What's the story behind your avatar or username?

[fangsout]

Ok well I don't think I even have an avatar, but my username is a US military aviation term for when you are carrying live missiles or bombs. The idea is that your "fangs", live ordinance, are "out", aka ready to deploy. My father was a fighter pilot and growing up we kinda adapted the term to mean that you've done all the preparation and now you're anxious to get started.

[Ludwig von Dracula]

Ok well I don't think I even have an avatar, but my username is a US military aviation term for when you are carrying live missiles or bombs. The idea is that your "fangs", live ordinance, are "out", aka ready to deploy. My father was a fighter pilot and growing up we kinda adapted the term to mean that you've done all the preparation and now you're anxious to get started.

Ah, good metaphor. I worried for a moment that we might have to start an all-out-war for the title of Vampire Overlord of Gradcafe.

[OnceAndFutureGrad]

An Irish archaeology lecturer once described the Normans as "recycled Vikings", which made me crack up very loudly, by myself in a large lecture My last name is of Norman origin and I have an unhealthy relationship with all things Norse so the phrase just sort of stuck with me...it's kind of lyrical.

My avatar is me hugging the 3/4 replica longship Odin's Raven at the House of Manannan in Peel, Isle of Man, in 2008.

[warpspeed]

i really like star trek.

[natsteel]

My band's name is National Steel, hence, my username...

My favorite football club is Arsenal FC from London and I wrote a blog called "Arsenal Station," hence the London Underground sign from the Arsenal tube station.

[rising_star]

I picked "rising_star" for a few reasons. 1) It's the name of an episode of one of my favorite TV shows, and a very powerful episode. 2) It relates to astrology (rising sign), which I've always thought is cool. I've been told by several users on this forum that I'm full of myself and think I'm the next greatest thing to happen to my discipline, which is why I picked the name. But, to be honest, that wasn't really what I was thinking of. It was more that grad school represents, for me, a chance in my life's direction and a chance to excel in ways different from the rest of my family.

I have two pictures on the site, one here on the forum and one for when I comment on blogs. I can't remember where I found either of them. The one here has stars in it, obviously. I think it was an image labeled "celestial nights" that I downloaded to use on another website about 6 years ago. The story is basically the same for the other image, which says "You might as well take ALL of me. The parts you want aren't removable."

[MoJingly]

This is awesome. There are some pretty incredible people on this forum.

The avatar is a picture I drew a few years ago. I was feeling a little bit like that tree: overwhelmed and ill-equipped to hold up everything I needed to. Kind of like how I feel in this application process...

I have no idea where my name came from. It just popped out!

[kotov]

Alexander Kotov was a Soviet chess player. He came up with the idea of "Kotov Syndrome": in a crucial situation, one spends a long time trying to come up with the best solution, then, crunched for time, rushes into a decision and frequently does something stupid.

My avatar is Cam Newton. I went to Auburn for undergrad. War Eagle.

[Alyanumbers]

Alexander Kotov was a Soviet chess player. He came up with the idea of "Kotov Syndrome": in a crucial situation, one spends a long time trying to come up with the best solution, then, crunched for time, rushes into a decision and frequently does something stupid.

Woah, very fitting.

[Strangefox]

..."Kotov Syndrome": in a crucial situation, one spends a long time trying to come up with the best solution, then, crunched for time, rushes into a decision and frequently does something stupid.

That made me think about GRE

[EricaMarie]

Mine is really simple. It's my name.

My avatar is Stitch banging his head against a wall, because that's what I've been doing since mid-November.

[tls]

my username is pretty simple, its my initials and a number that i think is special.

my avatar is a picture of snowmageddon 2010, the big snow storm that hit the dc region early last year. the latest snow went right around us, so i was just reminiscing.

