I've used DanteAmaya for about 10 years through many gaming platforms.
Dante, not from the famous Italian or even a popular video game, but from a book series by Lilith Saintcrow. Dante is a necromancer, bounty hunter, who works for the Devil. She's one of my first literary idols.
Amaya... Some Facebook quiz told me it should be my name. But it lied. It does not mean "Night Rain" in Japanese. Some Google-**** indicates that it means "Night Rain" in Arabic. It's also similar to "Mother City" in Spanish origins or "the end," "the beginning of the end" in Basque. In Japanese it's written with symbols for "heavenly valley." It's just a lovely name.
The capitalization of the last A was a work I picked up solely for Ingress.
First: Thanks for sharing your amazing stories behind your names in this thread. I had a lot of fun to learn the vast variety behind them.
And now for my personal story:
My Name "Nelkon" is an evolution of another IGN.
When I had to chose a new nick for the Playstation Network for the PS2 System in 2002 I let my eyes wander in my room for inspiration. Then I saw my mobile from "Nokia" laying upside down on the table. So it read "Aikon" . The name was free and - more important - had enough vovels to be easily distinguished or yelled over the voice-chat in the PSN-Beta title "Socom".
When I had to choose an agent name for Ingress at my first Ingress invite in 2013 this name wasn't available anymore. This was a problem I already ran into when I had to choose name for the "old instagram". There I chose one of their suggestions that was free and sounded a bit similar: "Nelkon".
Thus my IGN isn't a reference to a fancy fantasy character or a real nickname, but just a suggestion from an algorithm. But since Ingress is all about algorithms (ADA) and AI I consider it to be a rather good fit.
Kerris, it's a person from a book I read around that time. Watchtower, the first in the triology The chronicles of Tornor, from Elizabeth A. Lynn.
My usual account is a combination from my first and my last name and my birthyear, but impossible to speak. So I wanted to use something new and Lythande was already taken ;)
I've always been a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, and have been using some type of variant of Zaphod42 online for over 25 years. After a couple attempts at finding a name that wasn't already taken I settled on the zero.
I really liked Nintendo back in the 90s. They had a Play It Loud slogan, set of commercials. Has been my email and in game name for most things since ;) Long live Mario, Zelda, Contra & Megaman!!!
So my younger sister came up with this concept of bunnies being people she loved, and I was her Bunny Sister. From that grew the Bunny Clan -- the people that we think are awesome. Mostly our favorite family members but a few other very special people got to join the Bunny Clan too. She and I form the Bunny Council and we have to jointly approve new members, who have to have big hearts.
My late fiancé decided that my Bunny name was Bunny Prime. I started playing Ingress soon after that. Now I am the matriarch of my family line, after my mother passed away the same year my fiancé did. So I really am the Prime member of the Bunny Clan.
My name is a spelling variant of 'Scythian,' an ancient nomadic group from Central Asia and Eastern Europe who were known for their adeptness in mounted warfare. Similar to how the Scythians would ride their horses across the steppe to smash villages, I drive across Northern California to smash blue portals 🐸🏹
I drive for a living and see no purpose in owning a car so I have bikes. There's a moped, an e-bike and an 80's racing bike to get me around. So, 3Bikes
Mine was an old DJ name. I used it in everything and still do. Because cellphone games don't matter and life is real. Treat your family with respect, put the phone down.
I am a State Emergency Service (SES) Volunteer that helps the community in times of storms , floods, land searches, police assistance etc so when I changed my IGN from CatandBear (Geocaching name) SESsmurfette was born :)
Nickname my platoon started calling me while deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, reference from South Park, City Wok episode. I stuck with it ever since. We watched a ton of South Park to pass the time.
Shalex was the name of the ranger I created in a friends D&D campaign when I was younger. I have used it in online games ever since. Oh and I was born in 1983... lol
I got inspired to use mine while listening to Kavinksy. I also use this outside of Ingress. It also pheneticly loosely sounds like my full name if you say it fast.
The 86 is obviously my year of birth.
I used to go by Abramech in Ingress but once I warmed up to the social aspects of the game and it's implications I stopped caring about hiding my identity in any way and changed to something you can quite easily connect to me. Also helpfull in social events.
Back in the early 1990s, I was playing a MUD and was promoted to a "GOD" position, which was effectively an administrator. However, the server owner didn't want to promote my original character and instead wanted me to create a brand new character. In order to be original, I combined Felix and Ferret, however, I mispelled it and became Farix. Then, by the early 2000s, other people were adopting the name online, so I stuck "The" in front to become TheFarix.
MaliciousWolf has been an alias I have used across numerous platforms for 15 or so years now.
