The meaning of your USERname

I was inspired by Flounderart's post on funniest username. Now, i'm asking everyone what their tiki name means, or what was the inspiration of their name.

I'll start. Most people think that THE MONTIORS is a band, but it's acutally tiki related. If you look on p72 of Bottomless Cocktail, you'll see the SHAG painting of the monitors.

I always kind of assumed that is what your name meant. I know that Shag painting. In fact, I use it as the Windows wallpaper on this computer.

My username has nothing to do with Tiki. It was an existing username that I had when I joined the old Tiki Central Yahoo club. WHen I joined Yahoo, I didn't want to be Paul121 or pfr1999, so I played around with unique combinations of my name and initials, finally settling on piphirho which is Pi Phi Rho, the three greek letters (spelled out in English) that correspond to my initials: PFR. It worked, it was unique, and it wasn't taken. But it's not tiki. I kept it when we all moved over here and I never have come up with a creative tiki moniker.

Why, shore! An emspace is the space occupied by the widest character in any typeface, usually the letter "m". Also in keyboarding, the width of one spacebar stroke.

Why? Good question.

:)
em.

Wow, emspace, you think having taken umpteen type classes at art college would have clued me into that, but this is the first time the penny dropped.

hahah!

Aaah Tikifish, who the hell can remember everything they learned in college? I don't think I can remember one single friggin' Lingo script, and I used to be quite half-decent at Director. C'est la vie...

:)
em.

Just a Brazillian Portugese version of my name.

I know - yawn

Mine is just a play on the GREAT band "Don"Tiki http://www.dontiki.com/ My real name is Mona.

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2003-12-18 20:16 ]

Dawntiki" say it isn't so? Mona? Ahhhh, and you never said a thing.. Oh wait, you are kidding right? Oh yeah, my wife said I was a cheeky bastard one day.

[ Edited by: thechikitiki on 2003-12-18 19:53 ]

Sugar - I'm sweet, but don't call me sweety, and I'm an insulin dependent diabetic.

Caddy - My 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville is my daily driver.

Daddy - I am one!

When I first decided to look for a name that can be used everywhere and that would not be taken, SugarDaddy (I wasn't too sure about using that one anyway), SugarCaddy, CaddyDaddy, DaddySugar, DaddyCaddy were all taken except for SugarCaddyDaddy!

You can find me on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and over 20 different chat/industry/info/hobby/friends boards on the internet under my name.

I used to use Slacks Ferret as my nom de plum (pardon my French) when I sang in a band over ten years ago. Tthe name just stuck.

I'm kinda foggy as to how I came up with it but I think it had something to do with an outdoor rock concert, drunkeness, and a fear of a wild rodent crawling up my leg. Ah yes, that's it.

When I joined TC all the tiki-style names I could immediately think of were already taken. So instead of giving it serious thought I went with my Yahoo nickname. "Juno" is actually a song by a band I loved in the 80's called Throwing Muses.

:drink:

my name came from a typo.

I was corresponding with a guy in a sci-fi club I belonged to. A "renegade artists" branch to be exact. He started calling me "Uncle", but his first use of it he had mistakenly used a "K" instead of a "C". I adopted the mispelling because it looked kool.

When I bought my site, it wasn't hard to get the name, but promoting it has been hell. Most people end up getting a company who sells bathroom readers. I bought my site to promote my art and lifestlye (but due to my job I haven't the time to get many paintings compleated and shot for internet use).
Then about a year ago I took down my blog (which was boring and tiresome), made a bulletin board (which is accessible through the site) and revamped my image. I then decided to promote myself as everyone's favorite unkle.

I promise to be that cool unkle who teaches you how to smoke, who sneaks you some booze, who show you proper bong care, who gives you extra long hugs.... no wait not that type of unkle. But everything else I strive to be. Plus a good artist.

Mo-Holler.

• Unkle John: -one man aspiring to be everyone’s favorite unkle.
  http://www.unklejohn.com

[ Edited by: Unkle John on 2003-12-18 20:29 ]

Wow...this is great...everyone's story is so interesting even if has nothing to do with tiki. For the longest time i thought Dawntiki is someone named Dawn. Emspace's name is also interesting. I love it. The history behind someone's name is always interesting.

How about tikifish? You posted but dindn't expalian your name. Please let us know.

I thought yours was monitor lizards....really. monitor lizard family.

