> I know there was a thread titled "Handles" about a year ago that concerned this topic; I just read that thread and found it very interesting. However, there were only a few folks who posted to that thread who are still current regulars today (Issachar, Howard, Darien among them). I am curious about where people's nicknames come from.
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> I'll tell about mine, and maybe some other folks wouldn't mind telling about theirs (thanks to Kiki, extirpator, and others who already answered this question in RinkChat.)
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> "Grishny" is a shortened form of "Grishnakh," which is the name of an orc in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Two Towers." I started using the nickname a few years ago in Prodigy Chat. I've tried several other nicknames, but Grishny is the one I've liked the best and used the most, for some reason. I originally came up with it as a place-name for a Warlords II Deluxe scenario I created. (For those who don't know, W2D is a war/strategy game from Strategic Studies Group) It was a ruin called "Grishny's Tower," where Grishny was suposed to be an orcish mage or wizard who cursed nearby small villages for a living. Goofy, huh?
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> Since I've started using RinkChat as Grishny, he has evolved into a somewhat more refined orc, who wears a monacle and enjoys tea and crumpets from time to time. Just ask Issachar.
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> Gri"The History of an Orcish Mage"shny

Well, I'm afraid that my handle doesn't have quite that illustrious history. ;-)

I actually thought it up when I was in a room at my favorite chatsite, and there was a handle in there by the name of "Red Mage".

Being the extremely irritating (and arrogant) person that he, (my assumption, of course), was, I decided to use this name as a subtle method to get rid of him.

(My thought being that "MageLord" would get under his skin until he left. Okay, I admit that one could possibly argue about maturity, but this guy annoyed everyone.)

Be that as it may, I have evolved the name into a highly respected character at the site in question. (And I personally consider "him" a lot of fun.) :-)

Mage"Maybe my story's not so interesting, now that I think about it"Lord

P.S.: It worked, by the way.