This Ask-the-Staff question is from diva_dancer_77:

How did you come up with your username?

My first name is "Paul", my middle name starts with "R", and "Shack" is in my last name, and it almost sounded like a word, so that's why I chose prshack.

I picked the name of an animal I liked.

My username is the original name of the final boss from Pikmin two, titandweevil was its final name, but I choose the first one instead

I don't really know, to be honest. I think I had been watching something about penguins that day so when I signed up here I thought MagicPenguin would be a good name. Then, I thought, "Nah. How about MagicPengu? Or MagicPengii?" then I thought of MagicPengy.

I was what, 12 when I picked my username?

S is the first letter in my name, DOG because I love dogs (and at the time, we had two dogs), 1234 was just spur of the moment hitting on the keyboard...

Nothing special about my username. 'P' is my last initial and 'Helen' is my first name. Put those two together and you get phelen.

When I was in 6th grade I made up 'Lord Kareth' as the villian in a movie my friends and I made. I really hate the name now, but I guess that's what I wanted it to be when I was 12. I used in as my AIM address, and then I guess I stuck it onto this site too.

When I was in high school, I went by my middle name instead of my first, my middle name is Kay. Then when I got my first email address in 1996 on yahoo.com, I tried to think of a good user name. KrazyKay came to mind, but that was taken, so my email became KrazyKay78 (the 78 representing my birth year). Ever since, when I sign up on a site, I try KrazyKay first, if that is taken, I add my birth year as either 78 or 1978. So naturally when I signed up here, I tried KrazyKay - it wasn't taken, so I took it.

Well, Peter01 a combination of my first name, and "01". Peter was already taken (I don't know if I actually tried it, though; Peter seemed rather boring as a username), and I added "01" for no reason whatsoever.

My name is Elvish for "blood-stained," and comes from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, but that's not why I chose it. I have an Elvish-English dictionary, and I use it when I'm trying to come up with names for the characters in my stories. Meaning is important, and so is the way the name sounds. I liked Agarwaen (pronounced uh-GAR-way-en) because it sounded very pretty and I liked the meaning. The name is now attached to a large black wolf that belongs to my main character Marin (and that username was taken before I got here). Of course, with the stage my book is at now, I don't know if Agarwaen will make an appearance, but Agarwaen and Nuruva are two Elvish words that I usually sign up as because they're rarely chosen before.

anyone who has been to my site may have seen the reason behind BowserBasher. Here it is.

I started using it on a computer games forum. As I have played so many Super Mario Brothers games and beaten up Bowser more times than I can remember, I thought that I wanted something that related to that. So I thought that 'Bowser' had to be in there, then I decided that it would be cool to use a second word that also started with 'B' to get the feeling of alliteration. 'Bashing' came to mind, I played around with that for a while, then finally settled on 'Basher'. I then put the two together, and the finished result was 'BowserBasher' (note the two capitol 'B's). Then as I started signing up to other forums, I just decided that I was going to use that name there too, instead of coming up with something relevant to the site. I thought that if I used the same name all over the place, it would be easier to remember my login name, and I maybe recognized on other sites too.

Well, unlike others, my username isn't that special. It's just my real first name without the "C" capitalized.

I made my username balletdancer because I take ballet classes, so I'm a ballet dancer. lol it's simple.

Mine's a nickname derived from the first part of my last name for those who know it.

Also, in a way it means "window."

Just looking at my avatar & you'll probably figure out where mine was inspired - the BBC show "Doctor Who" - but ACC's not the first place I used it.

When I moved to the city where I live, a friend of mine & I would play NTN Trivia at the local "Wings" place. The first night we played under "visitor" names & we dominated most of the players there (even "Exterminating" some of the competition). The next time we went, I chose the name Dalek (names could only be a few characters - like 7 or 8) after the race of Cyborg Robots in Doctor Who that have a desire to "Exterminate" (and say so many times in episodes as that is their battle cry). Since then, I'd used the name (or a form of it) in a number of different forums.

While trying to decide on a name for AIM long ago, I noticed the gambling shy guy from Mario Party 3 had a rather fitting name for me. gameguy didn't work, so I picked a random number (guess which one ).

gameguy8 didn't work, gameguy88 didn't work, gameguy8888888888888888 didn't work, so I went back to just three, and it worked. Since I don't feel like confusing people with a different name everywhere I go, I just stuck with it everywhere I went.

I went to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia for my undergraduate degree. Their nickname for sports purposes is the Thundering Herd. I graduated from that fine institution in 2001, hence herd2001. Go Herd. We Are ... Marshall.

A Japanese friend sent me a maneki neko as a birthday gift about 10 years ago. I didn't know the significance, and I thought she sent it because I like cats. Later, I noticed them everywhere in Chinatown in San Francisco and found out they are a common good luck symbol in Asian cultures. When I joined ACC, I was staring at one and thought it would be a good username. I was pleased to see the game creators add them to ACWW.

Many staffers at JUG already know this story

During college, I was getting into the internet age etc etc. Also during that time I was very obsessed with the anime, Sailor Moon. I use to watch the English dub of the show during my sophomore year of highschool before I left for school each day. But the story never ended. It would get cut off and start back at the beginning. I always wanted to know how it ended. In college I researched on the internet and found out there was much more story that was never licensed in North America and also learned that the English dub had butchered a lot of things and "dumbed" things down. I then set about learning about the subsequent seasons of the show that aired in Japan, getting my hands on some fansubs of the series along with many, many posters and other Sailor Moon collectibles.

One of the heroines of the Sailor Moon series was Sailor Venus. She was my favorite of the Sailor Senshi (Soilders/Warriors). She was actually the first Senshi created by Naoko Takeuchi in manga form. She was the leader of Sailor Moon's personal entourage of guardians which included Sailors Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. When it came time to sign up for various message boards back in the late 90's, I was looking for a new name to use for my user name. I took Venus in honor of Sailor Venus and combined it with my middle name, Kamal. Thus VenusKamal was born. I've used the name pretty steadily since college for various internet sites, email and message boards.

Two names inspired by the Japanese.

Since this is an AC site, I decided to pick an AC-related name. I went with Mitzi, my favorite character, but I thought just "Mitzi" sounded kind of plain. So I came up with Ms.Mitzi, and I used it because it sounded cute.

I chose mine way before becoming a member on this site. I watched an old taping of Oral Roberts one day and he said a quote that has stuck with me (see my signature). So I took the two most important words from that quote and put them together - thus the birth of LooseFaith.

Before the web took off sometime around 1994/1995, BBS's were where people would gather to chat and play games. Ah, how how the mere thought of it makes me miss my 2400-bit/s modem.I had for two or three years used the handle, "I.P.Freeley" from one of my favorite phone pranks that Bart Simpson did to poor old Moe. When Hotmail first came out, I was 27. I loved the idea of accessing my email from anywhere. I figured it would be around for a long time, so I had better use a more adult-sounding name. The original cartoon version of Charlotte's Web must have had an impact on me. When I thought about the rat, Templeton searching for adjectives for Charlotte, it seemed perfect for someone trying to come up with a permanent alias for internet use. The sixty nine represents the year I was born. Whenever I have the option, I try not to capitalize the "T". It looks better in lower case.

My username comes from a street name. I use it wherever I go online.