Post #65781 by Doctor Z on Sat, Dec 20, 2003 12:35 PM

There’s a movie called “The Diabolical Doctor Z”, a science fiction novel called “Doctor Z” and even some guy who makes guitar amps named Dr. Z, but alas, the origins of my user name have nothing to do with them. The actual explanation is long and confusing (with a dramatic extended operatic mid-section), but I will pare it down as best I can:

For starters, I have a strong “Z” sound in my last name: Hrzina (pronounced ‘herZEEnuh’ – it’s Croatian).

For many moons, I used to play beach volleyball with a group of friends, one of whom, for some unknown reason, would always greet people by calling them ‘doctor’ when he arrived: “Hello, doctor”, “Greetings, doctor”, “Good to see you, doctor” and so on. Every body was a ‘doctor’, not just me, but naturally I became, ‘Doctor Hrzina’.

Some time later, on a camping trip with many of these same folks, I introduced some out-of-towners to the drink “Zima”. It had only been out on the west coast for a few months at this time and they’d never heard of it. After getting quite hammered on it, they thought it was absolutely wonderful, and somehow I became “Doctor Zima” (I have since left said drink behind in the ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ file…)

Eventually, it became shortened to “Doctor Z” by these same volleyball folks.

I’ve answered to it (as well as “Doc” and “Z”) for the better part of 12 years, so it was a natural choice for my TC name (as well as ‘iamdrz’ for my AOL and eBay screen names). I’ve tried to get my license plates personalized with it, but the DMV says it looks too much like “Doctor 2”, which somebody already has…

On a side note, as a teacher, having an unusual/difficult last name has made me simply “Mr. H” to my students; I often refer to Doctor Z as my evil twin in my classroom…