I got a name.

January 3, 2009 12:32 AM

How do you come up with new screen names?

Every frikkin' comment-ready site out there wants a user name and password registration these days and I am starting to feel kinda dry and used up thinking of a new one for every site. Yes, I know I could simply use the same user name over and over, but a few years of that led to memory (and identity) problems. So what happens is that I sit there at the reg screen and wonder "hmmmmmm". Anybody got a tried and true method for generating new screen names?

posted by telstar to computers & internet (30 comments total)

i usually describe things on my desk or in my room. i happen to have figurines so i end up with bobblepenguin and 2lilelephants.

also picking two random words from a book (the close your eyes and point method) and putting them together. you sometimes end up with interesting stuff.
posted by big open mouth at 12:43 AM on January 3

Just a note of whatever amuses you or strikes you as clever as you read things or go about your day. Keep a notebook in your pocket.
posted by alexei at 12:44 AM on January 3

I generally use the same username, or a simple alternate if it's not available (sycophantic, sycofant, sycophant_nz, for example).

I have a few different approaches to password. There is one password I have used for years that I use in places I consider it inconsequential (login to Adobe customer forums or something). For most other sites I have a couple of 'base' passwords that get adapted to suit the site for which I am creating a password (so might have 'mf' added in a specific place for Metafilter).

Similarly, I have my own domain name and ususally register on a website with '[e-mail]' so that I can easily remember what email I provided if I need to recover password, and I can easily track down any sites that on-sell my email address, or where it hasn't been protected (and can spam-block appropriately).

More recently I've started to use my realname on quite a lot of sites. I've never encountered anyone else with my name, so it's unlikely I'll have to change it anytime soon.

So in general I can figure out my username and password on any site with relative ease. It's probably 'sycophant' and then either one of a couple of generic passwords depending on when I signed up, or a 'personalised' password if it's a site a care about. I don't have to rely on my browser to remember them, or write them down or anything else.

These days I remember, explicitly, about 10-12 unique passwords, and the 'rules' for creating a few other variations. All my passwords include numbers and letters, most include capitals and lowercase, and some add punctuation just to really make it fun. Some passwords I can't easily remember to write or say, but my fingers seem to remember them well on the keyboard.
posted by sycophant at 1:07 AM on January 3

I think this is kind of chatfiltery, but hey...
I have an old 10-volume dictionary and I often flip through it to find some obscure words to use as usernames.
posted by kidbritish at 1:29 AM on January 3

The captcha that Google uses on its account signup page is a good source of random, pronounceable pseudo-words.

Personally, I'm just flabdablet everywhere.
posted by flabdablet at 1:39 AM on January 3

I use the names of characters in stuff I've written,
or my bizarro name (my parents' second choice name for me, coupled with my mother or grandmothers' maiden names),
my pets' names, and
the names of characters on TV shows I like.
... or words that describe how my eyes sometimes look a little crossed.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 1:42 AM on January 3

flabdablet, I tried it and got deretedua. I kinda like it, thanks!
posted by telstar at 2:00 AM on January 3

I go with whatever rhymes with "fuck Texas."
posted by wfrgms at 2:05 AM on January 3

fuck texas

ruck mesas.

Tuck lexsus.

Puck Sexis.

Suck besos.

I am trying.
posted by telstar at 2:15 AM on January 3

chuck hexes


I don't really have this problem but if I did I think I would just start adding military ranks in front of or those weird abbreviations after my name:

Private telstar
Lieutenant telstar
Colonel telstar
Major telstar

telstar DDS
telstar phd
telstar Esq

You'd be keeping the basic name, just adding stuff to it. And you could try to make what you add be relevant to site, if possible.
posted by dogwalker at 3:06 AM on January 3

It's random, relative to things going on that stick in my head. When I signed up here, I was listening to Brian Eno music w. that name. I used to drive an Oldsmobile Delmont 88--a truly gargantuan car--and liked the name Delmont so I've used it. This is not to say or imply that I am gargantuan in any way, shape or form.
posted by ambient2 at 3:39 AM on January 3

I didn't for Metafilter, but typically I use a prefix that's site specific followed by a constant -- like the constant might be llama, and if it was for Bank of America it would be bofallama or if it were the NY Times it would be NYTllama....iTunes would be iLlama

I don't use Llama on other sites though. I just wanted a user name that I liked and I was jealous of people with cool usernames like "You're a kitty!" and "Grumblebee". Over on reddit there's a "Werewolves Rancheros" which I liked too.

I manage passwords the same way -- site specific prefix followed by a constant. It works pretty well, because it's fairly intuitive and if I can usually get it through a couple of guesses, rather than looking it up.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:02 AM on January 3

Truck Lexus. Rugged elegance for the road.

Favorite bands, shows, or movies (or books, I guess): Twisted Telstar, Telstar PI, Darth Telstar, Los Angeles Telstars of Anaheim. Maybe tailor it to the specific web site it's being used for, along the lines of what Llama suggests.

