What's the story behind your username and avatar?
6mon 20d ago by lemmy.world/u/early_riser in asklemmyOn a good day I'm up around 5 AM, but I often find myself up even earlier than that. I joined my first Lemmy instance during one of these bouts of insomnia, prompting my username.
My avatar is from a worldbuilding project I work on.
lol idk
Username checks out
I'm proudly a queer weirdo:)
As a fan of portmanteaus, portmanbravo (ok this one is pretty tortured)
It’s funny.
You have an funny account name
"What would 'palindrome' look like if it was a palindrome?"
No avatar because I can’t be bothered. I don’t see them on my app anyway. As far as I can tell, nobody has them.
I was watching some movie, and I was like ooh, centipedes would make good farriers; they can use their body along the hoof to draw a stencil by just passing a pencil along all of its feet!
And that was silly so here we are.
I am not Rick, but I’m also NOT the Krusty Krab
That sounds an awful lot like something Rick would say
It's my real name, and I don't remember which avatar I have right now but either way it's from a webcomic.
You guys have avatars? Too much effort...
This is me just learning avatars are a thing.
Occasionally, my socks go missing.
I am just a person, you dont need to know anything more about me.
What avatars? I can't see them. My user name means what's up dude in my language.
I've been using this username since I was like 12. I think I'd just watched Babylon 5 and was trying to come up with a username that took a cheesy cringey self given nickname (Papa) and mixed it with some sci-fi sounding stuff (Babylon) and came up with papalonian.
Not today, FBI.
"This was a Triumph."
"I'm making a note here, huge success."
"It's hard to overstate my satisfaction."
Your username is an anagram of Hi Trump.
CURIOUS 🧐
It was the first online user name I ever created back in '92. I got it from the Nocturnus album Thresholds. The song was Nocturne in B Minor, which is from Chopin's Nocturne.
My avatar is my cat, Mouse Police wearing a yellow feather boa.

I also use the SHARPS logo as an avatar.

I love Mouse Police 😻
She is quite the character.

She has a cat tent, it sits on top of the box in the background, Mouse loves to jump into the tent and knock it over and then hide in it.
My username is a play on a very esoteric old /tv/ meme.
My profile picture is one of my drawings from my worldbuilding project. It's a froglike alien commando.
I had a friend since college whose first name started with a Q, he always went by Q. A couple years ago he started to use a QAnon logo as his avatar. Someone informed him of its meaning and he did a deep dive on it and never came back from it. I ended up blocking him on all social media because he went off the deep end.
My avatar is a picture of a large ceramic cow in northern Michigan. The cow is named Jillbert.
The name is largely self explanatory.
Keys on a qwerty keyboard. Just so that it's different here from everywhere else.
The only reason I have a username and not an avatar is because I was forced to pick a username but not an avatar when registering.
It’s my actual name, I got it for my birthday.
I just think the Grasshopper Mouse is neat
Bizzle is my legal name
Fo shizzle my Bizzle
It's kind of the slogan of my state
My avatar is the GOOD BEE from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Because I'm locked away in my cave, but if you manage to find and befriend me, I am loyal and will slay your opponents.

I read Berserk.
"Ugh I need to think of a new username. What's the name of the company I just bought a strimmer from? That'll do.."
Strimmer seems pretty good, still working a couple of years later for occasional use. Much nicer to have a battery powered tool instead of petrol. And bonus, I feel like Worx is such an unknown company that I'm not even giving free advertising because no-one even recognises the name!
I’m just a gust in the wind and I made it in paint to be a gust of wind
I use names that may seem creative, but have no real meaning. Just made from spontaneous ideas.
I always have several of them (prepared or in use), because you never know when some ultra crazy mod turns up.
It’s my first initial and last name.
Every time I see your avatar, OP, I think of Audacity 😅
Mine's just... Something I came up with. It came to me in a dream I guess.
You're not the first person to point that out. It reminds me of the Burger King logo personally. I did a little bit of research into color theory when designing it. I wanted blue and gold to be part of the color scheme and the red in the arch came up as a complementary color vs the other two.
We call someone who can't do anything right, or is “useless”,“un zero a l'esquerra”, a zero to the left (as in the zero in 01, which is the same as 1, making the 0 irrelevant).
I consider myself one such zero to the left, but that's too long, so leftzero. 🤷♂️
Also... lemmy has profile pictures..?
