Tickletext usefully explained that his–or her (we still don’t know that)–handle came from Parson Tickletext, a character in Henry Fielding’s satirical novel “Shamela.” I’m glad to learn that at least one of my readers is a fan of 18th century novels (are there others?), which is almost as good as being a fan of John Milton and George Herbert. That means I can blog about “Tristram Shandy”!
Tickletext, in return, asked Michael the Little Boot, our resident atheist (every village needs one), about HIS nickname. Longtime commenter Organshoes finally appended the name “Susan” to her moniker, clearing up the mystery of HER gender. We have tODD, which is self-explanatory, but what accounts for his website, Cockahoop? Some of us, like me, just use our names, but I know some of you, like Carl Vehse, use names that are not really your names.
As a break from some of the heated though light-bringing discussion on this blog, would any of you be so kind as to explain the source of your secret online identity?
32 comments ↓
Back in 1996 (or whenever it was) when I first got on the Internet, I was a young teenager who was really into the Sim games (Sim City, Sim Ant, Sim Copter, etc).
I’ve kept to that “handle” ever since. Occasionally I will use TheRealSimDan when some impostor has nabbed that username before I was able to. There can only be one real SimDan!
I’ve thought about creating a new name that is unique enough that no one else uses it….
My name also goes back to 1996 when I was selling a line of scrapbooking supplies called Close to my Heart. I always liked that phrase and incorporated it with my initials into TKls2myhrt. I’ve kept it because I tend to write and comment about things that are close to my heart.
Hi SimDan - fancy meeting you here
’sbeen awhile!
Lately I tend to go by my first name, since I like my first name and I favor simplicity and transparency.
When I feel the need of a handle, I go by “Velcro Van”, a device of my own simple invention, no special history behind it. It just has an alliterative tuck and it’s never already taken.
Chilibean was given to me some 30 years ago by my folks Christian neighbors who wouldn’t call me by my proper name, but Chilibean. My guess it was because I was hot in the sense of a rascal and bean rhymed with Dean.
I studied the literature of this era at Claremont Graduate School some 20+ years ago with Marshall Waingrow. Tristam Shandy is a particular favorite!
Cockahoop* comes from the fact that I am (or was moreso for a time) a lover of obscure or archaic words, among them cockahoop, or cock-a-hoop, which dates to 1663. When I was searching for a good unabridged dictionary, it was one of the words I looked for to test a dictionary’s completeness.
Later, when I was looking for a domain name to call my own, I found its two, somewhat contradictory, definitions to be a fitting description of my Web site, and to some degree, myself: (1) triumphantly boastful, exulting and (2) gone awry. (Its etymology comes from the phrase “to set cock a hoop”, to be festive.)
An even less interesting story is why I write it “tODD”. It’s because I know several Todds and used to comment frequently a Web site of one of them. So as to distinguish which Todd was talking when, I typed it as if the Caps Lock was on, which has the benefit (?) of emphasizing the word “odd”.
*As of recently, that domain now redirects to ToddStadler.com, though the link in your blogroll will continue to work — some commenting systems didn’t like Cockahoop.com, for reasons that I assume are obvious.
I go by the name “Paul” because that is my name. It represents the fact that I’m named after both my father, Paul, and the Apostle, St. Paul. My middle name is Timothy. My last name is McCain, derived from the Irish clan MacCain, who were run out of Scotland at some point in the 500s by Clan MacClellan, if the old stories are right.
Joel-
Eh, what?! Wow. I’ve been commenting on here for a while, and I somehow missed you? It has been a while.
Actually, I’m surprised that we haven’t bumped into each other in person yet. I live not far from Brent (and carpool with him) and your email found it’s way into my game night invite list (probably from Brent’s birthday party invite list). You really should come one of these times.
My name comes from my actual first name (to distinguish gender and make replies easier) and my nickname in college, which was Little Buddha. I was called that because of my interest in buddhist lit…as well as my round belly! I didn’t really like the connotation after graduating, though, and - keeping in mind the Buddha’s admonition to his followers that if any of them ever met him on the road, they shouldn’t hesitate to put two in his brain - decided to call myself Little Boot. The meaning, to me, is that anyone who is serving others well will probably end up on the bottom of someone’s shoe eventually. Service (and my remaining belly, to a lesser extent!) is the point I think the name emphasizes. Some of those early lessons stick with you, regardless of where your personal philosophies travel!
(Resident atheist, huh? I’m flattered! Can I take this opportunity to call out my fellow atheists? I know you’re lurking!)
#7 Pastor McCain - I think if I looked up dry humor in the dictionary, your name might be listed. Thanks for brightening my day. Sometimes we are all a bit too serious - I count myself at the top of that list.
