HOW NOT TO CHOOSE AN ONLINE NAME
(Posted 2009-01-11 21:13:03 by basscomm)

Choosing a name to represent yourself on the wild, untamed Internet can be
tough. You have to try and figure out something unique, memorable, and easy
to type.

Rather than tell you what to pick, I'll tell you what _not_ to pick so that
you don't pick something that you'll end up regretting... though that's
likely to happen anyway.

*Video game character names*

I know, you really liked Final Fantasy VII, you thought that Sephiroth was
some super-awesome bad guy, or that Cloud's sword was big and really
super-cool, or that Vincent is just so awesome because he sleeps in a
coffin and is all mysterious-like. But, lots (and lots) of people played
that game and liked the characters in it. So, picking something based on
these guys means that the name you choose is already taken. It's just the
way things are. Though you could try to be 'different' by adding letters,
numbers, and lots of junk to the beginning or the end. Then you end up with
stuff like: Sephiroth_Cloud_X, Cloud1982, SephClouderoth[84], or stuff like
that. 

Seriously, don't pick your name based on something that's real popular,
even if you do like it. Odds are good that several thousand other people
have already beaten you to the punch. And if you have any doubts, here's a
(very) partial list of names to avoid, bonus points if you recognize them
all (points don't actually exist).


* Cloud

* Sepheroth

* Aerith

* Cait Sith

* Mario

* Luigi

* Link

* Sonic

* Eggman

* Toejam

* Gabe

* Tycho

* Dante

* Master Chief

* Fenix

* Radd

* Wesker

* Arthas

* Thrall

* Sylvanas

* Gordon Freeman

* This list could go on nearly forever. I think you get the gist



*Avoid a ton of gibberish before and after your name*

So you've picked something that is interesting, unique, and describes you
perfectly, then you find out that a hundred other people picked the same
thing. So you decide to 'personalize' it by throwing your team affiliation
in front of your name, or just some gobbledygook. Or maybe you'll join all
the teams you can and want to support them all. Or maybe you just got
frustrated and wanted to put in something, anything that'll make the name
unique. Not only does that make your nickname look goofy, it also makes it
hard to type. You might not think that's a problem until someone tries to
send you a private message ingame and your name has lots of brackets,
braces, and colons, or worse, characters that aren't on their keyboards. An
occasional team affiliation tag (like [EvL] or {wsVT}) is fine, but if you
have {Mje}-tec-|OrangeJuicer[88killazz!!] in front of your name... then you
might want to consider trimming it a bit.

*Don't get arty with your nickname*

In that same vein, there's a temptation to make your nickname look awesome
by using letters, numbers, and symbols to make your name look way awesome
to the max. You want to use your nickname to show how awesome it is that
you were able to go to some website and it was able to spit out characters
that looked like waves or some other nonsense.

Let's say that I've decided that I want the nickname, basscommbobulator.
Then I want to jazz it up a little so I decide to alternate case in each
letter

bAsScOmMbObUlAtOr

Then, I change the o's to zeros. 

bAsSc0mMb0bUlAt0r

Then I change a couple of letters to recreations with symbols that kind of
look like the letters that I'm replacing.

b^s5

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