h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks PP! Well I'm GLAD it wasn't all correct ... wouldn't do my ego any good at all! How do I do it? I don't premeditate at all! I don't worry about being "wrong" -- it's meant in fun and I don't mind looking totally ridiculous. I believe anyone can do it. Just give it a try, you'll see what I mean ...

Thanks QotPW! I did look hard at "V" but ... well, I don't write down every thought that occurs to me while putting together an analysis. That might turn out to be a bit dangerous!! I really don't expect to be "right" and it's really impossible to be sure that everyone will take this stuff in its proper spirit -- i.e. very lightly. So with "V" I didn't want to take any chances, becoz the first thoughts that occurred to me were prolly completely ridiculous! There! Won't say more 'n that!

I would like to ignore the most obvious association this name brings to mind -- which is the Middle East -- but I can't. It's annoying to recognize that the moment I see a name which suggests a culture outside the Anglophonic fold, that cultural reference overwhelms all other thoughts. It's especially annoying considering that I myself belong outside the fold.

So I will do two things. First I will to lean into my bias. And I will also cheat a little: instead of sticking to the name and nothing else, I will allow myself to be distracted by the fact that the user refers to navel-gazing. Now I found that interesting because navel-gazing is something that I associate with cultures a little further east than Middle. After all, from whatever one has seen of cultures of the Middle East, navels are not available for regular viewing, except in the case of belly-dancers which a "Mustapha" is unlikely to be. This suggests to me that though the user has chosen a Middle Eastern name, she/he may not actually belong to those parts of the planet. Or if she/he does, then she/he has an interest in philosophies of the farther east.

Now I will set the cultural association aside for a moment and just regard the name as just a collection of alphabets. What do we see? A typical use of capitals, yes, so this user may well be comfortable with conventions but ... not, I think, a conventional person. Does everyone realize that the only way that names can be read is by believing that most people recognize certain conventions and then make their choices towards or away from them? Well, as I tap around a bit blindly, using this idea as my white stick, what strikes me is that this is a person who has chosen the name "Mustapha" in a milieu which is not given to choosing conventional names, particularly not conventional Islamic names(just look at the list!). Such a choice makes the user an unusual person in the cultural sense. I can't say which culture the user belongs to, but whichever it is, she/he is likely to be someone who has lived or had interests outside her/his home culture.

There's one other association I feel I must dreg up -- it's really QUITE ridiculous! -- but there was a song, probably from the fifties, which I used to hear as a child, which went on about a "Mu-U-usta-A-a-fa!" with a lot of pseudo-MiddleEastern musical effects and syllables. This name instantly brought that song to mind. And maybe the user has a moustache? Decided to make a go of it and used this name in fond celebration of his (well I know that some ladies DO have luxuriant facial hair, but I will ignore that point just now for the sake of ... oh never mind) luxuriant crop of facial hair?

-- I'm so sure this is pure BS that I've got to offer a triple grin!

Analysing for MadMunk?¿, elwyneth, thealmight_bob, LZ, notevil ....
The upside-down question mark suggests Spanish but then again since nothing else does suggests a Spanish connection, I would tend to believe that the question mark is upside down as a kind of decoration. Also, I've not learnt Spanish and so have no idea whether it's only exclamation marks which get the upside down treatment or question marks as well. Mad Monks are associated in my mind with Russia not Spain, though there's the Inquisition to think about ... but ... what with MadMunk?¿ and a little further on "notevil"("not evil", I presume) and then again, "thealmight(y)_bob" I get the sense of someone who has struggled with matters of faith.

I do feel that question marks as part of a name suggest powerful inner struggles ... naturally I can't say with what exactly, but when there are questions so close to one's own chosen name, then I'd incline to believe that they are quite deep. And at the same time, choosing to present them here, in this place where one can appear to be as unexceptional and obvious as a doorpost, well, that suggests a person who has a sense of irony, is able to laugh at her/himself a bit, even when it's occasionally painful.

There's a range of different capitalizations, so I'd say this person has had ups and downs in her/his life ... It's not just the capitalizations, it's also the very different moods of the names. One is entirely lowercase, one is just two uppercase initials, one is upper and lower.

I can't make much of "elwyneth" unless it stands for "L Y 'n' S" (said with a lisp!) or is Welsh (the only thing I know about Welsh is the unfamiliar spellings of names ...)

