The name you go by

Mine goes back to my teenage years, got the nickname Feral after a fight broke out and I waded in to stop people getting hurt. So just to be different I added an extra r and that's that.

When I first joined 2003 I was named Grendel which is a name I used on Tweakers Asylum prior to HEXUS and it rolled over from that and was taken from the old story Beowulf at the time as I was into all things Anglo Saxon.

On PSN & XBox I am known as Grimmsqueaker which isn't a typo given all the variations of Reaper and Grim Reaper etc. Fans of Terry Pratchett know it is the Death of Rats which always makes me chuckle and I started using it as my nickname when I joined PSN 2009 with my PS3

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Originally Posted by Ferral

On PSN & XBox I am known as Grimmsqueaker

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Death of Rats was certainly what instantly came to mind as soon as I got that far in the sentence. :)

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Originally Posted by Output

Got to love happy coinciences like that. :)

I'd imagine it's usually US-based people getting it wrong then, who see the word used much more often for a yearly celebration their Scouts have I believe (although that might be where it originated anyway, as I'm pretty sure that was the context I first heard of the word, and haven't heard it used in any other context).

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According to my extremely analogue Oxford Shorter English Dictionary (big, dusty and in two volumes), jamboree is American slang from around 1870 meaning a large party with music and entertainment. The US Boy Scouting movement appropriated it in 1920. So US-people would certainly have it in their lexicon.

Well, it's nothing to do with either armoured vehicles, or with the 7th century Muslim conquest of the Levant (or anything else Muslim-related).

In, oh, 1984 or so, I had an urgent need to set up a limited company (long, long redundant now) pretty quickly, so I rang a company formations firm that had some pre-canned companies that just needed a few names changed (then tweaking to suit my needs). They reeled off half a dozed or so, one of which started with Saracen, and I picked that.

You can guess the rest for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

They reeled off half a dozed or so, one of which started with Saracen, and I picked that.

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And until now, I'd been thinking that perhaps you were a fan of Gladiators. :)

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Originally Posted by Output

And until now, I'd been thinking that perhaps you were a fan of Gladiators. :)

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Not the first person to say that.

During my admin days, I kept quiet just to raise curiosity. Had a fair few PMs, enquiring as to the origin and I kept it a bit mysterious .... mainly because the reality was boringly prosaic. Now, as they say ..... the truth is out there. :)

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Not the first person to say that.

During my admin days, I kept quiet just to raise curiosity. Had a fair few PMs, enquiring as to the origin and I kept it a bit mysterious .... mainly because the reality was boringly prosaic. Now, as they say ..... the truth is out there. :)

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What??? You mean it's not because your weekend routine involved going out as your *fabulous* alter-ego Sara? :D

'Fraid not, ik. :)

a character in a graphic novel i once read who looked a bit like me!

i was reading it when i signed up, so it seemed apt

Old university log on which is a shortening of surname and first letter of first name. Little boring but works. The real joke is I don't like cheese (diary allergy as a kid).

This may amuse you. Ive been blocked from EA/Dice chat because my nickname contains Phag. I don't feel like changing it - I've been using this since Quake.

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Originally Posted by Phage

This may amuse you. Ive been blocked from EA/Dice chat because my nickname contains Phag. I don't feel like changing it - I've been using this since Quake.

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you might want to email them the dicitionary definition of a phage and ask them why they're being idiots. It's a word FFS.

TBH mine was just something computer-sounding that popped into my head when signing up for forums etc years ago. Given it's not particularly original there are people on other forums using the same name which has caused some confusion in the past!

Edit: Some game name-filters are ridiculous, spotting even three-letter text strings in the middle of other, totally unrelated words.

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Originally Posted by watercooled

TBH mine was just something computer-sounding that popped into my head when signing up for forums etc years ago. Given it's not particularly original there are people on other forums using the same name which has caused some confusion in the past!

Edit: Some game name-filters are ridiculous, spotting even three-letter text strings in the middle of other, totally unrelated words.

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There are other forums?

Dang, when did that happen?

:D

I wasn't initially sure if Saracen999 was actually you - was there a time when you used both accounts simultaneously?

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Originally Posted by watercooled

Edit: Some game name-filters are ridiculous, spotting even three-letter text strings in the middle of other, totally unrelated words.

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There's a name for it: The Scunthorpe Problem.

When I first started out online I tried to use "spaceinvader" as back then nothing allowed spaces in user names. Sadly it was often already used so I ended up being spaceinvader90210 or similar. My first online game I found an aptitude for was the Jedi Knight series, so when I joined a clan I changed it to spacein_vader to both make it unique and include a Star Wars reference.