Your Username

[jalevinemd]

It's been a long time since we played this little game, but we've had quite a few new members since then. What's the story behind your username?


I'll start. My name is Jonathan Alan Levine and I'm a physician. Nothing too original here. 

[hammer]

My username has a nothing to do with my actual name (Brian) or a tried and true guitar'bass fingering technique but rather my past history as a competitive cyclist.  According to my teammates (especially those who were sprinters) I always "putting the hammer down" (i.e., starting to significantly up the pace) far too early in the quest to earn sprint points in races.  As a time trialist, I would start the sprint miles/km from the sprint line "putting the hammer down" so to speak to to make sure that any sprinter who stayed with me (most sprinters are known for sitting on someone else's wheel until the last 50-100 meters) would have to work to earn his points.

[hammer]

My username has nothing to do with my name (Brian) or a guitar/bass fingering technique but rather my past avocation as a competitive cyclist.  As a rider whose strength was going hard for a long time and whose grandmother could probably out sprint him, I was always accused of "putting the hammer down" too early in races in which one could earn sprint points.  Rather than waiting until the last 100-200 meter to accelerate, I would take off miles from the sprint line to": (a) discourage riders who had a tendency to sit on others's wheels until the final meters of a sprint; and (b) insure that anyone who would beat me to the line would have to work for it.  Thus the nickname I was bestowed by my team mates and my user name, "hammer."

[edwardofhuncote]

Edward = my middle name, traditionally assigned to firstborn male children in our family.

Huncote = our ancestral home in Leichestershire, England, and is the phonetic root of our name.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Mine was bestowed by a college friend in '74 or '75.  Back then there were many people who only knew me as Cozmik Cowboy; now I just use it on the web.

Peter (who named his youngest son after said friend)

[David Houck]

Username originally assigned to me by my parents.

Houck - a family name that is, as I recall, "Pennsylvania Dutch" in origin, brought to colonial North Carolina in the 18th century.  On the Pennsylvania Dutch of North Carolina:

"As unoccupied land became harder to find in the populous Pennsylvania region where they had originally settled, many Germans migrated south and settled mainly in the backcountry or modern-day Piedmont, of North Carolina, the first arriving in the colony by 1747. Because they were migrating from Pennsylvania and because their own word meaning German-"Deutsch"-was not translated very well by English settlers, the newcomers into North Carolina were sometimes termed the "Pennsylvania Dutch"." source

David - a ruler in the 10th century BCE of territory within what is now Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.  The name in the original Hebrew meant "beloved", and it is fairly common here in the US.

Because the combined username, David Houck, can be somewhat difficult to pronounce, I sometimes use the username davehouck, which is significantly easier to say.

[keith_h]

No special meaning for me. First name and last name initial.

My understanding for "Pennsylvania Dutch" is the same as yours Dave. Dutch is a bastardization of Deutsch or Deutsche for those of German decent or that speak German (the largest branch in my family tree).

I guess the question on Houck is whether it is of Dutch origin or German as it can be either. I have some Dutch in my family. One set of grandparents on my Dad's side were Vander Hyde's which is what the name was changed to at Ellis Island from the original van der Heide. My understanding is the name is also associated with some German family lines that go by von der Heide.

[growlypants]

I think it was an Animal Planet show, years ago - a newborn Grizzly Bear was constantly growling, and being generally playful.  They named him Growlypants, and I borrowed the same name!

[smokin_dave]

Waaaay back in the mid 80's I was hired by a band where every member was given a band nickname.Since I played bass ok and smoked a lot that's what nickname I was given.Smokin' DaveThe band was sort of popular and lasted a couple of years and all my friends and other bands in town started calling me Smokin' Dave.I've tried to disassociate myself from that nickname but it's like a tattoo that you can't get rid of.That's what I'm called by everyone who knows me.
Although some have started calling me Vapin' Dave since I quit smoking tobacco and took up vaping for my new pacifier.

[jacko]

My surname is Jackson. in my native north east of England, as a child I was always called 'Jakka' which works fine in a Geordie accent (think Robson green or Cheryl Cole) but not so well in any  other accent so it's gradually changed to jacko. - Nothing at all to do with Jaco 

Graeme

[pauldo]

My first name is Paul. 
Many years ago there was a gathering of old friends and there was also a variety of very nice bourbons and other accoutrements.

Events unfolded and I was dubbed Pauldo, as a play on the "Where's Waldo? - 
"Where's Pauldo?"  Because my 'photo-bombing' skills were in rare form! After the event when people were reviewing pictures it became apparent that I was darn near omni-present! 

[tubeperson]

Tubeperson - Connects my love for Tubes in electronics to me.  Get those valves hot n nasty!

[Glynn]

Nothing exciting here, I'm afraid.  My name is Glynn Murray hence username is the surname murray.

[mario_farufyno]

Farufyno is the name of one of my bands, but we took it to quote one of Hanna Barbera's character (as it is named in Brazil). We've always played lots of brazilian music from the sixties and seventies (when all members were kids) and the idea was to made some emotional conection to that era and our childhood.

As many of these classic records never got remastered to CD, the best way to dive into those songs was to find them at some stinky secondhand old vinyl records store ("sebo de discos", as we say here in Brazil). So all of us were what we call here as "rato de sebo", a way of saying that we are one of those guys you can always find fooling around in secondhand store's dust and mold in search of our prize, as mices searching for food on old warehouses ("rato" means rat but is also a slang for cop/police).

Our goal was kind of reclaiming that repertoire and put a magnifiyng glass over all that beautifull forgotten music of our idols at the same time we presented our own stuff. So the idea was to link our 70's childhood musical universe to that investigating habbit. Childhood, mouse, 70s, investigator... and we ended picking an old cartoon character's name we used to watch on TV, Snooper and Blabber ("Olho Vivo e Faro Fino", as we called them in Brazil and could be freely translated as "Quick Sight and Fine Flair").

Faro Fino became Farufyno just to prevent any legal issue with HB...

ps.: I know Quickdraw McGraw Show is from the sixties, but it came to Brazil just in the seventies.

[xlrogue6]

I own 2 35" scale Rogue 6 strings, a fretted and a fretless--therefore...