How Did Your Downs Name Come About?

[Garin]

I originally joined the Downs under the name Othin. It is a Middle Earth sounding name but actually a variation of Wodin or Oden, a Nordic-Germanic God. Actually THE big daddy of those Gods. For some reason I never got the confirmation Email to cement my entry into the Downs. Maybe it is best that I didn't name myself a God. I'm still not sure what happened, I even Emailed the Webmeister. Nonetheless, Othin is history.

Well, I have German heritage so I went looking for an ME-ish name that sounded like my true name (Craig) but held fast to my Teutonic personality.

I found Garin after some research. It is Old German meaning warrior.

I am happy with my choice and might even name a future son, Garin.

The Downs has a variety of names - Saucepan Man, Mormegil, Naria, Formendacil, Dancing Spawn..etc...

How did you come up with your name?

[Formendacil]

This thread comes very close to the "What does your Screen-name Mean?" thread over in Novices and Newcomers, but I'd like to argue for the defence that it is different enough in its intent to retain its open to the posters status.

Now, as regards my own name:

The meaning of Formendacil, as one can learn on the aforementioned thread, is essential "North-slayer" or "North-victor". Put into clear English "one who conquers the North" would be fairly accurate.

I tell you this not because it is the point of thread, but because it leads up to the point.

Nearly two years ago now, I was making my first foray into the online world- as someone who needed a username anyway (email names not counting). A rabid Tolkien fan, as most of you can probably discern, I began casting around for ideas.

Anything obvious, which is to say "Aragorn" "Legolas" "Frodo" or anything of the sort, was clearly out of the question. Not for me to be the ubiquitous Legolas_387.

Such was my preference for uniqueness that even relatively rarer names such as "Théoden" or "Elendil" or "Finrod" could be used. A LEGO website might have been what I was joining, but I wanted a name such as I would be able to register anywhere online, and not need to seriously fear another using it.

And, of course, it had to be Tolkien...

After discounting just about every Tolkien name that I fancied using for myself (I could have called myself Arakáno or something equally obscure, but none caught my fancy), I browsed through the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Now, for those of you not aware, I have always been enamoured of Kings- particularly Kings of high and ancient lineages. I thus felt a certain fondness for the great Kings of the Dúnedain, including the Kings of Gondor.

Now, in case no one here is aware, my linguistic skills are rather paltry. Foreign languages fascinate me, and I love to roll strange and unusual phrases off my tongue. I am, however, incredibly laze. My point being that although I was familar with the rules to Tolkien's pronunciations, and although I was more than familiar with the roots of most Sindarin and Quenya names (thanks to that helpful Appendix in the Silmarillion), I certainly couldn't pull one out of midair. And not for me the randomly generated pseudonyms of an online translator.

To make an unnecessarily long story a tad bit shorter, "Rómendacil", "Hyarmendacil", and "Umbardacil" all caught my eye. In particular the East/South associations of Rómendacil and Hyarmendacil intrigued me, and I did the translating to come up with Formendacil and Númendacil, the Northern and Western equivalents.

And BANG!

I had my username.

(Númendacil, in addition to not having as pleasing a sound to my ear as Formendacil, was disqualified on account of "West-victor" having some unsavoury, Ar-Pharazônic, connotations.)

So, we have finally arrived at the point where I registered as Formendacil on a LEGO website. From there on in, the story is quickly told. I have been Formendacil ever since, only resorting to an alternative name in the one case that Formendacil had too many characters. In that case, I resorted to "Formenwe" (Formenwë, to be Tolkien-spelling proper).

In joining the 'Downs forteen months ago, it was therefore a given that my habitual username, which was of Tolkien origin anyway, should be my alias of choice on this most august of Tolkien discussion boards.

Whew! That took more time than it ought...

[Lhunardawen]

The good ol' Downs Name Generator. However, I turned the innocent name into an Elven alter-ego of mine who has her own history in Middle-earth. Somehow I was able to tie her name and her history up with my personal title, and just recently, I managed to turn her "nickname" into an adjective and a noun any sane person wouldn't want to be associated with. But I'm not sane, so there.