Now THAT is a clever insult.
I only know one guy who is smart enough to understand it tho.
Dkp for the loot system and I have always liked punk music
My avatar is my orc rogue standing over Orgrimmar at sunset. It was when I first got my Thunderfury, so I wanted a cool picture with the badass sword.
It's a variation on a local folkloric figure, and the image is modified from the album of a poem about the figure by Martin Newell and the Hosepipe Band.
Lemmy.zip has/had a mismatch between frontend and backend validation on usernames. When the frontend allows something that the backend rejects, you get some random "InvalidName" pop-up on form submission.
I tried several different variations of my preferred user name, but I couldn't figure out what was violating backend validation, so finally I settled on InvalidName. Which triggered a server error (500 error or timeout or something, I don't recall).
But finally, one glorious moment in time, the lemmy.zip server accepted InvalidName2 without choking, and the rest is history.
I'm not creative... Its virtual (real life initials)
I'm enthusiastic about fisting
Avatar: my current DnD character (art found online). Name: Initials and favorite number. Not very clever or funny, just practical.
Moved from one end of my country all the way to another not too long ago, and I've felt like a fish outta water since. Or, an Outwatered Fish.
I think the name was just something that sounded cool and was either made for gaming or when I helped mod a sychtube channel.
The avatar is just one of my family's old chihuahuas staring at me with a toothless unhinged look.
I'm a... doctor lady.
It's a quote from my favourite videogame, and I'm a visual arts person so it works for that as well. Joining lemmy I knew videogames/ art comms was where I'd be spending most of my time. ... Ironically no pfp. We don't have those on my app.

I chose my username when I was still a teenager, originally with the meaning that I'm a nerd, but not like an amazing or extremely smart nerd, nor extremely awkward. Just your average guy with autism and nerdy on particular subjects.
I've mostly kept with it because it's how most of my online friends know me, and I still think it's part of my identity, although I've since developed interests that a stereotypical nerd might not have such as cycling, mountain biking, travelling and hiking.
It was my character name in my first MMO, the English beta for MapleStory back over 20 years ago, and I've been using it ever since. I picked it since it was close to Mithril, from Lord of the Rings.
Same, MMO username since Ragnarok just slight variations of spelling.
Penguins are cool. I ride dual sport motorcycles. (And other motorcycles. But definitely those.)
Wanted something that showed who I really am
Lemmy has avatars? I don't see them, and I don't want to. It's one of the annoyances with new reddit. I just have no use for them, nor do want to waste space seeing anyone elses.
My username? If you know you know, if you don't you wouldn't care anyways.
Mash up of minglewood and August West.
Depends on the app but they are not really that prominent imo. It's just a little flair to be more unique

In terms of avatar, it was in my downloads folder
"We all turn the wheel... I am the one who decides the way in which it turns."
Portmanteau of "True" and "Escape".
Because online spaces allow us to Truly Escape reality :)
My name is Joseph, and a lot of kids mispronounce it as "Jofish" or something similar. I can't remember who actually started the nickname for me, but it caught on. It doesn't hurt that I enjoy being in and around water anyway.
it's part of your cock
Display Name: I love Steins;Gate. El Psy Congroo.
Alt Account Display Name: That account is for Asian Diaspora Community stuff and Poetry, so I used Wong Ka Kui since that is my favorite Cantonese singer (he's dead now RIP), and as a native Cantonese speaker, I felt like it makes sense to assume his name as my online screen name for that purpose. I mean, songs are just poems but you volcalize it + music, fitting to, in the future when I feel like it, post poems under that name.
Actual Username: I made the acccount when I was depressed.
Big Sad = Great Depression
DeathByBigSad = I'm gonna die by the economic system collapsing
Profile Pic: I hate CCP. I'm not pro-ROC/KMT either, but I just like to trigger tankies xD
Lemmy let's you have a user avatar? I've never seen one using Voyager.
My username is a Latin phrase meaning (this particular definition is from Wikipedia): In contemporary parlance, it means tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. The phrase also suggests that bad but justified outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants.
I think rebellion against the US government is required at this point regardless of your political affiliation as our Public Servant's have shown to not care for who they represent, the American people.
There was a post I saw on Reddit that I wanted to respond to, and that meant I needed an account. I just happened to have visited this site right before then, and so the username just naturally popped to mind.