I remember being a young (typical 11-12 year old) kid that wanted and intimidating sounding name to utilize online that had some combination of Wolf in it given wolves were one of my favorite animals at the time (and they still are today). I recall trying various combinations of a player name for a particular online service, but they were all taken, so I cracked open a dictionary (probably the first time I ever did in years), and stumbled across the word 'malicious' which to me sounded pretty intimidating and cool. After settling on it, I combined it with Wolf and became known as MaliciousWolf for the years to come.
Ironically enough, I am probably one of the nicest most easy going people you'd meet either online or in life, so people are always shocked and poke fun at my name after they have a chat with me. My name and personality do not match up at all... well unless you end up on my bad side that is I suppose...
I was writing a story in middle school and wanted an elvish name for a character. A friend suggested an elvish name translator that was linked to on the profile page of the top gamer of a website we both played on. Several drafts later, "Rithivaland" was no longer an elf, but an alien. I never finished writing the book, but I like to use the name regardless. Especially since my old go-to un has coding in it and is sometimes blocked these days.
Mirthmaker, I thought this game would be about bringing smiles, tomfoolery, and garb choices.
If I knew what this game was really about when I started, Mischiefmaker is far more appropriate, but I used that in a draft of a novel that I started pre ingress.
Still looking for a non blatant costumey fool's cap (folly bells and liripipe are a bonus).
My nickname growing up was Kel. Since I knew this game was a battle over territory, I spelled out my agent name in military alphabet. I decided capitalizing any of the letters looked goofy and unserious so I kept it all lower caps.
Well... I am French, and I write code, and I am pretty good at it. Had a blog for a while "the plight of a coding frog".
It's only after I reached L6 I learnt the ENL players are called Frog (I am RES🤦) . Most must have believed I was trolling them, or a fake account, Or even that I should flip faction to match the IGN 😂😂😂
Comments
I've used DanteAmaya for about 10 years through many gaming platforms.
Dante, not from the famous Italian or even a popular video game, but from a book series by Lilith Saintcrow. Dante is a necromancer, bounty hunter, who works for the Devil. She's one of my first literary idols.
Amaya... Some Facebook quiz told me it should be my name. But it lied. It does not mean "Night Rain" in Japanese. Some Google-**** indicates that it means "Night Rain" in Arabic. It's also similar to "Mother City" in Spanish origins or "the end," "the beginning of the end" in Basque. In Japanese it's written with symbols for "heavenly valley." It's just a lovely name.
The capitalization of the last A was a work I picked up solely for Ingress.
Cr (Cristian), Wolf (mi animal favorito), 96 (mi año de nacimiento).
First:
Thanks for sharing your amazing stories behind your names in this thread. I had a lot of fun to learn the vast variety behind them.
And now for my personal story:
My Name "Nelkon" is an evolution of another IGN.
When I had to chose a new nick for the Playstation Network for the PS2 System in 2002 I let my eyes wander in my room for inspiration. Then I saw my mobile from "Nokia" laying upside down on the table. So it read "Aikon" . The name was free and - more important - had enough vovels to be easily distinguished or yelled over the voice-chat in the PSN-Beta title "Socom".
When I had to choose an agent name for Ingress at my first Ingress invite in 2013 this name wasn't available anymore. This was a problem I already ran into when I had to choose name for the "old instagram". There I chose one of their suggestions that was free and sounded a bit similar: "Nelkon".
Thus my IGN isn't a reference to a fancy fantasy character or a real nickname, but just a suggestion from an algorithm. But since Ingress is all about algorithms (ADA) and AI I consider it to be a rather good fit.
Initially I used a nickname that was essentially my real name, swiftly changed to something more anonymous.
I had been using DethLentil for a while on other public forums, but had grown some facial fuzz so upped the name to DethBeard.
"The beard to be feared" as one wag once shouted as I entered a bar.
Kerris, it's a person from a book I read around that time. Watchtower, the first in the triology The chronicles of Tornor, from Elizabeth A. Lynn.
My usual account is a combination from my first and my last name and my birthyear, but impossible to speak. So I wanted to use something new and Lythande was already taken ;)
You alway make my heart sing, lady! 💙
I used my name when I was playing the original Halo way back when. It's an obscure Monty Python reference, which makes me happy. :)
My name is Oscar, which was already taken.
My last name starts with C, oscarc was also taken.
So I added a 1; oscarc1
I've always been a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, and have been using some type of variant of Zaphod42 online for over 25 years. After a couple attempts at finding a name that wasn't already taken I settled on the zero.
I really liked Nintendo back in the 90s. They had a Play It Loud slogan, set of commercials. Has been my email and in game name for most things since ;) Long live Mario, Zelda, Contra & Megaman!!!
So my younger sister came up with this concept of bunnies being people she loved, and I was her Bunny Sister. From that grew the Bunny Clan -- the people that we think are awesome. Mostly our favorite family members but a few other very special people got to join the Bunny Clan too. She and I form the Bunny Council and we have to jointly approve new members, who have to have big hearts.