”I know some of you, like Carl Vehse, use names that are not really your names”.
What?!? Don’t believe that blog article by the Rev. Brig. Gen. C.F.W. Scuttlebutt. He made that whole secret identity and church thing up late one evening after we had finished off so many draft beers the bartender got tendinitis from working the tap.
If you want the full scoop on me, just check out the details in my book or one by that history professor, Walter Forster.
Look, the whole thing started when I got involved in this Auswanderungsgesellschaft (Emigration Association; Gesellschaft, for short). At first I thought it might be some kind of travel club, but then this slick Martin Stephan scallywag cons us Saxons into thinking we need to head off to America permanently because the Department of Fatherland Security is working with those Prussian Unionists to take over the Lutheran Church in Saxony. Now a couple of my buddies, Gus Jaeckel and Freddy Fischer, thought Stephan was right and joined up; my brother-in-law, Adolph Marbach and his wife bought into it, too. Even my daughter’s nanny (my wife had died a few years earlier after a long illness) had a brother studying to be a pastor, and he thought this Stephan guy was right on. So count me in, too, and bon voyage! (Oh, brother! What were we thinking?)
Well, we no more sail into the Gulf of Mexico and Marty says we have to declare him Head Bishop. That should have tipped me off but Stephie did look pretty cool wearing his mitre and spinning that crosier like some high school baton twirler (no wonder some guys want to try the same thing today).
Of course, in St. Louis and later in Perry County, things really went downhill as Stephan blew all our funds. I did manage to keep him from investing in a casino boat on the Missouri River (little did I realize, huh!)
And then, of course, a bunch of Stephan’s “maids” spill the beans after church one Sunday. We were stunned; you could have knocked us over with a feather. I remember one of Stephan’s assistants, Carl Walther, wailing how it couldn’t get any worse than a pastor who can’t keep his pants on, and Gus Jaeckel commenting that such disgraceful behavior would never happen to someone like the President of the United States.
So, no sooner do we ship Stephan off to Illinois than his assistants, who had resigned as pastors back in Germany, start fighting over who gets to wear the mitre and twirl the crosier and be the new head bishop. When Freddy, Gus, and I point out in a little protest writeup the problems with all this from a Lutheran perspective, the pastors gave us nothing but grief. And the rest of the Missouri Saxon Lutherans did nothing! But who can blame them, since most by then were broke, sick and starving.
I couldn’t find work myself, so I head back to Germany to claim an inheritance and start a new career as an author. In the meantime, that Carl Walther fellow reads our protest document more carefully, agrees with it, and uses some of our theses to win a debate at Altenburg, Missouri. Later the ambitious Walther, helped by the others, organizes an entire Synod that then officially approves a book he writes on the doctrine of church and ministry, which contains a lot of the stuff Freddy, Gus, and I put into our Protest paper.
Sure, Walther, calls our document a “precious gift of God”, but we should have had it copyrighted and published. Oh well, probably nobody at Concordia Publishing House wants to do it now.
Around 1870 I’m getting pretty old, but I heard Rev. Jan Kilian (a classmate of Walther) and the Wendish had set up some good Lutheran churches in Texas so I head offf to Texas (some German newspapers mistakenly report that I had died and gone to heaven). Not only do I find Lutheran churches, but I find some great beer in Shiner, Texas, and have been drinking it regularly since then. Hey, it must be good stuff ’cause I’m still around, even though my birthday warranty has long since expired.
A few years ago some young scientist fellow in Texas teaches me how to use his computer, so occasionally I sneak on it when making comments about the Stephanite Frankensteins in the Missouri Synod or whatever. That explains why some people may get our names confused (the guy spends most of his time in the lab anyway). And it’s the least I can do for Rev. Walther, who turned out to be a pretty important guy… thanks to Freddy, Gus, and me.
Back in 1996, the group I worked in learned of a chap in Boulder who thought he was God and called himself Cy Baba–Hindu kind of thing I think. So the boss became Cy Baba, and all of us became something and then Baba. I rode my bike to work, so I was Bike Baba.
Fortunately, we had a little bit of a Southern touch, and so it became Bike Bubba. We also greeted each other (due to our company’s Japanese ownership) as “Bubba-san.” To this day, there are a few people I will greet in that manner, and vice versa.
And now if we could only hear from Bike Bubba.
And how about FW? I think that might just be his initials.
My name is Caleb Jones, and I shortened it to The Jones. I have a big family and at home have always been only “a” Jones. Even when I’m not around the rest of my family, there are always some other Joneses about. On the internet, I can find corners of the universe where I am the only Jones around. I take these opportunities to relish the originality of my un-originality.
