how did you pick your user name?

[russnbunny]

I love how this thread has really taken off thanks to all you guys and gals who have responded and I have found all of your names interesting. I like the name Dadof6furballs I'm thinking of changing my name to dadof5furballs5kiddos1rat1guinniepig1dogandabunny lol. Thanks guys

[+The_Incredibles_]

Like Dgwphotos, my original caching name was just my first initial and last name, and not very creative. Years ago, in a workplace hockey pool, I named my team "The A-Team", because my first name starts with 'A'. When I decided I wanted to change my caching name, I was lucky enough to find that "The A-Team" was in use by an "unvalidated" account, so GS allowed me to take the name. It opens up many additional benefits, such as having Mr. T as my avatar with the caption "I pity the fool that doesn't cache!". I've also started using the phrase "I love it when a plan comes together!" in my FTF logs, and I've considered using some kind of A-Team theme for some cache placements.

 

A mohawk would help with the theme too.

[+Dgwphotos]

My original user name was just my first initial and last name. I changed it partly because it wasn't very creative, and I think it sounded kind of lame.

 

Mine was my first initial and last name, too. I changed it to my first name and last initial, just to be different. I can be a bit wild like that.

Actually, I would prefer to use my first name and last initial, as that's my "standard" screen name, but it seems to get taken fairly quickly when people with my first name join websites.

[+W7WT]

As a kid I was very interested in flying and considered using either "Rodger Windsock" or "Tailspin Tommy". If you can remember them, you are older than dirt. I have been an active Amateur Radio participant since I got out of the Navy at the end of WWII. More people know me by my license W7WT than my real name, so I used it. Glad I did every time I sign a nano log. Dick, W7WT

[+Dave's Piglings]

on the way to our first cache I asked the kids what they wanted our team name to be...

 

our youngest (3 year old boy) has a small blue toy thing (not a teddy, but that sort of thing!) called Dave, so he wanted us to be team Dave

 

next youngest (6 year old girl) is mad on pigs and loved the term 'pigling' (from Enid Blyton's 'Five Go To Billycock Hill'), so she voted for the piglings

 

two older daughters couldn't come up with anything better, so Dave's Piglings were born!

[+Z3ROIN]

I wanted to get the name "Radius", as in the distance of the edge of a circle to the centre (where the cache is) like what appears on a GPS, or like when the GPS is trying to pinpoint you when it's not sure where it is. But someone had that covered so i went for Z3ROIN, as in "zero in" on the the cache.

[+Ed_M]

My original user name was just my first initial and last name. I changed it partly because it wasn't very creative, and I think it sounded kind of lame.

 

Mine was my first initial and last name, too. I changed it to my first name and last initial, just to be different. I can be a bit wild like that.

Actually, I would prefer to use my first name and last initial, as that's my "standard" screen name, but it seems to get taken fairly quickly when people with my first name join websites.

 

Plus, my last name is too long. With it this way, it ended up 3 letters and an underscore. If I can't pencil that in a log (and sometimes I'll even skip the underscore if I'm feeling brazen...) before some nosy jogger reports me to the police, I should take up a new hobby.

[WrongwayUK]

Around 20 years ago when I was learning to fly aircraft I had very few hours under my belt. My concentration centred on keeping the aircraft level at the right speed etc along with quite a few other parameters. Unfortunately at that time the navigation part of the equation was taking a low priority in my mind. Not a good idea. My instructor frequently used to shout Wrongway in my ear. In flying circles that became my name. My navigation skills did improve. Shame we didn't have GPS systems in light aircraft then.

[+larryc43230]

I was in a hurry to get a GC account and learn all about geocaching, so I just chose my first name, the first letter of my last name, and my Zip Code. I figured I would poke around the Web site for while and, if I decided to stick around, come up with something more creative. About ten minutes into my poking around, I learned that (at the time) you couldn't change your user name, at least not without an act of congress. By the time they loosened up the rule about changing user names, a couple of years after I started caching, everybody knew me as larryc43230 (or "Larry Zip Code" ), and I figured it wasn't worth the bother of changing. Except, of course, when I find one of those accursed nanos ....