Much later on, I made an avatar to fit it.
Nothing really deep about it.
Ever seen castaway? Its pretty good
https://omarmouallem.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Will-the-Real-Burger-Baron-Please-Stand-Up1.pdf
I'm the real Burger Baron and so are you! It's a local franchise of sorts with a very messy history.
I wanted something short and unique and this was somewhat pronounceable with a vowel in the middle
I have the user name “aeao” on Xbox. Just 4 letters. One day it’ll be worth millions!
If I have spare time, I sleep.
Its from Lethal Weapon 3. The clip will explain better than I can.
The name was originally chosen for nerd cred (for anyone who recognizes it - Atra esterní ono thelduin. Mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr. Un atra du evarínya ono varda.) but I later realized that it's also great because it's an actual word from an actual story and 99% of search engine results for my name are going to bring up that story and its wiki. It's an extra layer of pseudo-anonymity that I enjoy.
The avatar was just cause it's funny, I use this one all over the place.
When I’ve seen you post before I assumed it was an eragon reference, what’s the real origin then? Is that Esperanto or something?
Nah, you're correct.
The translation is left as an exercise for the reader :)
I combined my dogs names, Kona and Loki, to come up with KoLoNaKi; but when I actually made the original thing using this name, I mistyped it as KolAnaki and didn't notice until like a week later.
Avatar is an early ass AI image gen image of my fursona when they were still a totally new thing and I was checking 'em out. When I have some money to spend, I'd like to get a better one made by the artist who did the banner I'm using on my profile currently.
I really liked watching B-grade 90s-00s SciFi movies with my dad when I was a kid. That was the name of one that came out around the time I made a reddit account, I don't know if I ever even watched it, it just sounded like a good username. Reminds me, I should probably make a new lemmy account that's not tied to the same name
Somehow it just seemed to tie things together.
I like cats and that it looks like a stylised way of writing Cam, which is a cool little geared mechanism.
My name is a reference to the famous British tank gun and anti-tank gun from WW2. Used in tanks and as standalone anti-tank guns. Put in the Sherman tank to create the Sherman Firefly because it packed more of a punch against enemy armour than the American 75mm.
"Sir, the 17 pounder won't fit!"
"Put it in sideways."
"The radio won't fit!"
"Cut a hole in the back and have it stick out the back."
"The engine's no good!"
"Grab 5 car engines and stick them in together."
Well, my username is just what I came up with when trying to think of a cool sounding name. I don't remember what I originally used it for but I do know that I've been using it for several years at this point. It is one of my two most active names and I use it in a wide variety of places but I do know that I have seen people using my name, so if you see my name being used somewhere, it's possible that It's not me.
As for my profile picture, I've been using a picture of Zack Fair from Crisis Core as my main profile picture ever since I first played the game back in high School. He was one of the first characters who I really felt attached to. Prior to this, I was using Castlevania characters. Ever since Crisis Core got a remake, I've been thinking of going back to using Castlevania characters again but it just doesn't feel right to me anymore.
I do also want to mention that I do also use a picture of Clippy as my profile picture on some platforms. I've been doing this ever since I saw that one Louis Rossmann video and I use it on platforms that I don't support.
Drew a comic that made the front page of reddit over a decade ago. Family and friends noticed it and identified me because the username wasn't subtle if you knew me, personally. Ditched the account immediately and used a generator, which came up with this. Decided to re-use it for shits and gigs. For those wondering: no, neither the comic nor the account of mine had anything weird or inappropriate, I just appreciate a certain level of privacy in most online communities.
The avatar is a self-portrait. I made an avatar for Mastodon and decided to make a separate avatar for slrpnk.net to, you know, make it more solarpunk-y.
As for name, I picked Rose as my cutesy trans girl name - I also picked Xbox gamertag "Rose in Shadows" one day, and use "Yesterday's Rose" in realname field in places. I guess I was mostly inspired by the last line of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose: "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus" (roughly "the rose of the past endures only in name; we hold only the bare names") Dunno why I decided to put the z in "roze". A momentary bit of edginess? Notorious Hacker Alias???
I... uh... made it before I realized I could ask chatgpt to help me
Probably misremembered term from an Anne Rice novel. Google gives me nothing. As such it seems pretty unique.
There's this epic show called Psych. Hidden pineapples appear in pretty much every episode and movies.