[Anguirel]

I wanted Lomion, but for some reason it didn't work. There was already a Maeglin, and it was slightly too well-known for my liking anyway.

Then I remembered the self-effacing but exceedingly deadly sword...

[Garin]

This thread comes very close to the "What does your Screen-name Mean?" thread over in Novices and Newcomers, but I'd like to argue for the defence that it is different enough in its intent to retain its open to the posters status.

Form, I saw that thread and yes I think the process is what I was looking at... It is interesting that Lhuna used the generator but the name took on a life of its own.

[Mithalwen]

Mine was a RPG character I created for a friend's short lived board. I just needed an ID and didn't want to reuse old screen names. It just was a name I had to hand - if I had any idea how the downs was going to take over my life I might have thought longer. I developed the name originally through the Elendor translator. RPG Mithalwen was Telerin with silver hair and so I wanted a shadowy, grey-silvery name with a nature connection. Mith is obviously grey and "alwen" apparently is an archaic/literary sindarin word for a tree but I don't think I have seen it in the books.

RPG Mithalwen made a brief appearance as herself at the green dragon but otherwise I have taken over the name or the name has taken over me! To start with I did try and keep it as "Mithalwen" in full but I gave up the unequal struggle.......

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Camus' words about great works being born in mundane situations jump out at me now.

Nearly four years ago now, I had no idea how important the Downs would be in my life. On picking the name I typed down a favourite Tolkien character in the space, only for my request to be denied. Assuming that there was already a user with that name I tried again. And again. And again. It just wouldn't work. I tried about 30 times. And then I realised that it wasn't the username that was the problem; it was my email address.

I rectified that problem, and went with the name that was already on the screen (my 30th choice, as it were).

Not that my earlier ones were any more interesting. As I recall I could have been Merry or Pippin or Treebeard or Fingolfin of the Noldor or anything like that.

Not only that, but (as is probably painful for every Barrowdowner who reads my posts) I didn't manage to use an É and went with an E instead.

So I've never really liked my username; but I've become it, so to speak. And nowadays Eomer of the Rohirrim has a small semblance of meaning to it, despite its highly inauspicious birth.

[Nogrod]

I actually came to see this site, because my daughter pressed me to take a look at this. The system wanted a username to log into. So I took my copy of Silmarillion and searched the index (as all the people I saw that time were having Tolkienish names - and I thought that would be a norm).

The dwarf-city of Nogrod sounded nice - there is an old town of Novgorod (meaning "new- city", in Russian) just quite near where I live, and it reminds me of our close relationship with the Russians: as we Finns were among the people to bring out that town to begin with. And there is something about the dwarves that I kind of like (being the too early created masters of their trade)

So just sounded nice and fitted with the world enough...

[Garin]

So far, I am Intrigued.

It is interesting that so many of our first choices didn't work, I still don't know why Othin didn't process but, as I said, it was best not to take the name of a God.

I found Formendacil's entry a wee interesting. I glad to that someone researched more than I did.

Everyone who has contributed have great names. I'd like to see Saucepan man's and TGBWS's reasoning behind choosing distinctly non ME names.

Choosing a name is more substantial than all of the avatars and signatures combined.... In fact this thread could evolve into those discussions.

Not that I care if this thread lasts long, but I just find the "process of permanence" very intriguing.

Thanks to all.

[littlemanpoet]

Speaking of distinctly non-ME names...... Obviously, littlemanpoet ain't Middle Earth.

When I first went on-line way back in early 2002, the first thing I did was look for a Tolkien website that promised to be good enough to visit often. It took me about five tries before I happened across The Barrowdowns, and it was a rather quick decision (a couple days) that this was the place I wanted to do my Tolkien conversations. But onto the username. Back then I was more into being a poet than I am now. People change. So I wanted the fact of my poetics in my username. I also didn't want to be mistaken for the female gender which I knew was not unlikely, having a rather androgynous personality. So that got me as far as 'manpoet', but that seemed rather unpromising. Needing one more addition to the name, I wanted to come across as not haughty (how pretentious ), and settle upon the English translation of my given name, which is Greek in origin. I won't make you guess: Paul. So "littlemanpoet" means Paul the poet guy, pretty much. And it worked first time; better yet, nobody else uses anything like it, which was also something I was shooting for. Littlemanpoet. That's me. I still like poetry, but it's not as central to who I am as it once was. (more's the pity?)

