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

This thread is for people to ask for their name to be analysed, and for others to try and analyse their names...

If you have more than one name on the 'net, it helps if you mention all of them in your request - more info to get hold of for the analyser...

My name's iaoth on h2g2, used to be Azrael a while back, Claw a few years ago (and still in my e-mail address) and I call myself Jibril on my homepage. Do those names imply anything at all? (Besides the fact that I'm an RPG-freak 'cause I don't have any anchors in any of my nicknames, not counting J...)

iaoth, Azrael, Claw, Jibril

Well, I don't think I've ever said that having no descenders is a mark of an RPG-freak - it just implies, well.... being 'footloose and fancyfree' - that kinda thing. Not someone with deep roots to any one area or deep ties to any one person - a little more flexible and adaptive than that...

Now, don't take this the wrong way, but they do seem rather
demonic names - Azrael, for example, I'm sure is the name of one of the devil's henchmen in Paradise lost... or is it one of the angels? Similarly, Claw sounds fairly nasty - makes me think of ravens or tigers or similarly vicious creatures. So first impressions are that this is a Goth, or devil-worshipper, or at least someone who's mildly pessimistic...

Was Azrael a pocket devil in one of Issac Asimov's non-sci-fi books? Or have I got it wrong? Regardless, I'd say the user is certainly a fantasy fan - the names just *feel* like fantasy names - all the right resonances.

iaoth doesn't have a first capital, but the rest are all capitalised in the standard way - is this because it was confused with Laoth? Could be - that's the danger of a site where I and l look the same...

I do wonder what a Jibril might be... corruption of Jiblets? or Fibril? No real way to tell - and it's probably just made up on the spot...

Z, J, W, and starting with no cap - all marginally unconventional, which kinda fits with the goth image - and seemingly plenty of ascenders, so someone with an active imagination... putting that together with the rest of the clues... somebody dressed in red and black, with a dagger at their side and a rather unsettling grin - not someone you'd want to come across on a dark night...

But I've been wrong many, many times before...

iaoth, Azrael, Claw, Jibril

Well... (see A492996) I have read LaVey's Satanic Bible (and enjoyed it), and I do listen to Marilyn Manson and Type O Negative. But I wouldn't say that I'm a devil-worshipper or Goth. A bit, maybe. I am a fantasy fan, though.

You're right, I thought iaoth looked really silly with a capital I sans serif. And yes, Azrael is Asimov's pocket devil (although I haven't read the book). It's also the name of the angel of death. Jibril is the yiddish (sp?) version of Gabriel, another angel (obviously). iaoth is, according to some, the name of an angel as well. Claw is just a rather out-dated, pubescently "cool-sounding" nickname.

Thanks for the analysis!

Could you analyze my names? I've been Joose and I'm currently Touconos, SilverFyre or JamieUK(Touconos on h2g2). As far as I can remember I haven't been anything else.

Whaddya think?

Could you analyze my names? I've been Joose and I'm currently Touconos, SilverFyre or JamieUK(Touconos on h2g2). As far as I can remember I haven't been anything else.

Whaddya think?

Can't reply now: my sister is chucking me off - but I'll get back to ya...

Any idea of what my "name" means about me; "2Legs, (tradgic comic)"

If you don't mind. this sound interesting I'll give it a go...Courtney Patron Saint of Social Embarasment. I have also been C.C. and Nala. So what do you think?...

Ok, Touconos, et al, first...

SilverFyre is the one that leaps out as being fairly obvious - assuming that it IS the obvious meaning of "Silver Fire"... It sounds a name that a native american indian might use - same kind of root as Sitting Bull, and all those kinds of people. Someone who was born as his parents saw a silver fire? Unlikely - I'm going for real name as Jamie: and lets face it, there are far too few people with such names as real names any more: sad. But it could also reflect an interest in red indian culture - or, equally likely, celtic/druidic/wiccan culture. "Silver Raven" is a hugely cliched wiccan name: SilverFyre shows more originality than such, but could well come from the same root. In addition "fyre" sounds very old english to me. Or should that be "ye"?

Whatever, I'd judge this person as being well connected to nature and the earth, or at least someone who wants to give that impression: someone who cares about all life on this planet, not just the human life. There's that hint of nature worship too... "silver" in a name often reflects someone with white hair, but in this case I'd expect that it's more a case of someone who feels they are (reasonably) wise and grown-up: they see themselves, perhaps, as a source of good advice to their friends - someone who can be trusted to see the path.

JamieUK *has* to mean a Jamie who lives in UK. Guess is, "Jamie" was taken, but jamieuk wasn't, and hence was snapped up. A fairly conventional name - though not as straight-lined as "Jamie1047"... and someone happy to stand up for where he lives: there's a touch of patriotism and suchlike there - pride in one's country, without degenerating into xenophobia.