My late fiancé decided that my Bunny name was Bunny Prime. I started playing Ingress soon after that. Now I am the matriarch of my family line, after my mother passed away the same year my fiancé did. So I really am the Prime member of the Bunny Clan.
My name is a spelling variant of 'Scythian,' an ancient nomadic group from Central Asia and Eastern Europe who were known for their adeptness in mounted warfare. Similar to how the Scythians would ride their horses across the steppe to smash villages, I drive across Northern California to smash blue portals 🐸🏹
I drive for a living and see no purpose in owning a car so I have bikes. There's a moped, an e-bike and an 80's racing bike to get me around. So, 3Bikes
I'm an animal that knows how to use a computer. RAR.
Mine was an old DJ name. I used it in everything and still do. Because cellphone games don't matter and life is real. Treat your family with respect, put the phone down.
You made quite an impression with that name among the southern Utah Resistance. We all loved it.
I am a State Emergency Service (SES) Volunteer that helps the community in times of storms , floods, land searches, police assistance etc so when I changed my IGN from CatandBear (Geocaching name) SESsmurfette was born :)
Nickname my platoon started calling me while deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, reference from South Park, City Wok episode. I stuck with it ever since. We watched a ton of South Park to pass the time.
Mine came from the lands of Everquest many many moons ago, I hit the random name button and this is what I got. LOL
Shalex was the name of the ranger I created in a friends D&D campaign when I was younger. I have used it in online games ever since. Oh and I was born in 1983... lol
I got inspired to use mine while listening to Kavinksy. I also use this outside of Ingress. It also pheneticly loosely sounds like my full name if you say it fast.
The 86 is obviously my year of birth.
I used to go by Abramech in Ingress but once I warmed up to the social aspects of the game and it's implications I stopped caring about hiding my identity in any way and changed to something you can quite easily connect to me. Also helpfull in social events.
Back in the early 1990s, I was playing a MUD and was promoted to a "GOD" position, which was effectively an administrator. However, the server owner didn't want to promote my original character and instead wanted me to create a brand new character. In order to be original, I combined Felix and Ferret, however, I mispelled it and became Farix. Then, by the early 2000s, other people were adopting the name online, so I stuck "The" in front to become TheFarix.
MaliciousWolf has been an alias I have used across numerous platforms for 15 or so years now.
I remember being a young (typical 11-12 year old) kid that wanted and intimidating sounding name to utilize online that had some combination of Wolf in it given wolves were one of my favorite animals at the time (and they still are today). I recall trying various combinations of a player name for a particular online service, but they were all taken, so I cracked open a dictionary (probably the first time I ever did in years), and stumbled across the word 'malicious' which to me sounded pretty intimidating and cool. After settling on it, I combined it with Wolf and became known as MaliciousWolf for the years to come.
Ironically enough, I am probably one of the nicest most easy going people you'd meet either online or in life, so people are always shocked and poke fun at my name after they have a chat with me. My name and personality do not match up at all... well unless you end up on my bad side that is I suppose...
I like making lots of links without fields
I was writing a story in middle school and wanted an elvish name for a character. A friend suggested an elvish name translator that was linked to on the profile page of the top gamer of a website we both played on. Several drafts later, "Rithivaland" was no longer an elf, but an alien. I never finished writing the book, but I like to use the name regardless. Especially since my old go-to un has coding in it and is sometimes blocked these days.
I changed my name again when I was last posted in here.
My current agent name:
1:36
(it's also an amazing company)
I wanted to name my first cat, Toxoplasmosis. My partner rejected that. (Weird, right? 😅) So, the cat kept the name the shelter gave her, Molly.
Later, when I needed to pick a name for Ingress, I still had all that on my mind, so… Toxoplasmosis + Molly = Toxoplasmolly.
Much later, another agent interpreted my in-game name as "party pooper". 😂
Mirthmaker, I thought this game would be about bringing smiles, tomfoolery, and garb choices.
If I knew what this game was really about when I started, Mischiefmaker is far more appropriate, but I used that in a draft of a novel that I started pre ingress.
Still looking for a non blatant costumey fool's cap (folly bells and liripipe are a bonus).
My nickname growing up was Kel. Since I knew this game was a battle over territory, I spelled out my agent name in military alphabet. I decided capitalizing any of the letters looked goofy and unserious so I kept it all lower caps.
Well... I am French, and I write code, and I am pretty good at it. Had a blog for a while "the plight of a coding frog".
It's only after I reached L6 I learnt the ENL players are called Frog (I am RES🤦) . Most must have believed I was trolling them, or a fake account, Or even that I should flip faction to match the IGN 😂😂😂
Always wondered if I should change it...