Actually, as an aside, Saucepan Man's name does sort of derive (at least in my mind) from Samwise Gamgee carrying around the cooking pans until finally mournfully dumping them in Mordor..... but maybe that's just me .....

[Diamond18]

You do realize that whenever I quote you I am now going to make it,

Originally Posted by Paul the poet guy

Speaking of distinctly non-ME names...... Obviously, littlemanpoet ain't Middle Earth.

As to mine, it's simple enough. I had a strange little crush on Pippin at the time, and Diamond is the name of the gal he married. Diamond was taken, as was Diamond Took, and as it happened to be the eve of my 18th birthday, I stuck my age on there.

The 18 annoys me greatly and always will, not only because I am no longer 18, but there seems something ungangly about the number in my name. But it's mine and I'm stuck with it. Anyone who knows me well just calls me Diamond or Sarah anyway, so it hardly matters.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Diamond18

You do realize that whenever I quote you I am now going to make it, Originally Posted by Paul the poet guy

Suit yourself, SarahLitaRose.

Originally Posted by Diamond

The 18 annoys me greatly and always will, not only because I am no longer 18, but there seems something ungangly about the number in my name. But it's mine and I'm stuck with it. Anyone who knows me well just calls me Diamond or Sarah anyway, so it hardly matters.

You're not alone. Boromir88 is the Boromir that we all know as the true Boromir of Barrowdowns, but he has that 88 on the end. But everybody calls him Boro anyway....

[Glirdan]

Ahh, this one again.

Well, it was simple for me, but I'll go into greater detail and then you will all know the full reasoning for my joining the Down's. To say it in short form though, all I have to say is blame it on Wilwa of the numbers!!

Anyway, abou a year or so ago, Wilwa came to school reading the Silmarillion and we just got into talking about LotR. I mean, I saw all three movies and I read the trilogy as well as The Hobbit and I loved. Anyway, so there we are, sitting in our cafeteria during a scheduled spare talking about LotR and she comes out and says "I found this really cool website that you have to check out!" So, me being the curious person that I am, questioned her and that night, I got on the computer and came and checked out the site. I read a few threads, all in the books section and I felt very intimidated. I mean, come one, all of your writing is awsome and I was onlyy fourteen at the time. So, the next day, she asks me if I checked it out and I said yes and then she suggests that I join it. I thought about it for awhile but never actually got around to it. So, the next time we went to the library, she signed me up and found the direct translation to my real name and it turned out as Glirdan and I've gone by it ever since. But now I rather like it when everyone calls me Glirdy. But I can live with either.

[Farael]

My name does not really have much explanation behind it. It sounds good.

Well, ok... there is a bit more than that. Before coming to the downs, even before I moved to Canada, I used to post in another forum that was (as you may guess) in Spanish. It was dedicated to fantasy as a whole and so I chose a name that did not really have much to do with Tolkien.

I made up the name "Farael" from three different parts. First we have "Far" which is meant to mean (anticlimax coming up) Far as in far away. Originally Farael was one of my characters and he was very aloof and distant. The "-el" termination is somewhat common for male names in Spanish that were derived from Hebrew... Daniel, Ariel, Miguel (Michael)... the 'a' in the middle is just to conect the two things as Farel didn't sound quite right.

I know, not as fancy but it sounds pleasant to my ear. I always wonder, though, how the English speaking folk pronounce it.

[Diamond18]

Originally Posted by Farael

I know, not as fancy but it sounds pleasant to my ear. I always wonder, though, how the English speaking folk pronounce it.

Far EE el.

But don't take that as an indication of how most other English speakers pronounce it. I always add more syllables than there ought to be.

