I began writing a story about 2 years ago, but I've not added to it for about a year. I'm sure that I'll finish it one day, but it needs a lot of work… an ending, for example. It's basically about a lad who enters a fantasy world, and that's also where it needs work - in that it's been done many, many, oh so many times before. But you never know, it might just end up in a 1.99 bargain dumpbin someday, that would be a dream come true.

Anyway, when choosing the title of the story, I wanted to name it after the world to which the main character travels. I loved the word ‘ersatz’ (meaning ‘fake’ or ‘substitute’ ), so that became the perfect name for the city. But I decided that just calling the story ‘Ersatz’ wouldn't do, so I made it a unitary authority. Hull, where I live in England, is one of these. It pretty much means that we're run by a single authority as opposed to a local one and a regional one. Very boringly tedious and tediously boring stuff, but a great addition to the title, I thought - not to mention very fitting, as this fantasy world isn't influenced by anything outside of its boundaries.

Thus, The Unitary Authority of Ersatz was born, and, when the prose was put on hold, the comic strip version took its place.

Perhaps one day the two will complement each other; literature and artwork amalgamated as one; joined hand-in-hand in rapturous splendour. And on that day, that most auspicious of days, that day when joyous tears shall be shed unsparingly, then and only then, it will be shouted from the rooftops and mountain peaks in a voice loud and true, that the writer of this work has found elation and inner peace, and that the world's 1.99 bargain dumpbins are a whole lot more magnificent for it.

hahaha i call my self kid yellow cause im lighter than your average african american. and even though i am 21 i look like im 17!!!!!!!

Eviltwinpixie
I signed up for a forum (where I met my husband) when I was 16 under a totally different name.

Wow, you met your husband on a forum? That's pretty cool.

Anyways, the story behind mine is pretty lame, even if I like the name itself. Zirnitra is basically a black dragon and the god of sorcery in Wendish mythology. So yeah… it sounds cool too. You can also just use “Zir” for short. Meh.

Alrighty then! I've been looking for a topic like this in the Drunk Duck forums, and here it is! I'd promptly leave right now to prance around a maypole in joy, but I've got an origin to write!

Mine's pretty simple really. In short, it's the nickname I was given at school. You see, a big part of my background is French Canadian. Now not many people would know this when they looked at or spoke to me, and they'd often say: “What?! You're not French Canadian? DON'T TELL ME LIES!!!”. Luckily, the largest piece of evidence I had to prove my heritage was in my very own name. As it turns out, I have a French Canadian last name.

My last name is Beaumont.

Part of this last name is “Beau” - which means “beautiful” in French. At school, my friends and I began the custom of calling each other by our last names. As days went on, we soon discovered that calling each other by our FULL last names was a bit lame, and straining on the vocal cords. So before long, my name was shortened to "Beaums".

Oh and just so you know, it's pronounced like so:

Beaums
(Sounds like “domes”))

I was told Janen meant vicious mind in Japanese, but what I wasn't told is that in English there's the female name, Jane. Doh!

I can't dance. Thus, I am chaos dancing. I am the DancingChaos.

Or, I'm just really chaotic. My chaoticness is always dancing, so that makes me the DancingChaos.

I was always DancingChaos on the net. If you see someone named DancingChaos somewhere else, it's probably me.

I thought of it when I was 12.

Janen
I was told Janen meant vicious mind in Japanese, but what I wasn't told is that in English there's the female name, Jane. Doh!

I thought Janen meant ‘Goodbye’ in Japanese.

Doesn't ‘Ja ne’ mean goodbye in japanese?

My pet lizard died a few weeks ago. :(

DancingChaos
Doesn't ‘Ja ne’ mean goodbye in japanese?

Beats me. I don't know Japanese. I just noticed that in subs, people say something that sounds like that when they say goodbye. Oh well.

My name comes from a basic unit on Starcraft. The team I was on all used names of units, Ultralisk, Zealot, Dragoon, Zergling, SCV etc, so I picked this one. It just carried over to everything else.