For the longest time, pre-Internet, I was TROG. My initials are TOG, so I put an R in there and that's what I got. I became a very serious Qabalist, pre-Madonna, and that went into it as I joined AOL and became TROG218 or, actually TROG=218 Teth-Resh-Vau-Gimel. Anyway. After years of that scene I wanted to go in a new direction and get into my retro roots online. I wanted a new handle and when I started chatting on Luxuria Music, I recalled being in Minneapolis and seeing a huge old ride with the license plate "SWANK" and had always wanted that for my 1966 Chyrsler 300 convertible, but it was taken. ANYWAY. I put in Swanky as my handle and soon I was better know as Swanky than Tim. Then came the Swank Pad site and broadcast and the line of men's clothing, the Swanky styled Vespas and all the rest. Then came the day I was driving 75 in a 50 and the trooper pulled me over and asked "Are you Swanky?"...

the Monitors wrote

For the longest time i thought Dawntiki is someone named Dawn

thechikitiki wrote

Dawntiki" say it isn't so? Mona? Ahhhh, and you never said a thing.. Oh wait, you are kidding right?

YES... I'm joking :P

Well I came up with the name when I was just begining to document Tiki Gardens. The thought was, if I cast the seeds of inquiry, who could tell what information would grow? It was a nice blend of the place of my tiki fascination, the possibility of the idea bearing fruit,it sounded like it just could be a real name, and I thought it would be crass to name myself after the owners, or the tikis at Tiki Gardens.

So Tiki Gardener met all my criterion for a good tiki central name.

Tiki Gardener

Visit The Tiki Gardens Memorial at
http://www.exotic-tiki-gardens.com

Wow! This is really Cool! I'm learning things about people I'd never have learned otherwise. So many cool names with so many interesting origins.

Alas... Mine is simple and, thus, not nearly as interesting. My real name is Vic (well, okay... Victor) and I'm a Back-Stabbin' Sumbitch! Not really. It was the closest rhyme to Trader I could think of (pretty dang close, too) and, despite the sinister connotation, seemed cool enough to go with. So I did. And, now, here I am.

If I am Kahuna of nothing else I am at least Kahuna of my own little basement..

On 2003-12-18 23:07, Basement Kahuna wrote:
If I am Kahuna of nothing else I am at least Kahuna of my own little basement..

that little basement has no hope of holding a resevoir of talent as great as yours.!

I'm one of the few, the proud, the insane that ride the windswell waves of the largest bodies of freshwater on earth... the Great Lakes

Water temp right now... 39 degrees... Air temp during my last session Monday... 28 degrees...

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer on 2003-12-19 00:18 ]

It embarrasing so boring my name is. On my island, every kid named somekinda-Boy. My parents just looked around the hut and tried to think of a good name for me.

Dad:
Babaloo The Banana Boy...
Krakatoa The Lima Bean Boy...
Katmandu The Betel-Nut Boy...
Shabooh-Shoobah The First INXS Album Boy...
Wack-A-Doo The Pencil Boy...
Sabu The Coconut Boy...
Pupu The Poi Boy...
Daniel Day-Lewis...

Mom:
Wait. What was that third one back...

No, acutally I just like making up funny names. "Sabu The Coconut Boy" was a name I made up a few years back to confuse phone solicitors.

Me: "Hello. This is Sabu The Coconut Boy".
Phone Solicitor: "?"

When I joined Tiki Central, I somehow guessed that "Tiki Tim" would get lost in the shuffle. "Sabu The Coconut Boy" on the other hand might make me seem funnier than I really am.

Plus, I like walking into a tiki bar and having everyone yell, "Saboooooooo!"

Sabu

P.S. Get Doctor Z to tell you how he got his name. I still don't understand it.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy on 2003-12-19 01:36 ]

wow - how can you beat Sabu the coconut boy?

I bought a tiki carving last May at the rockin weekender Hemsby and named him
Kon-Hemsby (for obvious reasons). So I borrowed his name.

It's an homage to old-school Canadian wrestling:

http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestling/siki.html

My buddy Tiki A. Moaikingbird came up with it (he's been a TC member for months but has yet to post a word).

Johnnie Velour was pick up from back in the Yahoo days. And before that, me and my buddies went down to San Diego for New Years. We needed to come up with with our alias' . I originally was going to be Johnnie Z but I changed it to Velour, most likely from the velour jacket I was wearing. Then soon after, I needed to refer to Robin, and I thought Lady Velour was a good, goofy name at the time.

BTW, some names of my frends were: Animal Jones and Beer Bong Betty.

:music: "Now I'm Feelin' Zom-bee-fied" :music:
:music: "Now I'm Feelin' Zom-bee-fied" :music:

an homage to my strong music background.
it also recalls that the Zombie cocktail was the first tropical drink I made myself (Mai Tai was first tasted) and to this day, the Zombie is what I am best at making.

Lastly, it allows my to sign-off with my real initial, "Z" for Zach.

-Z

i must agree with BK, there is a primal connection between a man and his basement.

"johnny dollar" has been my hotmail email since 1997, and i've used the name as my internet avatar since then too. i liked it coz it was derived from both a 1940's radio show and a late 1950's rockabilly star (obscure contemporary of buddy holly) and it seemed to not pigeonhole but fit many genres of my interest - swing, film noir, rockabilly, lounge... even cowboy for that matter. and my name is john too :)

*excellent topic, "The Monitors!"