I'd guess that "Joose" is a nickname, and was used the first time this person got attached to the web: "joose" was an easy choice that wasn't a real name, so there was little thought behind it. Only thing I can insinuate from it is that this is someone who doesn't put a chinese wall between RL and VL - happy for friends to read what they write online. Since then, with more web experience, different names have been chosen, and the old one thrown away.

Which brings me to Touconos, and something of a mental block... Could be related to a Toucan of course - some kind of brightly-plumed exotic bird, I believe. Hints of a bright personality? Goes with SilverFyre, that does, so could be. The ending is in a greek style - though a greek is certainly unlikely to have "UK" on the end of their name - even a greek living in the UK... The gender of an -os name? It's masc. sing., but I'm not convinced of the relevance of such info: not enough people are classically educated that you can count on such stuff.

Leaving the vexing question of where Touconos comes from, lets move on, shall we? Both SilverFyre and JamieUK follow the "no spaces" convention - that almost certainly means they've been used in one of those unfortunate webplaces which disallow spaces - unlike the marvellous h2g2. A comparatively widely travelled webperson then - and someone who has perhaps been using it for a little while, since nowadays so many places allow spaces...

Capitalisation is conventional - no real clues there - but that does go with "JamieUK" - we're not talking about someone who is wildly at odds with society, or some kind of anti-industrialist rebel, unlike other, less stable, people who might choose a name like SilverFyre. Indeed, "SilverFyre" is the most unconventional name there: look at the shape of "Touconos", "Joose", "Jamie" - Single ascender in the first letter - and everything else with no ascenders or descenders. Straight down the line stuff - the celtic style name show that this is someone a little bit special, but I think the other names show an acceptance that in certain circumstances it doesn't pay to be special - that the audience can be safer than the stage.

My crystal ball is clouding over now... if you want more, you'll have to cross my palm with silver...

Very good!!! I'm impressed My real name is Jamie by the way.

> Someone who was born as his parents saw a silver fire?
Wrong with that one though

> wiccan culture. "Silver Raven" is a hugely cliched wiccan name:
> SilverFyre shows more originality than such, but could well come
> from the same root. In addition "fyre" sounds very old english to
> me. Or should that be "ye"?

Well done - It's Wiccan stylee - like me!


> Whatever, I'd judge this person as being well connected to nature
> and the earth, or at least someone who wants to give that >impression: someone who cares about all life on this planet, not >just the human life. There's that hint of nature worship too...

Again correct

>"silver" in a name often reflects someone with white hair, but in >this case I'd expect that it's more a case of someone who feels they >are (reasonably) wise and grown-up: they see themselves, perhaps, as >a source of good advice to their friends - someone who can be >trusted to see the path.

Yep, but I definately don't have white hair!

>JamieUK *has* to mean a Jamie who lives in UK. Guess is, "Jamie" was >taken, but jamieuk wasn't, and hence was snapped up.

Obvious, wasn't it?

>I'd guess that "Joose" is a nickname,

I've never been called "Joose" in RL

>and was used the first time this person got attached to the >web: "joose" was an easy choice that wasn't a real name, so there >was little thought behind it...Since then, with more web experience, >different names have been chosen, and the old one thrown away.

Yep! My first internet nick aaah....those were the days...

>Could be related to a Toucan of course - some kind of brightly->plumed exotic bird, I believe. Hints of a bright personality? Goes >with SilverFyre, that does, so could be.

It is related to toucans

>The ending is in a greek style - though a greek is certainly >unlikely to have "UK" on the end of their name - even a greek living >in the UK...

I suppose it is kind of a greek/mexican style, but that's got nothing to do with me really; I'm not greek and I have no greek connections.

>Both SilverFyre and JamieUK follow the "no spaces" convention - that >almost certainly means they've been used in one of those unfortunate >webplaces which disallow spaces - unlike the marvellous h2g2. A >comparatively widely travelled webperson then - and someone who has >perhaps been using it for a little while, since nowadays so many >places allow spaces...

Yes, they both originated on IRC. And I do get about a bit hehe


OK....I'll reveal the origin of my Touconos nick. I started a small website (one of my many ones) a while ago that was called 'The First Church of Toucans'. It was basically just a collection of mad ramblings and such. It was incredibly weird. I came up with the name as I'd just been drawing something to do with Toucans in an art lesson at school.

Anyhoo, somewhere in my inane ramblings I mentioned a 'toucan god' that I'd made up called....TOUCONOS....and I just kind of adopted the name as one of my alternate nicks. SilverFyre says the most about me though.