 

--Larry

[+wanderaboutaimlessly]

wanderaboutaimlessly <--- is what I used to do before I started geocaching, and is what I still do when looking for micros

[+Otis.Gore]

I started collecting Horror movies when I was about 15.

Back then, my favorite film was "house of 1000 corpses", and the main character is called Otis Driftwood.

So I took his first name and added "Gore", cuz it's my favorite subgenre.

[+Cache The Planet]

We decided to paraphrase the rallying cry from the movie Hackers - so instead of Hack The Planet, we became... Cache The Planet!

[knowschad]

Chad picked it for me.

[+SwineFlew]

Chad picked it for me.

Now, who is Chad?

[+GeoBain]

Chad picked it for me.

Now, who is Chad?

 

[+dharma cache]

My dog's name is Dharma and we are caching.

[jholly]

Chad picked it for me.

Now, who is Chad?

 

Wrong chad. Not sure which one it was but it was either

 

 

or

 

 

The dog did say he liked to hang around with chad, so I think it was the last one.

[+SeekingBigfoot]

Bigfoot the hide and seek champion. I figure I find him/her that would be the best cache ever.

Edited December 29, 2011 by SeekingBigfoot

[+SwineFlew]

There is a cache for u. This.

[+FishieFive]

We cache as a family of four. And we're Christians so we picked the ichthus (or fishie) as our moniker. FishieFour. And with two little ones, it just fits us!

[+SwineFlew]

We cache as a family of four. And we're Christians so we picked the ichthus (or fishie) as our moniker. FishieFour. And with two little ones, it just fits us!

Hi...I found your cache a few days ago. Good to see ya on the forum.

[+Hik'n Mike]

When I started geocaching, my son had been playing water polo for several years. I used to look for caches between games when we travelled for tournaments, so I used "Polo Dad" as my username. After a snowboarding injury ended my son's water polo career, "Polo Dad" just didn't seem appropriate anymore. I like to hike, so I recently changed my user name to "Hik'n Mike".

[+6NoisyHikers]

When I first started I was known (nowhere) as "notwriting", which recalls a lifelong hobby that has now been usurped by geocaching. I found my first cache with my daughter and realized that I didn't want to disclude my family from the account name so 6NoisyHikers was created.

 

And, man oh man, we are noisy hikers. Okay, not all of us are noisy - only two of us in particular, #1 and #6. When those two are on the team, there is no such thing as stealth.

[+90%Angel]

My Geo-name came from a Gold pendant my sister gave me which says' 90%Angel. She wore it for many years but decided it suited me better..(my middle name is Angel)and gave it to me. When I started caching, I figured it's as good as any...ha! I get asked all the time about it ... I usually respond with, hey,...Nobody's perfect so '90%' is just fine with me~ of course I also get asked the other more obvious question just as much.... and that just gets a *-)

Edited December 30, 2011 by 90%Angel

[+Mr Smeee]

I was on a Disneyland blog and needed to pick a name, I chose Mr Smee from Peter Pan.

The name was already taken, so I modified it a bit.

You may see me on other forums using the same name, since it has now become my avatar!

[+BarkingMad]

Most of our friends (!) have thought we were barking mad for years - hence the name.

[+Flyingcompass]

I have a love of map and compass, and dead reconning navigation, and my visits to any particular cache are likely to be swift and one-offs. I also have an interest in fixed wing aircraft.

 

I decided to choose a different username to the ones i normally use, which are either the name of a much loved now gone pet, or derivatives based on my trade (which all start 'wireless'), or my ham radio callsign.

 

Oh, and my initial choice, 'Mag2Grid', was already in use!