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar on 2003-12-19 08:58 ]

Back in the mid-'80s I was writing poetry for a zine called No Scary Hype In Type (known by it's initials) & they forgot my name. The editor, the Groovy Guru, asked my friend Slugcat what they should call me & he just came out with Freddie Freelance.

Now if you want an explanation of those other nicknames you'll have to start another thread.

On 2003-12-18 22:06, DawnTiki wrote:
the Monitors wrote

For the longest time i thought Dawntiki is someone named Dawn

thechikitiki wrote

Dawntiki" say it isn't so? Mona? Ahhhh, and you never said a thing.. Oh wait, you are kidding right?

YES... I'm joking :P

Darn! Oh well, I can still post :music: MonaTiki, MonaTiki, Kahunas named you :music:

Hey Monitors, cool topic!

PolynesianPop -- well, this one came about not only because of my obvious love for the era but of its founders and how well it fits me. Much of the old-school carvers and bartenders of the Polynesian Pop era were Filipino - Andres Bumatay, Milan Guanko, etc come to mind and Ray Buhen opened the Tiki Ti after mixing for Seven Seas and Don the Beachcomber.

And me being also of Filipino heritage, collector of all things from that era, and also a father of 2 -- It all added up to "PolynesianPop" (although my non-tiki friends call me Polynesian Poppa).

Some alternatives I've heard from other TC'ers:

Polyester Pop
Polypropylene Pop
Polyethelyne Pop
Polystyrene Pop
Polly want a cracker Pop

I didn't come up with my username. It's my father's name, was my grandfather's name and was his grandfather's name back in Sicily. (Hey, Sicily is an island...)

http://www.samgambino.com

[ Edited by: Sam Gambino on 2003-12-19 08:27 ]

Many of y'all have heard me 'slpain it before. Lopaka is Robert in Hawaiian, and Selector is the name given to record spinners in Jamaica. I spin the records, and my Mom and Dad named me Robert. Hence the moniker, Selector Lopaka.

Humuhumu is "sewing" in Hawaiian. Here in the Humuhumu Room, under this tablecloth, is my humuhumu makina:

That's why I named my bar the Humuhumu Room: when I wasn't entertaining, it was my sewing room. I named it about a year before I found Tiki Central, and when I needed to pick a user name, Humuhumu sounded much better than my usual old BBS 'nym I've used since '93, PEZaddict.

besides which, it's just fun to say :)

Frank Zappa did a live album with Captain Beefheart called "Bongo Fury". There were no bongos but I always loved that title. Also loved the line from the song "Muffin Man"......"thought he was a man , but he was a muffin".......Occaisionaly if I forgot someones name I would substitute "Bongofury" instead of "whatsisname?" At first I was going to use the obvious "Ron The Beachcomber" but my 2 typing fingers decided on something shorter. Since many exotica songs include the bongos.....Bongofury was easy to remember ....and type....(Ron)

Humuhumu wrote

Humuhumu is "sewing" in Hawaiian

I always thought you picked it because it is Hawaii's state fish....

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2003-12-19 10:09 ]

On 2003-12-19 09:11, bongofury wrote:
Frank Zappa did a live album with Captain Beefheart called "Bongo Fury". There were no bongos but I always loved that title. Also loved the line from the song "Muffin Man"......"thought he was a man , but he was a muffin"......

"Some people like cupcakes better. I, for one, care less for them!"

http://www.samgambino.com

[ Edited by: Sam Gambino on 2003-12-19 10:03 ]

This is a fun one ya'll. Keep em comin'!!

Here is our explaination of 8FT Tiki.

Those of you who read TC regularly will have already seen the story, but for those of you who may have missed it, it was posted as our introduction to TC on 11-30-03 in the General Tiki Discussion Area. The title is "Discovery and Restoration of OA tiki in Kansas City" here is a link:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=6515&forum=1&hilite=Discovery and Restoration

It's a great story if you have a minute to go to the archives. Lots of good pics too.

In essence, the 8FT Tiki commanded us to choose that name as he towers over us in our great room with a vaulted ceiling. Besides that,would it be as thought provoking if the name was:
8INCH Tiki??? Well...Perhaps!??!!?

[ Edited by: 8FT Tiki on 2003-12-19 10:04 ]

[ Edited by: 8FT Tiki 2006-01-26 17:39 ]

[ Edited by: 8FT Tiki 2006-01-26 17:40 ]

Humuhumu, I thought it was from Little Grass Shack, I love that song.

"...where the humuhumu nukunuku a'pua'a go swimming by."

[ Edited by: pablus on 2003-12-19 10:08 ]

On 2003-12-19 09:11, bongofury wrote:
Frank Zappa did a live album with Captain Beefheart called "Bongo Fury".