And as much as you may think you'll never need it, keep a list of names and passwords written down somewhere. There's nothing more irritating than getting blocked out because you can't remember which password you used for a site you don't visit often.

I guess keeping that list from being useful in the unlikely event someone steals it is another matter... A secret decoder ring could come in handy. Hey, that would be a cool screen name!
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 4:30 AM on January 3

the last few times i had to pick screen names where i didn't want to use this one, i started out looking at the recent entries in the word-a-day mailing list i'm on. if that didn't provide some inspiration, i tried staring at my bookcase for a while or flipping thru the dictionary.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:09 AM on January 3

oh, also, online thesaurus.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:09 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

I had the same problem and came up with a few sites to help choose new usernames:

Random Phrase Generator
Random Name Generator
Username/Password Suggest
posted by Sufi at 5:58 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]

When I was looking for a mefi name I found plenty by reading Burroughs and isolating strings of words. In the end I went for something completely different, of course.
posted by ersatz at 7:12 AM on January 3

I've used, generally, 'Nouns I Like.' I also have 'Nouns I Like in the Sumerian Dictionary,' which is never taken. You can get a lot of mileage out of manipulating Nouns You Like. I do a sort of word-association. I'm cobaltnine a lot of places, but I've used various properties of Cobalt-the-element as starting points. Flipping through not only old dictionaries, but other old books, like Atlases and Encyclopedias, are great places for nifty names.

Barring that, I did take a handle from one of my walks through an old cemetery. I needed a plausible name pseudonym for a newspaper interview I did, and I stole it from someone who died in the early 19th century. Let me tell you, people have always had weird names, 17th century through today.
posted by cobaltnine at 7:20 AM on January 3

I'm generally "First Name + Food Product." Here I'm still Juliet Banana from my anonymous&obnoxious message board days, but on more personal sites (Facebook, Flickr) I changed my username to my real legal first and middle name, Lorena Cupcake, which happens to follow the same formula.

I've never used them for usernames, but I have a friend who regularly uses my Tourette Syndrome as a generator for song titles and the names of pieces of art. Hardcore Hamburger, Death Peanut, I Wish My Donkey Was Dead. So, if you happen to have a friend with Tourette's, you're in luck!
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:13 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

I like to keep my usernames personal and reflective of me, so when I want a new one, I usually make a list of things I love (words, places, foods, things, etc.) and/or characteristics (curly, curvy, fair, green-eyed, etc.). And then I put two or three of those words together to see if it sounds/looks good.

I also find that the Thesaurus comes in handy and helps me find words that I couldn't just pull out of my brain. And although it's mostly for finding domain names, Bust A Name is a great tool for name inspiration.

Oh, and RhymeZone can be a bit of fun as well.
posted by cloudsandstars at 8:50 AM on January 3

If my name and/or firstname/lastname are taken, I use words in Romanian which are rarely taken, or a bunch of small words in a sentence (often from whatever music I am listening to at the time) similarly.
posted by jessamyn at 9:07 AM on January 3

I just go by whatever I happen to be drinking at the time.
posted by HotToddy at 9:29 AM on January 3

Even if it makes me sound like a gay male stripper.
posted by HotToddy at 9:30 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]

Song lyrics/song titles. All of my usernames ever have been references to various songs.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:54 AM on January 3

I generally use herbs and spices for my usernames (Vanilla, Sarsaparilla, Mint, Rue, Cress, et cetera). Mythology is also a good place to get names from (Orpheus, Ixquic, Priapus, Cuchulainn, Setanta, Beleth, El, et cetera). Sometimes, I'll just resort to using roman numerals because it's highly unlikely something like CDXVII and CVIII will be taken, but those can be difficult to remember.
posted by Dreamcast at 11:07 AM on January 3

I use one of my spy names. Or my real name since it is so much easier to remember.

For a while I used Grateful Dead names like August West or Jack Straw from Wichita or Bertha or Tennessee Jed or Poor Peter or Black Peter or Mingle Weir or Jerry's Missing Finger Part but stopped when I got to using Stella Blue. Too second set.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:55 AM on January 3

My wife uses the names of the streets in her neighborhood growing up or the porn name she would have used if she had gone down that career path. Felicia Ferocious. Grrr.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:57 AM on January 3

Wow, this is great stuff. I can't pick out a best answer because so many are helpful. We need a "mark all responses as best answer" button.
posted by telstar at 4:17 PM on January 3

I like using names of species. The Latin makes me sound so... sophisticated. Even better for MMOs and the like when you can tie the character into the animal, such as my WoW rogue Crabro (European wasp).
posted by Hargrimm at 8:08 PM on January 3

I either use versions of my name, as seen here on Metafilter, or snippets of song lyrics to songs I love. Of course, the latter might also be a means to service as some sort of social connect: "Is your screen name a line from [insert obscure song]?" "Omg soulmates!"
posted by rachaelfaith at 8:25 AM on January 4