Thanks a lot....you were pretty much spot on! I'll give you 96%

Jamie

{btw, this is a democratic name-analysing fora: anyone who wants to try, feel free - In particular, anyone who can guess where "joose" comes from, speak now... }



Right, 2legs is next up under the spotlight... The obvious thought is of Animal Farm by George Orwell, and the "four legs good, two legs bad" slogan they use. I'm going to guess that this person is human!! Digging a bit deeper, the humans of animal farm were capitalist and interested only in money - and hance "bad". I wonder if this user would identify with that kind of "greed is good" philosophy? Alternatively it could simply be someone merely asserting their normality and humanity - "in spite of all I might say and do, I'm still human"? Hmm...

Just one name, unlike the IRC-inhabiting weirdo, Tocounos (). That implies a more centered, consistent personality - and possibly someone who's a comparative newcomer to the 'net? Equally, this could be someone who is simply OK with being accountable for their actions: that implies a responsibility lacking somewhat on the net.

A number at the front of a name seems unusual - I think thats my programming background - I feel confident in saying that the suer isn't one who programs at all: I think anyone who did would feel just too uncomfortable using such a name - a psychological thing... In any case, it's unusual enough a feature to spark comment - "TwoLegs" would be a more normal form. I wonder if this is an attempt to be concise - perhaps so more can be fitted on after the semi-colon...

My only other guess might be someone who's proud of their legs (which would, according to stereotypes, make them female - leggy blond? - not going there). Either someone who thinks they look good, or someone who wants to project a good-looking image online. Then again, perhaps someone who has reason to be proud of their legs for other reasons: some kind of sprinter or marathon runner, perhaps?

So, what do we have then? Our smooth, sophisticated customer, with a nod to conformism, but a hint of the Otherwise too. A George Orwell fan who's also a capitalist - now that would be an unusual combination...

Lucinda, you didn't take the epithet "tradgic comic" into account. Although I'm fascinated by username analysis, I wouldn't dare analysing that. Could be that the person in question is tragically not very funny, or he/she is simply funny in a tragic way. But that's would be too obvious. And why is it misspelled?

what do you think about these: braindead_geordie; aleta; nik; zzib ?

Not a lot to go on so I'd be interested to know what it says about me.

Hmmm, I'me awaiting the verdict on the (tadgic comic), before comenting, not wanting to cast bricks or stones that could throw a interperatation,

Anyone care to take a shot at me? Before I die, I would be interested to know how my name comes across

I am, and always have been daSilva - occassionaly Mr.daSilva, which after an incident involving Hotmail's useless scripting became mr_dasilva, hence I now opt to be and... hanrod... angr... non-sex-specific

Well, what about you, Courtney? I'll skip the Patron Saint bit, myself - I find that the h2g2 jobs and such distract rather than aid, most days...

Ok - first guesses first: The obvious thing to do is see C.C. as initials for a name - and Courtney as the first name - which gives us "Courtney C___". Courtney Cox is one famous person who matches that name - or it could be the users real name (or it could be both, and I'm blathering away to a celebrity... ). If the former, it could be someone who wants to be famous and glamorous, and get their kit off in News of the World - and, indeed, who wouldn't want to be stupidly well off? If the latter, then this person is rather the opposite: doesn't want to make-believe, or to be someone they aren't - perhaps got burned (and/or socially embarassed?) from doing just that, and as a consequence is now more honest?

Or, more likely, there could be no connection between the names whatsoever - beyond being used by the same person. So it goes.

Courtney has vague echoes of "courtesy" - it's a nice name - the sort of name that belongs to someone you'd be happy to take back and show your parents... the name of the heroine in those high school dramas, who goes through a bad spell, but then turns the tables at the end just before the credits roll. Deliberate choice, or the name that got randomly chosen from the bumper book of children's names?

Nala, Nala, Nala... there's a feeling that this is some kind of mystical name, but reflection reveals that I'm thinking of the "Naga" - a race of evil serpent-beings from folklore and rennaisance depictions of hell - so no leads there then. It kinda sounds like it's short for something - but what? who knows...

"C.C." - not the first initialed name I've come across - but notice how precise it is: the user's carefully put in both the full stops to indicate that it is indeed an abbreviation. Do we have an English teacher here?? Whatever the job, this is someone who is... precise. exact. Willing to spend a while thinking to get *just* the write word or phrase for a situation.

Aside from that... capitalisation - also precise. Mix of ascenders and descendes - nothing controversial or unusual here. I'd be tempted to sign this off as "just another netizen"... but for that Nala name still niggling in the back of my head. I just get the feeling that there's something deeper hidden here that mere mortals are not allowed to see - and which is hinted at, but unrevealed.

*tries to wander off enigmatically*

2legs - my apologies for missing out part of your name - I tend to have problems repeating a reading, though - so you'll have to find the meaning of that little tit-bit elsewhere... so it goes.

