn't something really common like Smith or Jones. Even my real off-line nicknames are too common for online continuity, although I did use one of them in the early days, before social media really took off.

Nusa is the name of a character I played for a long time in an online game. I no longer play that game, but the name lives on.
It was cleverly derived from an earlier character in the same game: Asun Nyday
Asun Nyday is from the phrase "A sunny day". Making up character names is a process, at least for me.

For a four-letter word, Nusa is amazingly conflict free online, so I use it when I can. I have a longer variation for when it isn't available that hasn't failed me yet.

[dexters_lab]

what a great list of stories!

mine is just a reference to the cartoon Dexters Lab shown on the Cartoon Network, the theme music has also been my phone ringtone for what must be a decade or more!

[Lord of nothing]

I was lazy and put some random words in. 

[capt bullshot]

Inspired by the 1983 movie "Bullshot"

[fourtytwo42]

Easy, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy Most of my machines are/have been named after characters from there too.

[TerraHertz]

Completely made up and not related to anything else.

Except that it is a word, and does have a meaning.
So does 'halcyon days.'

TerraHertz is meant to be simultaneously a combined dual-meaning pun, and political statement.

Terra is the Latin name for Earth.
Also similar to Tera, for 10^12. The unit prefix in SI for 10^12 Symbol T.
Tera is derived from Greek word τέρας teras, meaning "monster".
Hertz as in Heinrich Hertz, cycles per sec, Hz.
Energy in the THz range lies in between visible light and microwaves. It acts like light, but penetrates more materials. We just can't see it. The world would look pretty weird if we could. We could see right through a lot of shit. We could see the monsters behind the facade.
So one meaning - penetrating Earth light.
Another, by the sound: terror hurts. Which has both a personal meaning for me, as well as the obvious one.

I use other nics in other contexts, but the whole point of that is to keep things separate and unconnected. So not going to list them. One is electronics-related and simple, so you'd think I'd use it here. But unfortunately, that would not be good.

Used in the past: BinaryTears, CylentRage

[Fgrir]

ROT13

[rdl]

At one time there was a model kit company based in the UK named Halcyon Models. They were mostly known for their kits based on the Alien series of movies, but they did others. There were a couple from Aliens that I really wanted but I lost interest in modeling before I could acquire them. They also did a version of the DeLorean from BTTF.