If you meet me online, like on IRC or skype or any of a number of instant messaging services, then you're likely to see me use the moniker "ringmaster". Why is this?
(cue flashback effects)
Back in the day, I was a frequent user of bulletin board systems, the kind where you use your modem to dial directly to someone else's computer. (Yes, you can do that, no, you don't need the internet.) Each person had an account with a username, and nobody every used their own name (ok, very rarely). We all called these names "handles", like you might use a handle on Citizen's Band (CB) radio.
I would leave messages on the BBS that, depending on the BBS and how early in the BBS timeline we're talking, would travel very slowly from one side of the country to the other using a network called FidoNet. FidoNet worked, as simply as it sounds, by one BBS calling another BBS and so on, sending messages onward toward their destination.
I guess that's not really germaine to the story, but it does provide an idea of how a handle can get around and become familiar with more people than you might have imagined.
Anyway, I wasn't known as ringmaster back then. I was known by a couple other names that I won't publicize for various reasons. To protect the not-so-innocent, we'll say.
The inclination to have a handle came from those times, and I think the idea that this handle is an identity is something that differentiates it from people who call themselves "puffybear" or whatever on one service and "sexxxxtina" on another. I try to use "ringmaster" everywhere. When new services start up, I'll sometimes sign up an account with "ringmaster" just to reserve the space, even if the service doesn't seem like something I would be interested in at first glance.
The name "ringmaster" itself came from my post-college RPG days. I was very into White Wolf games. I even did some work for them. My name (the real one) appears in the credits of one of their books.
There was a book they released called "The Midnight Circus" which is a supplement for their World of Dakness setting. Basically, the game involves pretending to be one of several types of supernatural creatures (Vampire, Werewolf, Fairie, etc.) and having some involvement with this travelling circus - something straight out of Something Wicked This Way Comes. But moreso.
I created a website back then called midnightcircus.com, which was a kind of web portal for that game. It never really took off, even though we had some neat ideas. I eventually moved the stuff visitors liked over to the RPGWire.com domain, and eventually my interest in that died out, too.
In any case, midnightcircus.com became my primary domain. I received email there. If I was going to have a handle, which as I explained above was an idea something I was interested in, it seemed obvious what it should be: ringmaster.
And that was around 1995 or so.
These days, I nearly answer to the name "ringmaster" when spoken. In most cases, I only ever see the name online. But it's recently been pointed out that I have my IRC nick embroidered onto a baseball cap, and that most people aren't that dedicated to their handles. I suppose I am.
I also got my start back in the days of the BBS. I preferred WWIV boards over the more popular Wildcat systems, but that may be circumstantial: all the folks I met from the WWIV boards were far more social and interesting than the dullards on the Wildcat boards.
The story of my nickname is far less interesting (and less meaningful) than your's, but I, too, find myself staking it out on services I think I might want to use. Mine's a slightly more commonplace nick than your's, so I find myself appending numerals to my name if I'm not lightning fast on the sign-up pages.
That was a LONG time ago. :) I think it's strange that I never got together with more people then, considering you were practically guaranteed to live nearby. I used to be friends with a SysOp (when was the last time you heard that?) that I've never even met in RL.
On the Internet, you can't even be sure people are in the same country as you. Getting together can be a big deal, and require a lot of planning and/or money.
On a related note: My hotmail account gets alot of random signup requests because the email name is rather generic and people fill it in as a fake address from time to time. I shouldn't have started actually using it. I also get alot of mail (actually it's mostly MSN IM requests) for someone who has the last 2 numbers of my email address swapped.
The main BBS I frequented was run on an Atari, so it wasn't a WWIV or Wildcat. I'm not even sure any more what it was run with.
The people I met there were more involved than the people I met on other boards, and we even got together one summer to meet in person for a kind of picnic thing. We went to the park and then stopped at a pizza shop. It was fun.
If ringmaster is taken somewhere, I'll often add "ow" to the end, which is significantly less common than just adding a number.
Some other guy who apparently uses ringmaster as a handle has been sending frequent password reset requests to my YouTube account. That's an annoying side-effect. Oddly, you'd think you would run into the other people using your handle more often, but this has only happened to me a couple of times.
Nice to finally learn where that comes from. ;-)
I suppose I am as well. I've found mine to be very unique, and only when limited to 8 characters do I have to stretch a bit to figure out what to use for a handle/username.
Nuclear Moose has ingrained itself into my life, and many people know me by it -- see also my truck.
Cool post, OW! :^)
the BBS scene in the UK wasn't all that, mostly because of cost, and I'm a little younger than you - so BBS' past me by a bit (which is sad, I think I would have loved them).
However I was into newsgroups and IRC in 94/95 and IRC is what gave me my current nick - and I use it much like you do.
If baseball caps didn't make me look like a dork I'd probably have a similar one like you ;)
You're not implying that baseball caps make one look like a dork, are you? ;)
I use this name since 10 years ago. It remembers me the Tolkien's Saga.
"True", eh? Being nitpicky over something this trivial, I did write that my moniker originated in 1995, which is 11 years ago. Also, you might have noticed that the use of the name has nothing to do with the Tolkien books, which - if I remember correctly - were written in the '70s, making you quite the latecomer if that's your oh-so-original inspiration. And then, why not call yourself Frodo? Or the classic "cool" name, Sauron? Weird.