Know Thy Blogger: What’s In A Name

You’ve been staying up-to-date with our news, reading about our excursions and tales in Azeroth and sharing in our knowledge of World of Warcraft for some time now.  But we’ve heard that you want more, you want to know us.  Know what makes us tick, and what makes us love World of Warcraft so much.  Know Thy Blogger will deliver just that.

The More You Know: Project Lore Edition

What better way to start to get to know someone than to understand the name they selected for online recognition, and the reasons behind the decisions?  Off we go (in alphabetical order).

Amatera (The Cunning Linguist):
If you know anything about Japanese mythology, then you’re probably familiar with the Japanese Sun God, whose name is Amaterasu. Now, I had just finished playing the fantastic video game Okami (whose main character is a lupine manifestation of said diety) around the time that I needed to transfer my rogue to a new server.  Her previous name was already taken, so I had to come up with a new one.

Well, Amaterasu is technically female, and trolls are known for their propensity for worshipping primal gods and goddesses, so I thought it would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. It was already being used, as well.  But I still wanted to preserve the essence of the name, so I shortened it to Amatera. The rest is, as they say, history!

While I have several alts at Level 80, the only other one I use with any regularity is my shaman, Nuggnuts. You might have seen him in my Pit of Saron preview not too long ago.

His name comes from a ridiculous marketing push that McDonald’s came up with not too long ago to promote their Chicken McNuggets. The ad campaign featured people obsessed with the little meaty morsels, who “proudly” called themselves “Nuggnuts.” It started out as a joke amongst the officers in my guild until I threatened to create a new character with the same name.

The problem? It was supposed to be a gag, but I ended up liking my shaman so much that I took him all the way to the level cap.

DJTyrant (The Busy Gamer):
I’ve been using DJTyrant as an online/writing name for a while now; it started out at Tyrant (the name of a Star Destroyer in Star Wars TCG). DJ was tacked on later as my interest in the music game Beatmania IIDX grew. I’ve used it on so many sites that it has pretty much stuck forever.  I’ve had people at gaming tournaments and events come up and ask if I was DJTyrant, or even my girlfriend if she knew who I was.

My main character’s name is Berrorth, which (I think) came from the random name generator. If it wasn’t, I think it was just an off the cuff spur of the moment thing, Berr (as in a bear) and ‘orth’ just sounded cool to be honest. No one can seem to pronounce it correctly, so I’m usually reffered to as ‘Berr’. The way I pronounce it ends up being bear - roth. The moniker will probably change once the race changes go live, I will likely change to a human (female).

Heartbourne (The Archivist):
I got Heartbourne from the song Wishmaster:

Master!
Apprentice!
Heartbo(u)rne, 7th Seeker
Warrior!
Disciple!
In me the Wishmaster.

In case you haven’t heard it: YouTube - Wishmaster - The Misheard Lyrics

And it goes without saying that I’m going for the Seeker title: 3000 Quests Completed - Achievement - World of Warcraft

Heartbourne was originally my rogue on Spinebreaker, but I liked the name so much that I used it for my mage on Proudmoore. When I transferred my rogue to Proudmoore, I name changed him to Bladebourne. Since then, all of my alts have been -bourne, and Bladebourne remains as my main.

iTZKooPA (The King of the Anthropomorphic Reptiles):
I’ve been rocking iTZKooPA as my writing name for quite some time. It obviously came from the Mario Bros. universe that I was obsessed with as a child. Many a days were spent beating Super Mario Bros. 3, over and over, and over.  Koopa Troopas have always been my favorite baddie from the game, and when I realized that my real name was dominated by an Irish Catholic singer, I decided to write under a pseudonym. iTZKooPA was born.

Believe it or not Solidsam’s name came from actual creativity. The name was given based upon the class, a rogue. I thought of two other popular characters based on stealth, Solid Snake and Sam Fisher, and created the best mash-up. Only one person has ever figured it out. Most just assume my name is Sam.  And that I was raised in the 70’s.

Solidsagart was born due to my hatred of WoW’s friend system. Rather than trying to be creative again, I thought it was more important to be recognizable. Hence the Solid prefix in the name. It worked, people have asked me if I was Solidsamm. Sagart is simply Gaelic for priest.

Pixiestixy (The Better 1/5th):
Pixiestix has been my nickname and online handle for more than 10 years. It all started back in my early high school days, when a group of my girly-girl friends and I (this was high school, what do you want!?) were at a fair and decided to get caricatures drawn of us. Each of us decided to have our drawings based on a nickname. Since I didn’t have a nickname at that time, one of the girls said, “Pixiestix! Because you are hyper and sugary-sweet like the candy!” I was THRILLED; adopted the name, and it’s been my online handle ever since, in some variation or another. Usually containing “pixie.” And I still have a copy of the caricature in one of my high school scrapbooks

Locomomo: My main rogue, and I didn’t think particularly long or hard for my name. Momo has been a Japanese name I’ve liked for a while (means peach), and at the time I was reading a comic with a character with that name. Loco seems to go well in front of it. So, why not be a crazy peach?

Pixielocks: My own version of Goldilocks, perfect for a pixie-warlock

There you have it, the origins of our ridiculous names.  In the words of Pixiestixy, “Now (you) know (and knowing is half the battle!).”  Where did your handle come from?