Edited December 30, 2011 by Flyingcompass

[+badger10]

I picked mine because it is the name of the local rugby team I was on. It is also one of my nicknames. Badger was taken so I picked badger10.

[+SHENNY-TLC]

My user name came from my Last Name. And used to cache with the family now i cache alone , well till grandkids old enough to join. But best part is their is a town only 30 mins from where i live named LINDSAY and at events ppl say to me all the time "oh your from Lindsay".So on my trackable nametag i have my name and it says below it "no IM NOT from Lindsay" , always brings a laugh to ppl. And the Clan part ties into my Scottish heritage of Clan Lindsay. And the great part is on nannos i can sign TLC.

[+BMndFul]

After many renditions of cleaver names, I realized they needed to fit on a small nano log....I returned to what was simple and more importantly short. Besides at events, I really didn't want to be called by some obscure handle.

[+niraD]

In high school, I wrote a paper about my school patterned after Horace Miner's "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema". For the paper, I used the pen name Nirad Wergcm. Since then, I've used nirad as an online handle a few times. I've also used a few variations, because I've found nirad already taken surprisingly often.

 

For geocaching, I capitalized it as niraD, hoping to make it clear that it is my first name spelled backwards. That just seems to make people interpret my handle as "nira D". Oh well...

[+SCOUT98]

I was the Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 98 for about 10 years.

[+DarkStar56]

As there was already a DarkStar when I began caching, I just added my birth year to make it unique.

 

I saw the movie Dark Star in the 70's while I was in college, and thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I still do. This film was an early collaboration of Dan O'Bannon and John Carpenter, both now Hollywood icons. It is about three deep space astronauts who have been flying around blowing up unstable planets for 20 years. They deal with an escaping alien, a frozen commander, and a bomb which thinks it is God.

 

I also used the handle Dark Star when CB radios were in vogue in the 70's. Also, Dark Star refers to the icon of the Dallas Cowboys, America's Team. How 'bout them Cowboys?!

[linoleumsky]

I like words. Words are fun! My friend and I had a text war, using an alliterate style. It eventually evolved to non sequitur terms. Linoleum sky was one of the better ones I had come up with that day. I happened to like the sound of it and it happened to be available as a screen name. Incidentally, I insisted its immediate initiation.

[knowschad]

I like words. Words are fun! My friend and I had a text war, using an alliterate style. It eventually evolved to non sequitur terms. Linoleum sky was one of the better ones I had come up with that day. I happened to like the sound of it and it happened to be available as a screen name. Incidentally, I insisted its immediate initiation.

 

So, you pronounce it as those two words, and not as a Polish name?

[linoleumsky]

I like words. Words are fun! My friend and I had a text war, using an alliterate style. It eventually evolved to non sequitur terms. Linoleum sky was one of the better ones I had come up with that day. I happened to like the sound of it and it happened to be available as a screen name. Incidentally, I insisted its immediate initiation.

 

So, you pronounce it as those two words, and not as a Polish name?

Indeed. Two words.

[+Colonial Cats]

We live near Colonial Williamsburg and we have many cats.

[+Sharks-N-Beans]

One of us was a law student (lawyer = shark) and the other was an accountant (accountant = bean counter).

[+Sta2Key]

Mine is based on how I teach my students to pronounce my last name.

[+p2tek]

Well, it started as part of my email address but I stole even that idea from my Navy son. He flew as a crew member aboard the aircraft P3C "Orion" and he was an Aviation Electronics Technician, hence part of his email address became "p3tek" (that's also his geocaching handle.) While I was in the Navy, I was also an Aviation Electronics Technician and I flew as a crew member aboard the aircraft P2V "Neptune." Therefore, since the son was using "p3tek," I chose "p2tek." I've often thought that I'm very glad that I chose such a short caching handle because of having to sign all those logs!

[+2Jeeps2Jacks]

Well, we have two Jeeps, the Commander and a Grand Cherokee, and we have two Jack Russell Terriers.

