Lan Mandragoran is a Gaidin (i.e. warder) in the Wheel of Time series by the now deceased Robert Jordan - which coincidentally has the 12th book set for release on 10/29. He's obviously not completing it (to my knowledge) but Brandon Sanderson should do a marvelous job brining the series to its conclusion.

Doak is my last name.

Nostradamus was a seer who published a book of prophesies - most of which have come true, or are a load of crap, depending on how you interpret them. I just made a play on the name because I tend to be kind of a, well ... a dumbass.

Been using tailboarder for years. It is what we call the guy who rides on the back of a fire truck. I am no longer a tailboarder but I often times wish I could go back to having so little responsibility.

@Doak.... you don't happend to be a unitarian universalist minister do you?

My real name is Timothy. People call me Tim, and I like it, but it just lacks flair. So I use Timmi online. It pleases me visually. I was also born in 88.

My usual handle is "MinTy" but that wasn't available.

^i should have used your full name so it would be bold The Big Doak or The_Big_Doak to take advantage of that feature!

I make Ghosts from multis.

Haha sorry Timmi, I'm just a college student in Florida with too much time on my hands.

When I was studying German in HS, I really liked the sound of abgemacht. It means agreed, so it seemed fitting for this site. It's my standard handle now.

It means agreed? I thought it corresponded with the Dutch word 'afgemaakt', i.e. 'killed' or 'slaughtered'.

@Draugnar: what do you think? I'm #209 in the site rankings, is that big enough?

(actually I first used Ursa_Maior, and later changed it)

I typicall go by Minnesota Marx in this sort of situation, since my name is Mark and I was born and raised in Mid-Minnesota, but that name didn't seem to have much of an edge, which I thought I should have for playing diplomacy. My second cousin played baseball in the majors and was nicknamed The Mad Hungarian. He was a relief pitcher and he'd put on a little act to psych out batters. He'd walk off the back of the mound, put his mitt under one arm and start aggressively rubbing the baseball between his hands, slowly letting his anger build. He'd eventually put his mitt back on, slam the baseball into his mitt and storm back onto the mound and stare down the batter. It was quite an act! He even had a really cool fu manchu that was over-grown and uneven, a nice touch to his act, check it out:

http://lawenforcer.net/samelliott/040414hrabosky.jpg

Anyway, I decide to borrow Mad from his title, largely because I'm not the best strategist and thus attempt to gain an advantage by doing illogical (i.e. mad) moves... or perhaps I just like to be different and try to do things in a different way. Regardless, this is all theoretical and may or may not manifest itself in my style of play, but that's the reason why I chose MadMarx...

Well. Thucydides got me interested in history, which has influenced my life, one of the ways that has influenced me is that I enjoy geopolitical/strategic games. Naturally that led me to diplomacy.

Also I always use Thucydides for a pseudonym on the Internet.

I first used the name ‘Toby Bartels’ in real life. With that spelling, it appears to be unique to me in all the world, so I use it for everything now.

The second part, ‘Bartels’, has been in my family for as far back as we have records. It was my father's, and his father's before him, and his father's before him, and so on for countless generations. Apparently, it is a possessive form of ‘Bartel’, which is a diminutive form of ‘Bart’, which is a short form of ‘Bartholomäus’, which is a German version of ‘Bartholomaeus’, which is a Latin version of ‘Βαρθολομαίος’, which a Greek version of ‘תולמי‎‎‎‎‎-בר‎‎’, which is a patronymic form of ‘תולמי’, which is an Aramaic version of ‘Πτολεμαῖος’, which is an adjectival form of ‘Πτολεμος’, which is an epic form of ‘Πολεμος’, which is a Greek word for war. Note that ‘תולמי‎‎‎‎‎-בר‎‎’ and ‘Πτολεμαῖος’ have also become ‘Bartholomew’ and ‘Ptolemy’ by other routes.

The story of ‘Toby’ is even longer, and I will try to dig it up from my files before I attempt to type it out afresh.

I am a big fan of Larry Niven. One of his best books is Ringworld. One of the main characters in the story is a Kzinti ambassador to Earth. His name is Speaker To Animals. When I needed a handle for the SETI@Home project I chose "SpeakerToAliens". I've been using it ever since.

"ianus" is a common Roman name ending. My name is "Sam", thus.....

Back in high school me and five friends hung out all the damn time and decided to start calling ourselves the "Sinister Six" which is the name of a group of villains that occasionally pops up in Spider Man comics. We each took the name of one of said villains. I got Doctor Octopus and started using DrOct for various things, so it's become one of my default online handles.

Well as you all know I'm a big fan of Rammstein, despite living in the states and not being anywhere old enough to be allowed into their concerts. I'm also a huge Rafa Nadal fan, and since he makes a living saying "vamos" as well as playing tennis, I thought I'd put them together. Its also what I use for my other extremely limited online activities.

I've been a science fiction fan since I was little; I saw the remastered Star Wars tilogy when it was re-released in the 90s... back when Star Wars still had originality and a soul, you know- when it was good.

I was about five, but I was one of those weird 5 year olds who feels closer to 25 than 5, so I liked the older heroes, the "smart" guys.

Thus, Obi-Wan became my favorite Star Wars character, and you can nearly never get that name on online gaming or youtube, so I just doubled it, and, voila-

obiwanobiwan. ;)

Though I haven't watched Star Wars in a couple years, now... Episodes I and II just ruin it for me so much (III's okay, or was when I saw it) and that new movie just kills it for me.

Lately, I sign onto places as my NEW favorite character, Esn. Chekov of Star Trek.

I've liked Trek better since high school, when I was so bitter and kind of by myself- still am, but at least now have friends to talk to. My friends, the way they were, sort of resembled the Enterprise crew at times- my best friend is very Kirk-like (despite being a she) and has two friends that contrast somuch, a brainy Spock, a worrying McCoy...

I'm the guy who's most eccentric, lightens the mood, likes German-Russian things, and gets hurt a lot.

Esn. Chekov. ;)


Actually...

Do you guys think I should change my name to that? It fits "me" more...

You want to know the origin of my name. I won't tell you. I guess that puts us at an impasse...

Really though it was the first word that came to my mind when I thought about diplomacy and making(or failing to make) agreements.

airborne, from my halo account after I been sent "airborne" by nades so many times lol

Didn't we have a thread like this a few months ago? I seem to remember a few of these responses, namely my own.

Me, Dwight D. you think war why not? Spur of the moment thing when I was joining.
@obiwanobiwan I love Star wars as well. Named my son Ben (episode 4, Luke called Obiwan old crazy Ben), wife would not give me Luke. She hates when I tell people where his name came from.

There's a great story by George Orwell called "Killing an Elephant". I had the book near me when I joined, ergo, killingelephant. It also has a very, well, diplomatic ring to it, no?

@Draugnar- Yup. One hell of a reputation, too. ;)

lol your name is not killingelephant though, it is shootingelephant.

that is a fantastic story though, i must say.

what i dont get is why anyone has numbers in their name when basically everything is still open, unless its just a name you use everywhere

Sean is the celtic version of John which i think means "beloved of god" or some sort of nonsence. odd for an athiest but i think my parents just liked the sound of "sean" as a name,hmm i will ask then next time we talk.

Form "Think baby names"

The boy's name Sean \

sean\, also used as girl's name Sean, is pronounced shon. It is of Irish origin. Variant of John (Hebrew) "God is gracious", from the French Jean. Spread outside of Ireland only in the 20th century. Occasionally used in hyphenated names.

Wow.. such thought has been put into all of your usernames. I thought "why not use something original, that gets a chuckle and won't be taken by anyone?", and ParanoidFreak