Zoomba Zoomba

How Did You Pick Your Handle?

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How Did You Pick Your Handle?

A funny story? A random inspiration?

from JoeUser Forums

Here's a fun question to start everyone's week out:

How did you pick the handle/nickname you use online?

We have an odd collection of names out here.  Ranging from Little-Whip and EmperorOfIceCream to Locamama, DrGuy, Frogboy and more.  It's always interesting to see what names people pick for themselves when they are given the chance to create a completely new persona for themsleves. 

So, how/why did you come up with yours?

Mine?  Everyone alwasy figures there's some great story, or weird inspiration behind "Zoomba" but in reality it was almost completely random.  About 15 years ago, I had Internet access through my dad's office at Penn State.  This was even before the WWW mind you.  I was surfing gopher and such one afternoon and joined a chat room.  Now, it asked me for my handle, and I'd already been warned against posting my real name so I had to come up with something new.  So what did I do?

I made a random noise out loud, and typed that in.  Thus "Zoomba" was born!

What's your story?

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8,076 views 30 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top
At the time when I created an account here I was a professional adventure racer. Also anyone that knows me, I'm always looking for some kind of adventure.
Reply #27 from JoeUser Forums Top
I chose Forever Serenity because at the time I was looking for a little bit of peace, and serene with problems I was facing at the time, my mom was sick...that's actually how I found JU! I credit Seinfeld with George or his dad aksing for "Serenity Now", "Serenity Now"! in those scenes that were really, really funny! I also wanted to have the peace and mental sereness I was seeking forevers, and since "Serenity Now" wasn't available as an email address, I became Forever Serenity (though I had to add numbers after the address, I just wanted the name!!
Siege of Centauri
Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top
The raven reference is because I'm noisy online, cawing about this and that until no one cares anymore.


Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hyun.143? or Hyun-Jung?

Thats not my real name. Its korean name. I have this korean friend, she called me that...dont know why

Shes the only one who call me that, so i decided to use it here. The number 143...i just make it ^^
Reply #30 from JoeUser Forums Top
Cari is my preferred spelling of Carrie, which is short for Carolyn. My mother used to spell my name Carey, and when I was about 13 I was going through a baby names book looking for character names for a story I was writing, and found that Carey is one of the boy's spelling of the name, along with Cary. That's when I decided that I wanted to change the spelling. I spelled it Carrie for awhile, but then decided that I wanted something more original. I toyed with changing it to Cairi or Caeri for awhile, but settled on Cari as being more pronouncible. I was absolutely crushed when I encountered at least 3 other people that year who also use the spelling Cari. I was threatening to change it for awhile, but since most of my family was still having trouble adjusting to the first spelling change, I decided to leave it. Now I usually get birthday and Christmas cards addressed to Carolyn, but in person I generally am only addressed as Carolyn when I'm in trouble, and then I usually get my middle name too. In retrospect, I somewhat regret changing from Carey to Cari, but it would seem weird to switch back now.

I first got online when I was in high school, so I was still fairly melodramatic, and my first screen name was LadyImp. Lady because I liked dressing up as a lady for the Renaissance festival and Imp because my online personna was fairly impish. As I got older and less melodramtic, I felt less impish, and so I changed to CariElf (because I like elves), and I've used it ever since.