You can tell my mind is in the gutter- I always read bongofury as "bong of fury"!

Mine's another one of those non-tiki names back from the days of yahoo lurkdom. One of my favorite authors of young adult books, Daniel Pinkwater, wrote a book called The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. When I was looking for a unique username, that's what came to me.

Mine's just a name stolen from a Microbrew back in the early 90's, Abita TurboDog. Got a bunch of sticker from a Beerfest cut 'em up and boom...TURBOgod. Now the reason the god is small, is on purpose. That part's based on a Marilyn Manson song, My Monkey.
I use the name now for music projects. AHhhh too much talk about nothing. You want a good story ask Ms. Formikahini where she got her name from. That story is got to be the best one yet!

[ Edited by: Turbogod on 2003-12-19 10:56 ]

well my nickname comes from one of the many nicknames people gave me when i was younger. my first name starts with an O (Owen) so i had a ton of O nick names like O-beone (like the star wars guy, as i was the master, just kidding), letter O, the big O,just "O", and so on, including Octane as i'm a big 50's custom car guy, and that is one of the only O-terms anyone could come up with dealing with cars, and it's hardly ever taken on sites.

A few years ago, a friend helped me with some wiring and plumbing in my basement which allowed me to create a tiki bar. Between jobs, and without access to his computer, he asked me to set up an ebay account as he wanted to sell some of his old band equiptment. We needed to come up with a user name and I think we got to mrtikibar after finding two or three other tiki-themed names already claimed. Several months later, I joined this forum and brought "mrtikibar" over.

alnshely is a painfully boring username that came about, I think, because Al wanted to join the board so immediately, without wasting precious seconds devising something creative or even slightly cool.

If you have not already met the two of us, you can probably figue we are AL and Shelley. Al decided that since we started collecting mugs and all things tiki together, our name should represent something we both do together.

I have pondered many names for myself and vacillate between Shell in the Pacific and Pearly Shell.

I like "Shell in the Pacific" best. I came up with it after countless perusals of "The Grog Log"(Hell in the Pacific). I am originally from the Gulf Coast,(MS) and lived along the Atlantic seaboard (VA,MD,FL)for most of my life. The name identifys where I finally landed...Oceanside, CA.

Pearly Shell suits me as well since I like that goofy song and I have a passion for pearls.

I wanted to find something Hawaiian, but I have not had much luck...

Shell in Hawaiian is pu-pu, and Curly is pi'i-pi'i, so those are WAY to "bathroom humor" related. I suppose I will always be impossibly, hopelessly, immature.

I am scarred for life by the nickname my father gave me as a baby, that he continued to use far into my extrememly awkward years. He called me Potus. I still cringe. Potus is a shortened version of Hippopotumus. As a baby he said I reminded him of a baby hippopotumus. A kind of heavy, sweaty, lump.

He used to sing...
"Sweet Potus Ann, is sweeter than the roses..." very loudly in public parking lots. I died many deaths as a child, caused by an uncontrollably silly father.

On a lighter note...

Al is just Al. Short for Alan. I have many pet names for him but they do not reach into social circles...

Baby Man
Snuggie Man
Snug Master
Honey-Bunchy-Crunchy-Munchy
Al-igator
Al-amander

Really though, rightfully he should be called...
The Alchemist...
One who has, by use of magic and philosophy, developed the elixir of perpetual youth. One who is able to miraculously change a thing into something better.

-Shell in the Pacific

I've had my name since I was a keiki,
I got that name from other kids in da village because of da sun spots I use to have all over my body from always being in the sun at da beach. They said my skin looked like a gecko soooo, they started to call me gecko. I still get a few spots still now and then. I use the selsun lotion to get rid of them.

On 2003-12-19 11:10, Alnshely wrote:
He called me Potus. I still cringe. Potus is a shortened version of Hippopotumus. As a baby he said I reminded him of a baby hippopotumus.

Secret Service calls the prez "POTUS."

President
Of
The
U
S

random nerdling j$

p.s. I like yer dad's rationale better....

Mine is pretty easy to figure out.

Managed to snag it first on AOL and eBay tho'.

ikitnrev is 'Vern Tiki' spelled backwards. It was a hastily devised name to counter all the other straight forward 'tiki' names that already existed. I thought it would be a temporary name until I came up with something better, but it turns out I like the way the characters flow together on screen, so I've kept it.

I was somewhat stumped at Hukilau when others asked me what my Tiki Central name was, or how I pronounced ikitnrev. It is a name that was originally meant to be seen and read only, and not to be spoken out loud.
I thus feel like I'm participating in some secret pagan ritual when I do have to say it out loud, as if it is a mysterious sound that might blend harmoniously with the sound of a Martin Denny bird call when played backwards.

If you see me in person, you can just call me Vern .... you know what I mean?

Vern (nrev)