[zjwah]

My best friend and I created a language when we were in high school...sort of. We just made up words and came up with there meanings (we had WAY too much time on our hands). Zjwah, we decided, represented a teeny, tiny month between April and May. It is very quick, lasting just a split second right before midnight on May 1. Our saying was: "April showers, Zjwah, May flowers." I promise we weren't high or drunk when we came up with this. We were just that awesome.

[Strangefox]

My best friend and I created a language when we were in high school...sort of. We just made up words and came up with there meanings (we had WAY too much time on our hands). Zjwah, we decided, represented a teeny, tiny month between April and May. It is very quick, lasting just a split second right before midnight on May 1. Our saying was: "April showers, Zjwah, May flowers." I promise we weren't high or drunk when we came up with this. We were just that awesome.

Oh my god, that's so cool!!!!

[dant.gwyrdd]

Both my username and avatar are movie-related: the avatar is, as some probably know, Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke in one of the weirdest (I mean that as a compliment) movies ever--Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (after the book of the same name by Hunter S. Thompson).

The username is a reference to a character of a Serbian (Yugoslav) movie, a made up funky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQZNnLG_4k... sort of: "a fighter against boredom, of a sharp wit with the superpower of highly refined sense of humor which makes his enemies go amuck" (btw. his arch-nemesis is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz0yFVtn4hk. His name is "Zeleni Zub", meaning "green tooth" and I first used it when I had to think of a username for something while having a toothache. Over the years it morphed into Welsh ("dant gwyrrd" meaning the same thing... as far as I know), because Welsh is so darn cool.

Edited January 6, 2011 by dant.gwyrdd

[awvish]

I've always had a thing for (and a bit of a talent for) languages and words. When I was in...early high school...my mom got this day-by-day calendar of archaic English words. Because I've also always been something of a trickster, 'awvish' appealed to me then ("Elvish; playfully mischievous") , and became my go-to username--it's short, whimsical, and unique, as far as I can tell.

My avatar is a picture of me on a cliff striking a brave-explorer pose--I took a research course in Kenya, and my friend took the picture against a skyscape we both thought was pretty incredible. I like it because yes, it does symbolize possibility and potentiality and so forth...but it's also poking fun at it. So it reminds me to take myself and my aspirations seriously, but not *too* seriously.

[zjwah]

Oh my god, that's so cool!!!!

hahaha, thanks Strangefox. I'm glad others can appreciate our unique brand of coolness.

[starmaker]

My username is from the Killers song "Spaceman", which is (at least in my interpretation) about a guy who is full of despair about his life and just wants it to end, to be somewhere else, and then he gets abducted by aliens, and the experience shifts his entire perspective and makes him realize that his life isn't so bad and he doesn't really want to leave it behind. It's a turning point in his life. There's a line in the chorus, "The starmaker says it ain't so bad."

I had a very, very rough time in undergrad, with some patches where I was completely trapped in despair. I came out of it as a much more resilient and adaptable person, as someone who is much better at stepping back and regaining perspective than I was. I learned how to be resourceful and land on my feet. Plus, after how unhappy and stressed I'd been at times, nothing in the "real world" seemed "so bad" to me. Now, I play a role to my undergrad friends where, when they are stuck in despair (my alma mater is notoriously high-stress), or fearful about the future, I can help them regain perspective, like young alums did for me. Having been through the grad apps process a few times at different levels (my unsuccessful senior-year round, my successful post-bac and masters ones), I would like to be able to do the same for anxious comrades in the grad apps process who haven't been through it before. I'm playing the role of the starmaker from the song - to myself if I start to get too stressed, to my younger friends, possibly to people on this board who need some emotional support or consolation. Hence, the name.

My avatar (as of this post) is just meant to be me. It doesn't quite look like me - among other things, avatar-makers aren't good with curly hair - but it was the best I could do.

[sputnik]

I wish I had a cool story for my username/avatar. I am not Russian. My research has nothing to do with space or astronomy or anything even close to that. I was trying to come up with a username, and I had a radio on. For some reason, they were talking about sputnik, and thus my username was created.