[Lhunardawen]

I pronounce as you spell it, Farael. I mean, Fa-ra-EL. Must be my Austronesian tongue talking. Weird, huh?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

This thread comes very close to the "What does your Screen-name Mean?" thread over in Novices and Newcomers ...

Handy dandy link below:

What is the reason for your nickname?

Originally Posted by Garin

I'd like to see Saucepan man's and TGBWS's reasoning behind choosing distinctly non ME names.

For my part, the answer may be found on the thread linked to above. My response there remains applicable.

Further information regarding other member's nicknames may also be gleaned from this thread:

Where'd ya get that nick??

[JennyHallu]

My pronunciation of Farael:

Fair-ay-il

The accent is on the middle syllable, and the last is said rather quickly.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Farael: Fair Isle. Not phonetically, of course.

My name was born because some ne'er-posting person had already snatched up Feanor and I really felt the urge to keep a name in fitting with my personality. I'll assume that y'all have realized my fiestiness by now. I was also fifteen. I was the most pretentious kid ever from ages 12-15 (who knows, maybe I still am) and was completely in love with people who didn't have plain old last names. If you were of something, I liked you. Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Leonardo da Vinci. Arthur, son of Uther, King of the Britons. You know... that sort of thing. I wanted an of and I wanted the world to know that yes, I may be human, but I have oh so many Elven qualities. Yes... I am better than everyone else.

Ergo, Feanor of the Peredhil. Pretentious and unwieldy.

Fea suits me better. And if you manipulate it to Fey or Fae, all the more fitting.

[Thinlómien]

Having studied spanish for 1½ years I suppose I know enough about Spanish pronounciation and I can say I pronounce it like Spanish people, though the stress is on the first syllable, not on the last(?).

[JennyHallu]

JennyHallu was born in my first week of my short career as a college student. I came into it with a lot more promise than I left, and I was part of an honors "learning community" in the engineering department. (Basically all that meant was that we all lived on the same floors of our dormitory, and were in the same section of the two classes we were all in. Turns out I wasn't fated to be an engineer, anyway.) The day we all met each other, I grew tired of introducing myself to people who, had they been listening at all, had heard me tell my name at least five or six times. So...I began introducing myself as "a mass hallucination, don't mind me" and a new acquaintance who became a good friend decided it was his personal duty to make sure it stuck. As "The Mass Hallucination" is, at best, absurdly unwieldy, the nickname was quickly abbreviated to Hallu.

December of '04, I made the unbelievably difficult decision that the effort I wasn't putting into my classes meant that the expense of college wasn't justified, and wouldn't be until I matured and gathered some clearer sense of direction. That spring my boyfriend proposed, and I was married in the summer, so my "semester off" became a more indefinite postponement.

Since I have left college, and contact with the friend who gave me the name has become limited to occasional talks on IM, I am afraid that no one calls me Hallu in person any more, especially since my husband's revenge for me calling him strange, unreasoned, and random things like "Skwishy" or "Pikkles" (misspelling intended) seems to be to call me nothing more creative than "Honey".

However, Hallu, coupled with the familiar contraction of my given name I have used as long as I can remember, seems to be a unique combination, and a vivid reminder of a very rewarding time in my life (though not at all in the ways I anticipated). Now, as my explanation of my name is trying very hard to turn into an autobiography, I shall close...

PS. The only other name I would ever think of choosing would be "Juniper" because my mother has a weird but fun habit of calling me that, and I've always kind of liked it.

[Lalaith]

*puts on deerstalker*
Jenny, I deduce your mother must have been fond of, or at least familiar with, the works of the 60s singer Donovan...

[JennyHallu]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

*puts on deerstalker*
Jenny, I deduce your mother must have been fond of, or at least familiar with, the works of the 60s singer Donovan...

I doubt it...She owns none of his music, and when she was downloading mp3s (evil Mommy) she downloaded nothing by him. As my mother wasn't born until halfway through the decade...I doubt it.

