How Did Your Downs Name Come About?

[Mithalwen]

Mine was a RPG character I created for a friend's short lived board. I just needed an ID and didn't want to reuse old screen names. It just was a name I had to hand - if I had any idea how the downs was going to take over my life I might have thought longer. I developed the name originally through the Elendor translator. RPG Mithalwen was Telerin with silver hair and so I wanted a shadowy, grey-silvery name with a nature connection. Mith is obviously grey and "alwen" apparently is an archaic/literary sindarin word for a tree but I don't think I have seen it in the books.

RPG Mithalwen made a brief appearance as herself at the green dragon but otherwise I have taken over the name or the name has taken over me! To start with I did try and keep it as "Mithalwen" in full but I gave up the unequal struggle.......

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Camus' words about great works being born in mundane situations jump out at me now.

Nearly four years ago now, I had no idea how important the Downs would be in my life. On picking the name I typed down a favourite Tolkien character in the space, only for my request to be denied. Assuming that there was already a user with that name I tried again. And again. And again. It just wouldn't work. I tried about 30 times. And then I realised that it wasn't the username that was the problem; it was my email address.

I rectified that problem, and went with the name that was already on the screen (my 30th choice, as it were).

Not that my earlier ones were any more interesting. As I recall I could have been Merry or Pippin or Treebeard or Fingolfin of the Noldor or anything like that.

Not only that, but (as is probably painful for every Barrowdowner who reads my posts) I didn't manage to use an É and went with an E instead.

So I've never really liked my username; but I've become it, so to speak. And nowadays Eomer of the Rohirrim has a small semblance of meaning to it, despite its highly inauspicious birth.

[Nogrod]

I actually came to see this site, because my daughter pressed me to take a look at this. The system wanted a username to log into. So I took my copy of Silmarillion and searched the index (as all the people I saw that time were having Tolkienish names - and I thought that would be a norm).

The dwarf-city of Nogrod sounded nice - there is an old town of Novgorod (meaning "new- city", in Russian) just quite near where I live, and it reminds me of our close relationship with the Russians: as we Finns were among the people to bring out that town to begin with. And there is something about the dwarves that I kind of like (being the too early created masters of their trade)

So just sounded nice and fitted with the world enough...

[Garin]

So far, I am Intrigued.

It is interesting that so many of our first choices didn't work, I still don't know why Othin didn't process but, as I said, it was best not to take the name of a God.

I found Formendacil's entry a wee interesting. I glad to that someone researched more than I did.

Everyone who has contributed have great names. I'd like to see Saucepan man's and TGBWS's reasoning behind choosing distinctly non ME names.

Choosing a name is more substantial than all of the avatars and signatures combined.... In fact this thread could evolve into those discussions.

Not that I care if this thread lasts long, but I just find the "process of permanence" very intriguing.

Thanks to all.

[littlemanpoet]

Speaking of distinctly non-ME names...... Obviously, littlemanpoet ain't Middle Earth.

When I first went on-line way back in early 2002, the first thing I did was look for a Tolkien website that promised to be good enough to visit often. It took me about five tries before I happened across The Barrowdowns, and it was a rather quick decision (a couple days) that this was the place I wanted to do my Tolkien conversations. But onto the username. Back then I was more into being a poet than I am now. People change. So I wanted the fact of my poetics in my username. I also didn't want to be mistaken for the female gender which I knew was not unlikely, having a rather androgynous personality. So that got me as far as 'manpoet', but that seemed rather unpromising. Needing one more addition to the name, I wanted to come across as not haughty (how pretentious ), and settle upon the English translation of my given name, which is Greek in origin. I won't make you guess: Paul. So "littlemanpoet" means Paul the poet guy, pretty much. And it worked first time; better yet, nobody else uses anything like it, which was also something I was shooting for. Littlemanpoet. That's me. I still like poetry, but it's not as central to who I am as it once was. (more's the pity?)

Actually, as an aside, Saucepan Man's name does sort of derive (at least in my mind) from Samwise Gamgee carrying around the cooking pans until finally mournfully dumping them in Mordor..... but maybe that's just me .....

[Diamond18]

You do realize that whenever I quote you I am now going to make it,

Originally Posted by Paul the poet guy

Speaking of distinctly non-ME names...... Obviously, littlemanpoet ain't Middle Earth.

As to mine, it's simple enough. I had a strange little crush on Pippin at the time, and Diamond is the name of the gal he married. Diamond was taken, as was Diamond Took, and as it happened to be the eve of my 18th birthday, I stuck my age on there.

The 18 annoys me greatly and always will, not only because I am no longer 18, but there seems something ungangly about the number in my name. But it's mine and I'm stuck with it. Anyone who knows me well just calls me Diamond or Sarah anyway, so it hardly matters.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Diamond18

You do realize that whenever I quote you I am now going to make it, Originally Posted by Paul the poet guy

Suit yourself, SarahLitaRose.

Originally Posted by Diamond

The 18 annoys me greatly and always will, not only because I am no longer 18, but there seems something ungangly about the number in my name. But it's mine and I'm stuck with it. Anyone who knows me well just calls me Diamond or Sarah anyway, so it hardly matters.

You're not alone. Boromir88 is the Boromir that we all know as the true Boromir of Barrowdowns, but he has that 88 on the end. But everybody calls him Boro anyway....