[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...