My friends call me “Jonesy” which also doubles as an adjective for “extremely suave and debonair.” At least I think it does. I’ll let tODD check up on that one.
Finally, I sometimes shorten Caleb Jones to “Cajones,” which makes for a great party name, too. From this abbreviation, I have been able to coin the phrase “I put the ‘Jones’ in ‘cajones.’ “
I wouldn’t call “Dan at Necessary Roughness” my secret name: I use it pretty much everywhere. Daniel is the name given to me at my baptism; the rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
I am pretty sure that Tristram Shandy would have a blog today. And what a blog it would be!
Mine comes from Beowulf: I’m not a hero (ie, an average Scylding warrior that so far has managed to avoid Grendel), just a partaker in the feast and good discussion / stories / poetry, with a suitable beverage in hand. I never use my real name / surname in open domain, for various reasons.
I’d been doing an online search for organ shoes when I discovered the Lutheran blogosphere (I’m the organist at my church; have been an organist most of my life. Wish I’d improve…though I did finally learn to play wearing shoes. Which is hard for a gal from Mississippi by way of WVa.)
I added Susan when I tired of being mistaken for a male (?) and just because that’s who I am.
I always tried to read TKls2myhrt as Tickles my heart. Go figure.
I really am Kevin N.
My last name, which is Norwegian, is rare enough that my name uniquely identifies me on the entire planet so I avoid using it on the internet, at least on blogs.
Kevin,
Try having Bror for a first name! I swear I don’t need a last name. But I don’t much care if other people can identify me. I’m too proud of my name that has an almost 300 year history going back to the homeland, where Brors are still scarce. It means brother, I try to treat everyone as my brother. But call and talk to one of my brothers, and you will find that isn’t always the best thing.
I have already been outed as a “Susan” so maybe I’ll just leave it that way. At the same time, I am an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, so maybe things are worse than people think. Bauer is the German word for peasant, which explains the peculiar lapses of logic and lack of skill in expression.
I’ve been hiding behind my real first name all this time. I think I’ll reveal more and include my last name from now on - I shall henceforth be known as Cindy Ramos. I go with Jay Ramos, who is a newer occasional commenter here.
If only I had been posting as Cindy Ramos all along, then my husband could have joined in as “Another Ramos.” (But remember, Another Kerner is Kerner’s mother, not his wife. I think. I don’t actually know them. But I believe they live in Wisconsin, which is cool.)
I used to be Cindy Evers, CUW class of ‘99. Remember me, Dr. Veith? I was an English major.
The name “Kyralessa” is from a novel called The Death of Kyralessa. It originally interested me because it’s by a (late) Romanian author, C. Virgil Gheorghiu. I spent a couple summers in Romania as a Protestant missionary. It interested me even more as I moved toward Eastern Orthodoxy, because the book gives a great sense of the ethos of Orthodoxy. It’s a fascinating book. Alas, it’s a hard book to find, but I stumbled across an inexpensive copy a few years ago.
I’ve used this “secret identity” so much that I’m beginning to displace the book on Google. However, not all the individuals identified as “Kyralessa” are me. There are some people who have it as their given name. (The name comes from Kyrie eleison, of course.)
utah: place of residence
rainbow: the etymology of my first name, not to mention reminder of God’s promise
Since my name is somewhat unique, I like (or liked, probably found out now!) the secret identity to be able to comment without it reflecting on my husband who also comments here from time to time. Or is it vice versa?
I thought ’saddler’ appropriate since that is one of my vocations. ‘Seems like I’ve heard talk of vocation around this neck of the woods. Besides my personal identity is inextricably tied to what I do for a living…perhaps more so than most jobs. Maybe its because I commute about twenty steps to my job and I’m making a living out of what many would consider a hobby.
Remaining anonymous as much as possible is a good thing at this point in my life.
Most of my other internet monikers seemed a little too irreverent for such a blog as this, so I chose something more “adult sounding.” And something referring to my own vocation…Full Time, mother, student, home maker, home schooler, wife, Christian, daughter, sister, friend…
I was wondering who Utah Rainbow was! now it makes sense. Don’t worry your secret is safe with me, until the next winkel. Oh I won’t be there.
ENDA and HRCs are enough reason for anonymity these days.
allen is my name
Wasn’t “little boot” (caligula) the nickname of Caius Caesar Germanicus?
Wow. allen just blew my mind. Now I wonder what others who knew this information have been thinking about me! I had NO IDEA of the connection - although, apparently caligula means “little boots” plural. At least that’s what it said in the sources I found.
I may need to find a new name! On the other hand…
I use my initials to maintain some anonymity. FYI I am female.
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