Despite the complex offering of names -- which sometimes suggests to me a person who wants to draw attention to her/himself -- I wouldn't say this user is extroverted. Maybe even shy, but wants to overcome that. Creative and adventurous too -- trying out different styles and flavours.

Forgive me if this has been too silly ...

Uh-oh -- I see that there's another reference to "the Sith" -- I had earlier taken a "Sith" reference to mean Star Wars, but clearly I am wrong!! Okay, sorry -- and now, of course, I no slightest idea what this Sith refers to.

But it feels rather dark and dire. But in a Dungeons and Dragons-y sense. Not reallyreallyreally. Dark. Or Lordly.

In fact, I find it quite difficult to put a person called "Tatty" alongside a reference to Dark Lords of the Sith -- or of anything else! Somehow Lords do not strike me as often being Tatty -- which sounds to me like a pleasant friendly and very day-light sort of name. I think the daylight is because I am associating "Tatty" with "tatting"(as in lace-making), which certainly needs good lighting to produce. Friendly and childlike (perhaps likes potatoes?? No, just kidding) -- I would guess that Tatty arises from a personal nickname.

Someone with a short, easy-to-say name who chooses an alternative life as a Dark Lord ... sounds like a young person who is keen to grow up quickly! A playful person, who has not known much real darkness in life. Has a serious side perhaps, a healthy imagination and enjoys role-playing, but not in an over-whelming sense -- or the Dark Lord wouldn't have been confined to brackets ...

Anaylize me please. (no fair peeking at my forum posts)

Hello Buff -- no worries, it's no fun for me if I've already checked out a site for meanings ... I'll take on your name in my next session ... tomorrow night. Thanks ...

No, your quite right about the Sith thing, ti is related to Star Wars - in both cases

Gee, why oh why didn't you say anything for the V? *grins*
Too risky, though... That's why I pointed it out.
it stands for Voluptuous, actually, and you'd have to know a friend of mine to understand that bit

-Freya

*hops round his path of grass, stops and looks at Magnolia*

Could I have my name analysed, please?

*noses a carrot towards her, as a trade offering*

>xx>

Wow! Much of that was spot on! Of course, there was a few minor discrepancies, which i shall probably explain, coz i'm like that.... But otherwise, that was a pretty accurate portrayal.
Firstly.... you read too far into the question marks.... they were actually a symbol adopted by 3 people on h2g2 to represent that we were agnostics (because there were many people with crosses after their name to say they were christians). THe other 2 dropped the marks, but i kept it, coz well... i liked them. The conclusions you drew from the marks were quite accurate though! (i don't know how that worked out....)
I have, however, nothing to do with either Spain or Russia....
(and yes, in spain, question marks do get the upside down treatment.... at last i think they do..... ).
notevil was deliberately one word though.... for no reason known to me... and you were right, i meant thealmighty_bob.
Struggles with matters of faith? Maybe, but i'm pretty certain of my beliefs, so i assume it's with "outside" struggles.... as i do argue my point to other people in my class often....
Hehehe... i like the Irony and the rest of that line. I think that was completely spot on.
elwyneth was a bit of a catch... as it is sorta welsh, but at the same time totally made up, and also given to me as nickname by a friend. (long story).
Your also right with the "not extrovert" part. Definately the rest of that paragraph is true.

Not silly at all! Very good! I thank you greatly for your insights!

Hoo boy, do I ever not want to know.

Anyway, Magnolia, you can probably guess what I want. Whenever you have time...

(And all you people have sick minds.)

Not bad, very much like the classic 'cold-reading'.

Now check out http://www.h2g2.com/A275825 to find out how close you were!

Thanks Green Rabbit, for the nibble and the carrot ... you're not a Freudian rabbit by any chance? In which case offering a carrot might well be a VERY friendly gesture!

I have the strongest urge to go over and check out this user's site, because she/he seems to be extremely familiar ... but I won't, coz I haven't with anyone else so far (except Ming, and that was inadvertent!). But I get the sense that this is someone I know. This is extremely unlikely and so I will bash on regardless -- after all, I am committed to interpreting names, regardless of the people to whom they may belong -- and in that light, the first impression I get is of someone prolific, suggested by lush growing greenness as well as by rabbits.