Hiya Geodie - I'm kinda glad you think it's interesting - though the credit has to rest with Magnolia of course... However, if you can't have interesting ideas of your own, you can always steal other people's. That's my motto, and I'm sticking to it.

Onto yourself, and my, what a collection we have here. A tangled web indeed: let's see what can be unwoven from it...

I kinda like "nik" - if only because of the wonderful self-reference of having it as a username/nickname (or "nick" as the web-savvy tend to call them). This user is someone, I confidently predict, who has heard jokes of the form "What's your nick?", "nik", "yeah: what is it?", "nik!", etc. But that's perhaps less about the inner secrets of your soul than human nature and the essence of comedy.

Talking of web-savvy, if ever there was a set of names which oozed hackerdom, it has to be these. All small letters, the substitution of _ for a space, the comparatively small sizes, the doubled Zs, the sharp, "jaggy" feel of the names. This is either someone with that metallic edge with computers - or else it's someone who saw "The Matrix" and wanted in on the bullet-dodging. Gotta be the first: feels to genuine to be otherwise.

Other associations from "nik" - the name Nicholas or Nick, possibly - though in that case I'd have expected a capital... plus in my experience people don't like playing with their own names, so dropping a letter would seem.... unusual, at least. Also has resonances with nick as in the nick of a knife, or a nick in some wood - a slightly violent undertone.

Oh yeah: I mentioned the essence of comedy..... it's timing.

To get away from the violence, I'm gonna look at braindead_geordie. With a name like that, this person is definately NOT braindead, though they may well be a geordie. Many people wear names which do down their own intelligence - have you read "Parkinson's Law"? Parkinson talks about the condition of Injellitance - Incompetence and Jealousy - which can afflict large organisations: the pres hires someone dumber than herself for VP and directors, the directors hire someone dumber yet for line managers - by the time you reach the bottom you have monkeys being turned down for being too smart. The counter to this condition is for those who are intelligent to hide it behind a mask - only to appear, like the demon king amongst the fairies, when they are at the top of the company, and it is too late for them to be expelled.

The point of this long random digression is that sometimes the world can be anti-intellectual - and ofttimes people have to hide behind a self-effacing mask in the same way. True here? The alternative, equally likely, perhaps more so, is simple lack of confidence - from the other names I can't believe this is someone who is genuinely braindead - but perhaps it is someone who has convinced themselves that they are - and forgotten the genius of the past and the genius still to come. If so, they've come to the right place: h2g2 is a wonderful place for genius to blossom and be reborn.

I'm reminded at this point of the Dogbert tactic of false modesty to extract compliments, so I'll switch tack to aleta. How does one pronounce that, pray? Whicheverwhat, the first impression here is of a name like Alice, and Alice rather than Alex because of the comparatively feminine sound of the name - it's a definate contrast from nik and zzib. It is a nice softness - but where does it come from? My guess would be nowhere - it being one of those names which just appears unbound, fully formed - though I can't really back that up.

Looking at it askew, could it be a play on "a letter"? A letter to someone, or just a single letter of the alphabet? It's probably overanalysing, but what the hey - "eta" is the letter for a long-e in greek - which makes the name quite cleverly constructed: you have two pronounciations of the same letters, which reflect each other's meaning. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that it has to be so - which, historically, means I'm so far off-track I need machete to beat through the forest.

Finally, "zzib". Gotta love the double Z - it's a scrabble player, or someone with a taste for the exotic - gotta be the latter, because the letters in the other names aren't quite so high-scoring... (and a scrabble player woulda used 'x' anyway ) The name feels - well "zzipy", if it's not to cliched... it's got a kind of inner energy - feels almost alive with movement - I'm reminded, naturally of a busy bee - I'd put this person down as someone with a fair bit of get-up-and-go: there's energy and vitality there - don't cage this man, or he'll go insane...

But the thing which impresses on me most is the jagginess of the names: the zs, the k, the t - if names were haircuts, these would be a mohican. Stand out, get recognised, live fast, die young, never get hurt. I wonder what caused the change of name if the shorter names are older and have been abandoned - such a loss of positive energy makes me sad - though kinda relieved that I'm not gonna get my head smacked off for saying the wrong thing. Hey, for all I know all names are in active use, and my misery is unneeded.

So what's the image then? I think it has to be a rebel of some kind - fast, brash, hard - but NOT stupid. Lets keep the image consistent by blanking of the more feminine feel of aleta - and just concentrate on the smell of napalm in the morning. Police, arrest this man, before he hacks into the Pentagon and starts off world war three...

--
MyRedDice notes that levels of mysticism appear to increase with a decrease in the amount of his/her sleep.