A long time ago my when my little brother was in first grade, he got a homework sheet where he had to unscramble a bunch of names. I thought this scrambled version sounded cool, and have been using it as username everywhere ever since.
Kinda/remotely/vaguely is the phonetic version of the surname my best friend gave me some 40+ years ago.
The avatar is a red blob hinting at what I'm into (plus my name) ;)
Despite what you might think my name has a story. The first part has to do with the sound you would hear right before you died in an early FPS game, and the second part was the clan I was a part of at the time (happy). None of my name has to do with drugs.
I had just heard the expression: "It helps the general effort." It was in a Discworld audiobook. It made me think: "Yeah, I could use some help right now." That was still rattling around in my head when I had to come up with a username. I don't remember what I was having trouble with, so I guess that worked out.
Picked a random space word and a random object in the room at the time.
My avatar was created by me a long time ago based on the "Astro" part of my username.
Just being honest and upfront, no reason to question otherwise.
As a child in the local library, I always passed the large print section and there was always this one book there: The Spitting Image. It had a furious-looking gargoyle on the cover and it used to scare me at first, but over time it seemed goofier and goofier. And since as an adult I have to fight the urge to be goofy when I should be serious, I felt like it was suitable.
On the web, click on your username in the upper right and then click on settings. Under Avatar you can browse your local file system for a suitable file.
I'm a fan of the poem and have had this name for 30+ years.
M is the first letter in my real name and 137 is my favorite/lucky number. I made my avatar about a decade ago, inspired by synthwave music and style (specifically after seeing waveshaper play live).
A friend in primary school just started giving us weird nicknames and decided to call me the wizard pope (not really but that is the best translation) he even held elections and elected me to the position so I just started using it as my username. The picture is self explanatory though I did have to change it in the spring.
I wanted people to regret worrying about who they were reading messages from
Paul PoOooOooOooooL
It’s from one of my favorite movies hunt for the wilder people. There’s this conspiracy theory dude living in the woods named psycho Sam and he goes on a rant about how form filling is how they getcha and he basically left society to avoid filling out anymore forms.
im always hungry
The first part is just an alias and doesn't really have an interesting story
The second part is the airport code of the city I lived in when this account was created. I was actually quite curious if anyone could have guessed that without me saying it out loud
Reference to a bad* movie that I think everyone forgot. Except for me... Making sure that movie won't be forgotten. (Well, I think its bad)
Never bothered with an avatar.
I typed some alphabets and numbers that just popped into my mind at the moment.
me move straight
My use name is cobbled together from a word list of Tolkiens valarin language. Akasan means story telling and the -Z suffix makes it a personal name. I thought the extra h would aid in pronunciation, but I'm practise most people just say aka.
My avatar it's my own Photoshop of one of the doges of Venice, with a Shibu face. Mind that I made this before musk ruined the doge meme and I won't let him run this. A clan mate took it, drew a mustache+soul patch on it and made the texts instead of historical, lewd as she thought that more appropriate (I do sport a mustache and soul patch irl)
^
romanized real name; result of clicking in Inkscape for 2 hrs.
Should be obvious
I'm autistic, have adhd, am neither right or left handed, and am a sociopath.
I didn't choose the weird life, the weird life chose me, I just accepted it.
World of Warcraft forums night-shift.
"After the end of World War II, the world was split into two - East and West. This marked the beginning of the era called the Cold War."
Hollow is a song title by an EDM artist named Dabin and has themes about loneliness, emptiness, and inner turmoil. Also depression makes me feel hollow. V is the first letter of my first name.
Here's the song: https://youtu.be/K-AD0iMs_ak
Sometimes I can be a bit pedantic, and I like alliteration, and too many people were confusing my old go-to user name with a terrorist organization, despite it being peak IRC.
I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent back – for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top...I was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world. There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth.
My username was based on the expanse
My username is my first name abbr and my middle initial just backwards. Ben A. It still pretty anonymous if I wanted it the right way around but Aneb is very funny to me tbh. It was very seductive when Staments said it in verse in his voice memo to me a while back. Its also something my grandma does with words so its an homage to her as well. tsuguanimajneb would be too long ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I randomly chose my name while playing Mario kart on the ds with friends back in high school and have been using it ever since. The avatar is a portrait I drew of a character in my book.
I was promoted from the rank of Commander Aggravated.
The avatar is an AI creation.