Of course rabbits also suggest Alice in Wonderland to me. She followed a White Rabbit down a ... um ... depression in the ground. I seem to be devilled with mildly erotic images here. This Rabbit is green, which suggests to me a positive, go-forward into life attitude, but also mild psychedelic -- as if Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit has now, thirty years on, metamorphosed into an eco-friendly one. I think of it as a very big one, for some reason, suggesting to me that the user is large. But I think that's because a Green Rabbit suggests an Earth Rabbit -- a Rabbit the size of the Planet. One big bunny. Hmmm. Playboy images. Evergreen and youthful. Isn't it weird? I keep returning to a theme of mild naughtiness.

Very mild, mind you -- this Rabbit might be a bit frisky, but in an amusing way -- probably has the kind of laugh that bubbles inside a lot before appearing on the surface Maybe likes to play games. I don't know what to make of the statement in the bracket -- but I am beginning to interpret statements in brackets as meaning that the user doesn't have a whole lot of time to hammer out the Ideal Nick, but wants to cobble something together quickly in order to get the tedious business of registration at h2g2 over with.

Analysing for Buff (A mighty smooth shade of yellow) ...
It's interesting, I find, to see names which are statements rather than names. The thought has occurred to me that maybe this is a way of compensating for the general non-informative nature of real names?

I mean, when I see "Buff" I think of a pleasant, neutral sort of colour, midway between cream and yellow. I also think of nude skin -- nude in a neutral, understated sense, the way we might be if wearing clothes was not something we normally did. And I think of it as a verb, meaning to polish with soft leather. So a user with this name suggests a pleasant, even-tempered person. But the brackets suggest a different mood altogether -- in the first place, a complete comment expressed in a bracket suggests an afterthought, as if the process of creating a name was treated lightly, even though, as we all know, names can have a powerful impact on our lives. A long name takes a while to type in -- even cutting and pasting takes more effort than, for instance, just typing in "Buff". Of course there is always the possibility that a long tail has been chosen because the original name is already in use by someone else -- but then what conditions the choice of this particular addition rather than some other, more anonymous one -- such as numbers or symbols?

So a long bracket following what starts out as a short name suggests a person whose approach to life is spontaneous and lively, not one to plod carefully through from one point to the next. A person who is comfortable with conventions as they are, since there is no departure from the norms of punctuation. A person who likes h2g2 enough to register here but maybe doesn't spend a whole lot of time crawling the web, a different alias at every port. A person of steady habits and firmly held views -- that's quite a declarative statement in the brackets! A person who may be inclined to be mild eccentricity but is unconcerned about what people may think of it. And uncomplicated, in the sense that there is nothing to cause a stranger to stop and gawk at this name, aside from the nature of the declaration, which is arresting because of what it says, not how it says it. This is a user who probably prefers one or the other particular style of clothing and stays with it.

I can't guess at why a "mighty smooth shade of yellow" is such a big deal. Perhaps the user knows something about the process of creating buffed leather, which is both soft and smooth, and since "buff" is also a shade of yellow, perhaps that's all that's intended in the statement.

Buff suggests skins at two levels -- vulnerable, exposed human skin as well as cured, treated and softened animal hide. So it is a curious word, in its short and quiet way, it has a double-layer of meanings. Maybe this user enjoys the double-entendres of this word -- but, I would say, isn't particularly a wordsmith. Maybe a craftsperson? I must say, I get the sense of someone who enjoys textures and tactile sensations, someone who works with her/his hands a lot.

And ... that's all, Buff!

Hi! I can't imagine what you might want, of course ... but if it has anything to do with name reading, I'll get around to it in my next session (tomorrow) -- thanks anyway

Thanks for the anaylisis. It is interesting, and you're pretty close. If you had popped into my page, you would know that Buff is actually part of my given name. Most of my offline friends also call me Buff. It is definitly part of the same aspect of my personality that makes me choose comfort over fashon. I also do work with my hands, although I prefer to work with my mind. I definitly have very few worries about what others happen to think of me.
The mighty smooth shade of yellow thing is a joke of sorts. Buff is all of those things. Buff: American slang for physical fittness. ex. Wow, he's really buff. Also as you said, a process of smoothing, and a shade of yellow. And IRL, I'm kinda blond, no couch potato, and tend to be relaxed and mellow (smooth) Hence the parenthetical comment. Leads back to your thought about conventionalism. It's easy to be conventional, and it's easy to use a name I already have as a user name. I don't usally use different usernames. I always go for Buff. If it is already in use, then I will add #s, or as a last resort, use a different name. So you were on to that too.
And I tend not to take my name too seriously, since with a name like Buff there are endless things that can be done to it. (ex. Buffster, Buffet, Buffstress, Buffilingua, etc...[all of which I have been called at some point])
And I usally don't socialise online much. I really like h2g2, but mostly I go to the web for information.
So a good portion of your anaylisys was right on. Thanks again.