It all started out in Japanese class in the 6th grade (wow, 4 years ago), when we were trying to katakanafy our names. My real name is Margaret, which can go several ways. Magareto, Marugareto, Marugaretsu… that's where Maru came from. I also love the maruchan brand of ramen noodles. And “maru” means circle in Japanese. I like circles, because pies and pizzas are circles, and pies and pizzas are also delicious.

I was many varations of “maru-chan” for a long time, but -chan suffixes are generally associated with crazy annoying anime fangirls. So recently I've just been adding maru to other things.

Most of my friends call me Maru, and when they're excited they have a tendency to repeat the name many times before they tell me what they're so excited about. Thus, marumarumaru.


By the way, Hijuda and DancingChaos, “Ja ne” is an informal goodbye, the Japanese equivalent of “see ya.” Sometimes it's “Ja matta ne.” I don't know what the difference is. @.@

acadia
I was asked to join a CounterStrike clan, so I had to think up something cool (cause CS was THE SHIT back then – I wanted to be remembered). My older brother and I (he's the one who writes ApL) sat in our computer room thinking up names. He went with the whole ancient egyptian motif - “Osiris”. I didnt want to copy him and go with “Anubis” or something, so I just looked around the room and looked for cool names on products or in product descriptions. My father buys this generic, supermarket-brand bottled water that is apparently bottled up at “Acadia Springs” or whatever. I saw the name, thought it sounded cool, and have been using it ever since for pretty much everything. If you ever see an ‘acadia’ lurking around the net, that's probably me.

It's been about 6 years since I picked it. I still like it.

lol… Acadia is a somewhat cool name. But did you know it's actually a place that was in Canada formed by the French around the 1600s I think, I had a history test, so it's fresh in my mind xD

The story behind my name really isn't that interesting, I just wanted a neat Japanese name and I'm usually known as Heaven or Heaven78 on other sites, but I think Heaven was taken so I picked Yuri, I searched it and found out it meant Lily in japanese. Lucky me ^-^, though my favourite flower is the Orchid. :3

Brokenhill… him cause it sounds like silenthill and silent hill is scary O_O!

The first computer I had email on (way back in the day) was one I pieced together from a few old computers mixed with some new parts. I called the computer “SPAM-BOT”. I ended up using the name for my first email address and it just sort of stuck with me ever since. That was back around 1996.

Yuri
The story behind my name really isn't that interesting, I just wanted a neat Japanese name and I'm usually known as Heaven or Heaven78 on other sites, but I think Heaven was taken so I picked Yuri, I searched it and found out it meant Lily in japanese. Lucky me ^-^, though my favourite flower is the Orchid. :3

I thought Yuri meant lesbian porn. But as was illustrated earlier, my Japanese is quite rusty.

Mine's my name!

Well, I used to just use the name ‘Parano.’ But then I disappeared from the internet for a while and started exploring other sites, so I stuck ‘Reincarnated’ in the front. XD;

The Parano part, as some gamers may have guessed, is the name of a character from the game Galerians:ASH by Enter Brain. But, over time, it feels like it's become my own personal name also. XD;

Hijuda

DancingChaos
Doesn't ‘Ja ne’ mean goodbye in japanese?

Beats me. I don't know Japanese. I just noticed that in subs, people say something that sounds like that when they say goodbye. Oh well.

Yeah, ja ne does mean goodbye. x3 Sometimes just ‘ja’ can be used as ‘bye’, and ‘sayonara’ is the more formal ‘so long’ or ‘farewell.’

… No one should bash silentkitty for her name.

Davidson is my actual last name. Rei is a Japanese name for a girl, but I totally ripped it from Rei Hino AKA Sailor Mars.

I dunno about ReincarnatedParano's name, I just know people call her Rei and that's my name. T_T

Turkey was a NATO nation during the Cold War.

But what would have happened if it had instead become a part of the Iron Curtain?

And here I thought you were a delicious, flightless, communist bird.

Heh.. the name I'm using was the name of various characters in MMORPGs I've played, starting with a Bard in EverQuest… :)

I've always been a solo player, only grouping when I have to. And since the alternate spelling was taken, well…. :)

Guess why i use mine?…

Hijuda
And here I thought you were a delicious, flightless, communist bird.

XD XD XD XD!!!
wow I literally lawled at that.