Um... Tenethia used to be a much more complicated Fanfiction Mary-Suer named Tenethianunandry. Crazy, yes. I shortened it and fell in love with just Tenethia, and... started a different Sue-fic, and joined TLC as a Sue. Yes.

😛 I'm crazy.

In The Magic City by E. Nesbit, the protagonist is set a series of tasks he must complete. One of them is to "destroy the fear of the Dwellers by the Sea." Their fear is a problem because they're supposed to be "happy troops of gentle islanders," and they shan't be as happy as they're supposed to be so long as this fear exists. (They also don't live on an island, because there's only one island and they're not allowed on it, but that's another matter...)

Before I joined TLC, I had thought about these happy islanders, and how that would be such a good title for people on my website (which I call "The Island in the Middle of the Afternoon"). So when I joined TLC I had already been thinking of that, and... it just fit for me to be The Happy Islander. (It also was part of the inspiration for me being a giraffe... the happy islanders in the book have all sorts of Noah's Ark animals--the Lord High Islander even rides a giraffe at one point--and as I was looking at pictures of a Noah's Ark that I painted, it just... fell into place for me to be a giraffe, too. It just fits somehow.)

So, yes. 🙂

So when I was growing up, we didn't have internet (yes, that means I'm old, but not that old - mostly my family were just slow to catch up, and SA is a bit behind anyway). We finally got internet at home my first year out of school, and I also had internet access at the church where I was doing my gap year course (that's when I joined TLC).

Before then, I'd used Ajnos as a username for computer games and stuff. Ajnos is my real name backwards. It was also my name at a kids Holiday Club we ran at church on the theme of "Aliens". All the leaders went by backward versions of their names because that made us sound more alien. My sister and best friend in high school also called me Ajnos.

When I first joined TLC, there weren't many people on with Middle Earth names, (and I hadn't thought about it), but I've since wished I'd gone with Ajnos Gamgee, so I use the fuller version on occasions when I can. The Gamgee surname has nothing to do with me being a Sam fan-girl and everything to do with my RL name (which you'll know if you're friends with me on FB or have contact with me in some other form). The reason in-character for "Gamgee" is that Ajnos is the Gamgee family's pet hedgehog 😀

This is a fun thread. 😀

Before I joined TLC, I used to participate on the main site under the username "Jewel in a Crown", from the verse in Zechariah, "The Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown."
But when I decided to join the forum, I decided I wanted a new name. For some reason, I wanted it to start with "Es." So, I looked up "es-" words in the dictionary and came upon esprit. My French friend told me that it's just the French word for soul or spirit, but the English dictionary also defines it as "Liveliness of mind; lively intelligence or wit." I thought the meaning was cool, and while I'm the first to admit I'm not a very witty person, the definition reminded me of how Jesus gives us "life, and life to the full." Plus, it sounds pretty (the T is silent).
Thus was born the alias of yours truly.

@Esprit: I pronounce your name right! *happy dance*

Oooh, I am probably the dull one, using a character's name and putting an E in front 😛

No, I had no idea that's how you came up with it.

😀

It's great learning how people came up with their names. My name actually comes from two literary sources. When I was first choosing a screen name for FanFic and TLC (which I joined at roughly the same time), I paced around at home looking at things for inspiration, and I spotted a book by E.L. Konigsburg, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, a historical novel about Eleanor of Aquitaine. (Miniver itself is an old word for some kind of fur, not from a particular animal.) I knew at once that this was the right name for me. I realized a bit later that there's also another book, Mrs. Miniver, which tells about a British woman living in the World War II era, a time that's even more relevant to Narnian stories.

The origin of Lucy Took is pretty simple, I wanted to sign up for a Narnia newsletter but didn't want to use my real name. So I went with Lucy because Lucy and Took because I was reading the Hobbit at the time.

Tooky on the other hand...that has a story.

It goes back to one of the first people to greet me on the forum, Little Tigress. I'm not sure if there's many that remember her now, but she was really young, really nice, and really energetic. (Kinda like Tenny 😉 But her personality wasn't the same, just the energy levels 😛 ) She was the one to give me my first avatar, my first signature and the person that introduced me to GIMP which is what made me the art student I am today. What this has to do with my name is that when I first joined there were a couple of other Lucys and I didn't want to be mixed up with them, so I said to call me LT. Problem is Little Tigress went by LT 😛 So she gave me the name Tooky and it stuck.

Wow! Those are cool origins, Miniver and Tooky!

Mine is kind of a personal thing. When I was fifteen or sixteen I chose the white rose to symbolize my promise of purity. It's stuck with me ever since, and I've used it in various name forms, including the Welsh form Rhoswen (thanks to Gleeb), ever since! But White Rose is really shortened down from what my original name was on here and is on FF.net- LovelyPrincessWhiteRose. 😉

Wow, White Rose! That is really cool. 😀

Hermit of the Northern March? This will take some explaining.
When I first came to this site in 2006, some of the people in the news media had taken to reporting on the dangers of talking to strangers online. So, even though I loved Narnia and loved this site, I was nervous about posting anything. So I picked the name because:
1. Everyone would assume I was very old - like 109.
2. I like hermits, especially the Hermit of the Southern March.
3. You couldn't tell from the name if I was a boy or a girl, which I assumed was safer.
4. I live in the Northern Hemisphere - I was really excited when I learned there were also people from Australia and South Africa on here.

Of course, the point #3 was not beneficial, all it took was one person thinking it meant I was a guy and the name started to annoy me. That's one of the reasons I make a point to introduce myself to people so they will know I'm a girl. Another important thing to know is that I am not a hermit, although I am one of those people that blends in with crowds and no one really notices.

@Hermit: Your name does give you an enigmatic air. 😀