Okay, Davius the Mostly Competent ...

This User tells us that she/he ... well, okay, I know that she/he sounds pretty silly, but the thing is, this is more difficult to guess than one might imagine! Anyway, this user seems to be a straightforward sort of person, tends a bit towards being lazy -- I get the feeling that "Davius" is formed out of some part of the real name and rather nicely suggests "devious". But I don't think this user IS devious, coz she/he is willing to share information about being "Mostly Competent" ... that's rather sweet I think -- it's not a declaration of grand general incompetence but a quiet and rather meek confession that in the competence stakes well ... she/he's pretty much there but then again ...

You get the point. There is some feature of this user's life which is causing her/him some soul-searching. It's probably not a major issue and yet, there's enough there for it to be reflected in the name. I keep returning to the point that NameReading is made interesting by the fact that we have an opportunity, while choosing names for use on the web which might -- just by the way they gleam and sparkle -- suggest that the owners behind them are especially interesting or gifted. But it seems as if there is a genuine unwillingness to be dishonest, even here: I find that people are more willing to be candid than to be vain and self-congratulatory. I mean, there is a kind of vanity that will parade incompetence as if it were a trophy -- this user is not going in that direction.

It takes confidence to present oneself in even a mildly negative light, so I'd say this user expects to be accepted at face value, warts and all. She/he may have inner qualms about whether this approach really works, but finally does not believe it is worth investing too much concern over appearances. This suggests to me that this user is a professional -- a student? -- whose work is engrossing enough that other features of life don't matter all that much. And then again ... maybe there are just a couple of little doubts ...

Okay, Davius the Mostly Competent ...

This User tells us that she/he ... well, okay, I know that she/he sounds pretty silly, but the thing is, this is more difficult to guess than one might imagine! Anyway, this user seems to be a straightforward sort of person, tends a bit towards being lazy -- I get the feeling that "Davius" is formed out of some part of the real name and rather nicely suggests "devious". But I don't think this user IS devious, coz she/he is willing to share information about being "Mostly Competent" ... that's rather sweet I think -- it's not a declaration of grand general incompetence but a quiet and rather meek confession that in the competence stakes well ... she/he's pretty much there but then again ...

You get the point. There is some feature of this user's life which is causing her/him some soul-searching. It's probably not a major issue and yet, there's enough there for it to be reflected in the name. I keep returning to the point that NameReading is made interesting by the fact that we have an opportunity, while choosing names for use on the web which might -- just by the way they gleam and sparkle -- suggest that the owners behind them are especially interesting or gifted. But it seems as if there is a genuine unwillingness to be dishonest, even here: I find that people are more willing to be candid than to be vain and self-congratulatory. I mean, there is a kind of vanity that will parade incompetence as if it were a trophy -- this user is not going in that direction.

It takes confidence to present oneself in even a mildly negative light, so I'd say this user expects to be accepted at face value, warts and all. She/he may have inner qualms about whether this approach really works, but finally does not believe it is worth investing too much concern over appearances. This suggests to me that this user is a professional -- a student? -- whose work is engrossing enough that other features of life don't matter all that much. And then again ... maybe there are just a couple of little doubts ...

Having had the rare opportunity to read it twice...

First, I am a he. And you are correct, Davius is a minor modification to my real name. And I am a student. And I really shouldn't be starting all of these sentences with conjunctions.
Moving on...I am rather straightforward and a bit lazy. (Isn't everyone?) I am also averse to dishonesty. I do tend to place a low priority on social life and things such as clothing style. (My entire repertoire consists of solid colors, and only five of them at that.) I try to be modest, but all my classmates think I'm really smart (which I probably am, but I generally don't go parading it around in front of everyone).

Now, the incorrect parts: I don't think I'm doing any soul-searching at the moment. I just added the Mostly Competent bit because it sounded good (and was more inviting than Davius the Destroyer, which I had used for a few hours). On the other hand, I am rather specialized in my knowledge (Popular culture? What's that?).

Anyway, it's mostly dead-on. Very cool.