For the avatar, I just looked for cool pictures of sputnik. Since I love dogs, I picked this one, on account of the dog.

LoL Pretty weak, all around.

[Strangefox]

I wish I had a cool story for my username/avatar. I am not Russian. My research has nothing to do with space or astronomy or anything even close to that. I was trying to come up with a username, and I had a radio on. For some reason, they were talking about sputnik, and thus my username was created.

For the avatar, I just looked for cool pictures of sputnik. Since I love dogs, I picked this one, on account of the dog.

LoL Pretty weak, all around.

Nono, it's not weak, I believe it brings up the idea of chance!

I mean, you were listening to the radio, you heard the word, you made it your name... I don't know, some pretty cool stories start like that

[augustquail]

Back in the days of yore, people used this program called AOL INSTANT MESSENGER. When I was in high school, I didn't have internet access until I was in 10th or 11th grade. So, I get some high speed online, and I suddenly need a screen name. I was convinced that the name was extremely important. So I sat and read the local phone book (not all of it...) and found strange names. But my favorite was some old man named "August Quail." August is my favorite month, and I think that quail is a nice bird. Also, I liked the flexibility of the words, august also meaning inspiring reverence or admiration, and quail meaning to cower in fear. The name creates a weird, poetic incongruence that I like. Yup.

[Alyanumbers]

Back in the days of yore, people used this program called AOL INSTANT MESSENGER. When I was in high school, I didn't have internet access until I was in 10th or 11th grade. So, I get some high speed online, and I suddenly need a screen name. I was convinced that the name was extremely important. So I sat and read the local phone book (not all of it...) and found strange names. But my favorite was some old man named "August Quail." August is my favorite month, and I think that quail is a nice bird. Also, I liked the flexibility of the words, august also meaning inspiring reverence or admiration, and quail meaning to cower in fear. The name creates a weird, poetic incongruence that I like. Yup.

Your username makes me hungry.

[katerific]

My username is from the Killers song "Spaceman", which is (at least in my interpretation) about a guy who is full of despair about his life and just wants it to end, to be somewhere else, and then he gets abducted by aliens, and the experience shifts his entire perspective and makes him realize that his life isn't so bad and he doesn't really want to leave it behind. It's a turning point in his life. There's a line in the chorus, "The starmaker says it ain't so bad."

I had a very, very rough time in undergrad, with some patches where I was completely trapped in despair. I came out of it as a much more resilient and adaptable person, as someone who is much better at stepping back and regaining perspective than I was. I learned how to be resourceful and land on my feet. Plus, after how unhappy and stressed I'd been at times, nothing in the "real world" seemed "so bad" to me. Now, I play a role to my undergrad friends where, when they are stuck in despair (my alma mater is notoriously high-stress), or fearful about the future, I can help them regain perspective, like young alums did for me. Having been through the grad apps process a few times at different levels (my unsuccessful senior-year round, my successful post-bac and masters ones), I would like to be able to do the same for anxious comrades in the grad apps process who haven't been through it before. I'm playing the role of the starmaker from the song - to myself if I start to get too stressed, to my younger friends, possibly to people on this board who need some emotional support or consolation. Hence, the name.

My avatar (as of this post) is just meant to be me. It doesn't quite look like me - among other things, avatar-makers aren't good with curly hair - but it was the best I could do.

Oh man, I love that song. And what a clever connection! I love it

[sputnik]

Nono, it's not weak, I believe it brings up the idea of chance!

I mean, you were listening to the radio, you heard the word, you made it your name... I don't know, some pretty cool stories start like that

Thanks Strangefox!

[Zouzax]

mine is a picture of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul.

my screen name .... when I was in high school, I thought that ZouZax would be a cool name for a character in the Lion King or the Jungle Book. To me, it sounded like it could be a friend of Simba or Mowgli. I don't know. the name stuck.