What's in a name?

I was curious to what thought if any goes into the name we choose to use here at Totjo.
Do you pick a name to grow into? One that inspired you in fiction?
Do you use a part of your birth name?
What does it mean to you? Is it just a label to recognise you by or one that has a meaning to you?

Elizabeth is my conformation name. It's meaning is 'my God is an oath'
I use it because it is a part of my identity, a big part of my past but it is not to me in anyway related to Jediism. In that way I could build my own Jedi meaning into my life.

Looking forward to hearing what meaning your names hold to you.
Thank you

You pick one that fits.

I oft see people pick names that are way to big for them. Way too grandiose for the person attempting to walk in it.

Or you'll see people with far too many hyphens or accents that it becomes near unpronounceable/lovecraftian. Jedi should be approachable, and can you approach someone comfortably that you can't even pronounce their name?

And, typically, I cringe when I see someone use already taken SW names. Far too many Luke Skywalkers on this site...

Gotta be easy to type for others!

elizabeth wrote: Do you pick a name to grow into?

A powerful concept. I have to agree with Geni Jeuls - many names are too big/dramatic for people to use. But if someone had the forethought and discipline to pick a meaningful username and grow into it, they would have my eternal respect.

If I was going by my confirmation name, it would be Bernard of Menthon (my avatar) - an old priest who cared for pilgrims in the Alps. I guess catholic habits die hard! My username itself is mostly meaningless. When the Skyrim commercials were airing on TV back in 2011, my father kept talking about this "awesome dragonslayer movie" we should watch, called "Skrim". I was writing a book at the time, and thought it would be a good name for a group of medieval monks living in abandoned castles. I replaced with the "I" with two "Y"s as all angsty teenage fantasy writers do. So I guess I'm using a cheesy, deliberately misspelled and mispronounced teenage fantasy nickname. Definitely not something to grow into. But it's my job to use that name to create a position of respect and learning here. I often fail but I try my best.

Geni Jeuls wrote: You pick one that fits.

I oft see people pick names that are way to big for them. Way too grandiose for the person attempting to walk in it.

Or you'll see people with far too many hyphens or accents that it becomes near unpronounceable/lovecraftian. Jedi should be approachable, and can you approach someone comfortably that you can't even pronounce their name?

And, typically, I cringe when I see someone use already taken SW names. Far too many Luke Skywalkers on this site...

Do you think then that you have certain expectations of a person when they choose a certain name? It's not just a fun label?
If you pick one that fits at the start of your journey do you then change it as you grow? Or do you grow with the name? Make that name a statement of who you are?

I agree with the SW names but to the person using those names maybe they hold ideals that they wish to hold themselves?

Naturally a name you choose changes as you change, as long as it makes sense and isn't ten sizes too big.

Skryym wrote:

elizabeth wrote: Do you pick a name to grow into?

A powerful concept. I have to agree with Geni Jeuls - many names are too big/dramatic for people to use. But if someone had the forethought and discipline to pick a meaningful username and grow into it, they would have my eternal respect.

If I was going by my confirmation name, it would be Bernard of Menthon (my avatar) - an old priest who cared for pilgrims in the Alps. I guess catholic habits die hard! My username itself is mostly meaningless. When the Skyrim commercials were airing on TV back in 2011, my father kept talking about this "awesome dragonslayer movie" we should watch, called "Skrim". I was writing a book at the time, and thought it would be a good name for a group of medieval monks living in abandoned castles. I replaced with the "I" with two "Y"s as all angsty teenage fantasy writers do. So I guess I'm using a cheesy, deliberately misspelled and mispronounced teenage fantasy nickname. Definitely not something to grow into. But it's my job to use that name to create a position of respect and learning here. I often fail but I try my best.

So your name will become how people see you? If your name will create a position of respect and learning then why isn't it something maybe not to grow into, but to grow with?
I would say your user name isnt meaningless if you intend to create an image.... Association of respect and learning with it.

Some so called dramatic/big names can be choose from reason of fear - to keep their illusion of intangibility.
To arouse feelings within others which says " Do not play with me." "Keep distance". I think that serious, sometimes
scary names have it´s foundation of fear or effort to be admired

I created my name according certain values which I want to reach and maintain.
For me it is: kindness, warmth, knowledge, wisdom, compassion - these features I projected into name Erinis.

Also is need to consider that not all who are here in temple take it as a path, but sometimes for fun to explore interesting pages, or
for trolling, in this case I think they will not invest effort to create name with any (for them) valuable meaning.

When I put my name together I thought of my time in the NAVY. I was never more that a glorified dirt sailor, but the name exaquaninja fits because it was my way honoring a time in my life that has past. I think at the end of the day, a name is simply a name and the choices that you make either build up or tear down the honor and reputation of the name that belongs to the individual.

My parents named me Manuel.

Friends call me Manu for short.

Manu is both easy to pronounce for my Spanish-speaking and my English-speaking friends.

I went with Magnus Staar for a while, but I couldn't help but laugh at myself for such a ridiculous sounding name, so after a while I asked to have it changed back. :laugh:

I like using my real name, because it remarks the fact that I am always the same person, no matter what "mask" I wear online.

I would even go back to using my real photo as an avatar, but I received a few inappropriate advances so I decided not to. (cue Right Said Fred "I'm too sexy for my shirt" song)

Names can mean many things and hold special places within us. It could have personal meaning, importance to us, it could just be your name or it may be something that you're drawn too.

I've always like the name Nihlus. To me it's a very strong name that stands behind someone not afraid of doing the right thing. It's also a very basic name with little to no flash or theatrics.