[Mithalwen]

*Oh Jennifer Juniper rides a dappled mare.....*

So shattering that Jenny's mamma was born halfway through the sixties..... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek

[JennyHallu]

I was born when she was 19, so my mother makes all my friends' parents feel old. The shattering thing for me is trying to be a grown-up when everyone else has SO much more practice. As a married woman at 20, my peer group is small, to say the least. Few people my age are married and so don't understand a lot of the challenges I'm just now learning to face, and it's hard to fit in in a group of older couples...their thoughts and worries are so full of their children, and I'm still a child in their eyes. Neal and I don't plan on even trying to have children for a good long while yet...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

What was the topic again?!

[Morsul the Dark]

well Morsul the dark was originally just a cool wizard i made up because i wanted to have a connection to LOTR so originally Morsul was the sixth Isatari( who like me procrastinates) and got the ME after the war of the ring hence his absence but then i rememerred evil charactors are more fun hence his ways of corrupting the ents and joining the dark isatari and all that(sauron being leader of the group) I also decided Morsul killed the blue wizards. but at any rate i love the named although it is redundant

Dark wind the Dark
(sauron was Sauron the Black)
there was a yellow wizard(forgot the name
and two Green wizards who ran off and were never heard from again iI think radagst took care of them i dont know

[Tigerlily Gamgee]

Mine came from a Hobbit Name Generator (really original, I know), and I just started using it online for forums. In fact, many of my real life friends now are people I met online because of LOTR... so I get called "Tig" in real life by quite a few people :-)

[Dimturiel]

My name came from the Name Generator and I liked it the moment I saw it. I was fascinated by the way it sounded. I have not found out what it means, that is, if it means anything. Anyway, I am very proud of this name. And now, even some of my friends call me Dimturiel sometimes.

[A_Brandybuck]

From the beginning I wanted a Hobbit's name. But I had problems with picking an 'real' name, which belongs to a character in Tolkien's world. It seems to me just not right, because I am not this character and I wanted to draw a borderline to all these Frodo675 and Pippin12 or something like that.
My choice was on 'Brandybuck', but I had any idea, which first name, so I took just 'a' which doesn't mean, that the first letter in the first name is 'A', but it stands for 'a' as an article. Consequently it has the meaning 'any Brandybuck' or 'some Brandybuck'.

[Celuien]

I wanted a screen name with some relationship to my real name and I'm an Elf fan. So off I went to look through Elvish names databases, but I was dissatisfied with the way the translations of Nichole sounded. Then I tried my last name, which means something water related (no, I'm not saying what because it's fairly uncommon in the Philly metro area phone books ) and went off on the tangents 'spring' 'stream' and 'fountain.' Fountain brought up Celuien among other options over at the Council of Elrond site. I liked the sound of that name the most so I picked it, although I'm starting to suspect the 'uie' combination may not be completely legitimate lingustically given the spelling confusion it causes...

[CaptainofDespair]

I stole mine. Though, that is quite obvious. But, I've always been a Witch-King fan(atic) and so a choice of titles ensues whenever I find a forum to join. Being the wicked and vile Dark Lord type that I am, I went with CoD as it seemed most fitting with the persona I cultivate for no apparent reason (). Perhaps a better name could have been chosen so as to avoid the horrible fish likeness and the references to Godzilla. And so it has stuck for awhile now, and won't go away.

[Telperaca]

I wanted a name such as I would be able to register anywhere online, and not need to seriously fear another using it.

As did I.

I wanted a name which was not one where you'd have to compete for at a forum, or one which is likely to be chosen - e.g: "Aragorn" and all his derivatives ("Aragorn_luver_2004" ) but I wanted something that was more unique and suited me.

So, when I was tracking my way through LotR forums, the first stage would be to chose an appropriate name for myself before signing up.

So... I - being a huge victim of Sod's Law - when trying to thing of a name, nothing comes up. My mind was like... just empty... So a few days went by, and nothing I liked poped up into my head. So, then, I decided to write down a few ideas in English and then later translate them into Elvish.