2J2J is a easy nano handle.

[+DumLuck]

When we first started caching and had absolutely no geo-sense to fall back on, several times we would find the cache by literally falling over it. More than once I made the comment "Well, we found another one by just dumb luck!!" and, voila, my caching name was born.

Edited January 4, 2012 by DumLuck

[+The Blorenges]

We had some vague random name when we first joined the site yonks ago, but we didn't get around to getting a GPS and finding a real, live cache until a couple of years later...

 

When we did find our first one we thought we needed a proper name, something we could live with...

 

That first cache was on the Blorenge high hill / small mountain here in south Wales, UK, so we became The Blorenges. Quite a lot of people think that's our real surname.

 

MrsB

[+The Real Boudica.]

I'm not particularly inventive when it comes to picking screen names and always end up regretting the choices I make so didn't want to use any others from the past. I have an interest in the Boudica legends and a friend who shares that interest often calls me as Boudica had just phoned me up. Unfortunately that was already taken , I got very indignant with the pc, hence I was then 'THE REAL BOUDICA' in shouty capitals. I soon changed the capitals as it seemed too loud when I saw it on the forums (and by then I was feeeling less put out) and had to add the '.' as the website didn't accept that non capitalised boudicas were very different to capitalised ones.

[+Pocileh]

Nice and all kind of different stories and I'll add mine.

I'm afraid mine just 'surfaced' about ten years ago.

At that time I was based for about 6 months in Penticton (Canada) to undergo a conversion at the training School of Canadian Helicopters.

At that time it was not as easy as it is now to keep in contact with the family in the Netherlands.

Best way to do that at that time was by email (using a telephone modem...remember those old days? )

So I opened an account at Telus(?) and tried to find myself an nice nickname.

Flying a heli(copter) and being a ... connecting those two words and using them backwards my nickname appeared.

When I started geocaching I decided to use that nick.

My avatar is a golfball. Why? Because a (golf)ball has very poor aerodynamic characteristics. To improve its behaviour they put all those little 'dents' in its surface.

A helicopter by itselfs has also very bad aerodynamic characteristics is only able to fly because of all kind of aerodynamic tricks and because I didn't want 'a' helicopter in my avatar I decided to use the golfball.

 

Cheers,

[+Ash McCloud]

I got mine from two movies.

Ash is from Evil Dead series. I like the hero (BRUCE CAMPBELL) and I like how he is a little goofy yet gets the job done

McCloud is from Highlander. Although he spells it Macleod I love the first movie. "In the end there can be only one"

[+GeoReapers]

When I first made the account, it was just my name. But when my kids started getting into it early on, I realized that we needed a team name. We wanted GeoRaiders, but it was taken and my son had just been playing some random video game that had a bad guy (I think) called a Reaper. He suggested GeoReapers, it was available-we pounced.

[+davetherocketguy]

Mine's pretty easy to guess. I got a Garmin eTrex 10 for Christmas to use for rocketry because I always manage to see where rockets go down but it's pretty tricky to maintain a straight course even in an open field to where it went down. They also come in handy when performing search patterns. However, along the way my family and I have discovered Geocaching and attempted a few finds and here I am. I am a member of this national organization and this national organization as well. The biggest rocket I've ever flown was a group effort of about 12 people to fly a 20' tall 12" diameter beast to a little over 8k AGL. I've driven over 900 miles just to fly rockets and because of my hobby I even got to meet Kari Byron of Mythbusters fame this summer as they were filming a special for the Science Channel.

 

So yeah, I'm kinda into rockets. Looks like I'll be adding geocahing as well. GC'ing is nice because it is a whole lot cheaper.

[+Dancing_Duo]

My husband chose this name because we Square Dance

[+Darick]

I have used this name on various online forums... the name is made up of parts of my real first, middle and last names. Glad I picked something short... makes log signing easier