Some may pick a name because it sounds good or cool, which those that do usually end op either regretting the choice and changing it. Some may select a name and later look back and not feel the same. Such as if a name is selected while in a dark time during your life. Once that darkness passes it may no longer hold that same meaning.

Even if our path changes we should embrace the name that we select, even if it's during a darkness so that we can be reminded of our path and stay true.

The name “Obi-wan Shinobi” came to me years and years ago as a sort of automatic mingling of two things i thought were awesome - jedi and ninja. And I always felt that Obi-wan was underrated. I liked him a lot but everyone else seemed to focus on Yoda, and later, Qui-Gon (who was def the best written of all the jedi in all of the movies that ive seen). And its always been my custom to come up with internet handles (old term for “username”) that i think are clever or funny in some way. So, i already had the perfect name by the time i found TOTJO. And of course i had to l33t it out by using the “1” instead of “wan”, and here we are.

My name, not this name, my name, my cool name, my nickname, my handle as Obi puts it, lasted me a decade of the internets, and probably about five years in the real world (it started as a nickname is high school, and then naturally moved online)

but then the internet got smaller (or more people were on it?) and perhaps I got a reputation (was it online or in the desert of the real? I don't recall) and I moved far away and changed my name. I was "retired" then, and hung up my old name (It's still my name, if I hear it said in the real my ears perk up, but now everyone who knows it is my name is dead (or may as well be).

I was old then, older than dirt, it seemed, but like old people do, I surrounded myself with pretty young things. As some point, it fell apart and I move far away again, much further away, perhaps the last time wasn't far enough? The problem with the solution wasn't that I was a monster, it was that I didn't use enough geography - so I went to the desert, the furthest foulest reaches of this island, and changed my name again. I didn't have a name then, or if I did, I forgot it. Then it was time to come back, but I enjoyed it, too much perhaps, and so I left the desert, and moved to another one, and another one, and lived in anonymity....then I created an account at TotJO, but had no name to give, so I just used the name that almost no one knew me by, an old name, a name that means almost nothing, and also - Game of Thrones was big on telly at the time, and there was a name for people from the desert, and the combination of that name, and that reference was available, so voila.

What is it a name? Whatever you want I suppose. What is in a login? I'm not sure. I tend to create new accounts rather than try to change my name, if I am changing my name I am running, and there is no need to have the new name associated with anything I've written before....


And now, as a long dead prince of myspace, keeper of neopets, and herald of napster, I simply lurk on forums, my baleful eye peering at the murky filth of the internet, whilst IRL I flip tables and interrupt open plan offices of young people when they speak of TikTok as if they invented the internet.


Interesting, as close to irrelevant as a name is online, it might mean even less in the world? It seems everyone just calls me Sir? we're just account numbers, dots on a sales graph, we perform a function for a period of time, and then are replaced.

People say "Think of all the same we'll save if we get robots to do it" and I reply - I'm already saving time by having you do it, and it's working out perfectly, floor sweeper number one.


They're actually my eighth floor sweeper this year, but I also save resources by just renaming them Number One when they arrive, it means I don't have to change any details in the work roster....

I heard a lot of interesting things people have said that a really nice.
For me I have come to the place in life where all the awards , patches , certificates , state licenses, Law enforcement diplomas u.s. military patches . I've earned over the years where important at the time but they're almost meaningless now.

For me the most important thing is to pass on good uplifting knowledge to the next generation. Above all teaching compassion and love.

I did not want to pick a name that was bragging.
Or implied I was in some way above are greater than anyone here which I am not..
Forceuser just States what I have done in the past and what I I'm presently coming out of the closet so to speak about real things that most people cant understand much less believe
This is only for the one in a million people out there. May you be with the force

I use to go by Vajhra for the obvious reference to vajra but not being so rude as to steal it completely I stuck a 'h' in it. Indestructible weapon of lightning! The weapon of Indra! Very lightsaberish, decades before I knew about Jedi online.
Funny thing is a few years ago a local Jedi started calling his 'thing' the Vajra Lineage and Jedi Order Vajradhara Temple. So I'm like.... yea but, really? I can't judge though, I dunno the guy.
oh I dropped it due to everyone shortening it to vaj!

My name symbolizes who I actually am (in this life, wink wink).
But for real, SWAN symbolizes my purity and protection, HAMSA symbolizes my balance and the way all my chakras are clear.

I've got a mate named Hamsa, (and a mate name Celeste, as far as it goes) I don't think I know anyone called Swan.
In any case, I reckon those names symbolise sod all to them....might have meant something to their parents? Parents are weird like that.

One man's trash I suppose.

Mine's the callsign I had for nearly 20 years in naval aviation. Since I spent a lot of my career single, there were times when that's what pretty much everyone around me on a daily basis called me (even coworkers' spouses)... only my parents and sister and some old friends I managed to keep from growing up and college ever used my actual given name. I've used it on other internet boards before, so it's handy. It's reasonably unique, and honestly, still kind of nice to use now that I'm out of the navy.

Ganner was a character of the Expanded Universe who was always trying to show off, which usually ended in failure. As he got older he became more humble. However, in his last moments he had a revelation, an enlightenment. He realized that he didn't have to know who he was, he only had to decide; that his showiness could actually save his life, that sometimes playacting was not only permissible but often necessary.

I use this name because I have chosen who I am. I spent years trying to figure out who I was instead of simply making a choice. Everyone has to choose at some point in their lives. I have decided.