And one of those happened to be "Silver Wolf". Come to think about it, it was a pretty common English username, so the next stage was translating it to Elvish. Thanks to the handy translations at the back of The Silm. I came up with Celebdraug. I liked it, okay! But it sounded a bit rough when spoken, a little German-like in my opinion.

And later, when I'd joined up at a certain LotR board, where I met a few nutty (I say that proudly) Quenya obsessed members, they translated the name for me into Quenya (Oh! What a beautiful language) which turned out to be my current username.

I also use that as my username under the HP (oh!) forums too. And HEY! at least it's a purdy, shiney name...

::Squees like a magpie::

[Boromir88]

You're not alone. Boromir88 is the Boromir that we all know as the true Boromir of Barrowdowns, but he has that 88 on the end. But everybody calls him Boro anyway....~LMP

I'll answer to pretty much any variation of my name that you can think of. Even some of my anagrams like 'Robomir' or 'ribroom88.' Even unlike Fordim, I can be called 'late for supper' as well.

Boromir, of course is my favorite character...like no one ever saw that one. And the 88 surprisingly is not my age (yet), it has a special significance to me that I will never forget.

[Folwren]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Boromir, of course is my favorite character...like no one ever saw that one. And the 88 surprisingly is not my age (yet), it has a special significance to me that I will never forget.

Year of your birth, mayhap?

The name Folwren was my second choice. My original choice was Istri. But, when I filled in the e-mail address part of the page, I put in hotmail instead of yahoo. *sigh* Needless to say, I never got the confirmation e-mail and I could not sign in as Istri. (Istri is a character in C.S. Lewis' book Till We Have Faces - she is pretty much a Goddess at the end of the book and was a perfect girl when she lived. . .) I am glad I didn't get Istri because I don't think I'd like it quite as well as I do Folwren.

I decided to do Folwren after Istri failed because I wanted to be original. No, it has nothing to do with Tolkien or Middle Earth, and no one would know where it came from, and many people would probably mispronounce it, but I cared little. My older brother uses a character from his stories for all his online stuff, so I decided to do the same.

Folwren is one of my characters, in a short book that I've been working on for the past two years. She's the best character I've ever created. She's nothing like me, but she's still neat. Don't ask me what it means because I can't tell you. I could only tell you what the original character was like, but only if you asked and really wanted to know.

My only vexation is the fact that almost as soon as my name was shortened to Foley, some politician here in the U.S. named Foley goes off and does something really dumb and is published everywhere in the news. I don't know what he did, but I do know that the name is everywhere and that it's my nick-name here.

Originally Posted by Farael

I know, not as fancy but it sounds pleasant to my ear. I always wonder, though, how the English speaking folk pronounce it.

I don't know Spanish, but I pronounce it 'far-a-el' with the stress on the far. Am I right?

[Boromir88]

Year of your birth, mayhap?

I only wish I was that young again...

I used to be a smoker; and in '88 my grandmother passed away because of heart failure (due to her smoking habits). That is when I realized I needed to stop. Luckily I hadn't been smoking for long where I was able to quit, and hopefully I remember and never start up again.

I could only tell you what the original character was like, but only if you asked and really wanted to know.

Now that you say that, you know you got me curious.

[Folwren]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I only wish I was that young again...

It's hard to tell over the internet, you know?

Now that you say that, you know you got me curious.

Through PM. I don't want to spend that much time on this thread and waste other people's time, in case they aren't as curious as you. If you're really curious, send me a PM.

[Kath]

Mine was given to me by my parents when I was born, or at least a longer version of it. Apparently I wasn't in a creative mood at the time I joined the 'Downs!

I know, not as fancy but it sounds pleasant to my ear. I always wonder, though, how the English speaking folk pronounce it.

Fa (as in the beginning of fax) - ra (as in ray) - el (as in elephant). Seems everyone pronounces it differently.

[ninja91]

Speaking of which...

Is is possible to change your username? After 7 months on the downs, alot of people have Tolkienesque names. I want one...

[shieldmaiden4xsword]

mine is because I think of my self as a shieldmaiden to the King. and to me, as a Christian, the Word of God is my sword.