What's in a Name?

I often see journals by other people on deviantArt asking why people chose their user name. The answers always seem to fall into one of a few categories: 1) Nickname from people in their real life, 2) Some variation on their actual name (usually among the "serious" artists and photographers), 3) Some cool or clever mishmash of words, 4) Something poached from another language, or 5) Something they're a fan of, whether it's their favorite TV show, anime character, actor, animal, career, region, etc. Whatever they choose, it has the potential to become a whole new identity, and more often than not, there's some sort of story behind it.

As you might have gathered, I am known on the internet mostly as Kitsune64, usually shortened to just Kit. To be honest, by now it seems strange to me when someone IMs me and uses my actual name. But where did Kit come from?

Well, waaaaay back when I was a senior in high school, a friend got me involved in a message board RPG. Of course, I needed a handle, something for the other players to refer to me by. At the time, I wanted something ambiguous, that I actually liked, and that meant something to me.

Now, I have a natural love of mythology, folklore, and wild canines. For awhile, I considered Coyote, as I do so love our native trickster, but then I decided to see what I could find in Japanese folklore, since the RPG was an anime-based one and it seemed fitting. You can probably imagine my glee when I stumbled upon the kitsune - a trickster fox that took any number of forms in its many stories, from the beautiful woman to the wandering monk (this is long before Naruto hit the U.S.). Besides, it shortened into a nickname much better than Coyote (Coyo? Yot? Yeah, not the most appealing, there). I had my new name.

As for the 64... Once upon a time, before gmail came along, I wanted my own personal email address. Hotmail said I could have the name I wanted (not Kitsune, btw - this predated that by YEARS) if only I'd choose a number to stick after it. And they ever-so-helpfully gave me three options: 63, 64, or 65. Since the big gaming system in the house at the time was the Nintendo64, I figured that would be easiest to remember, and it's been with me ever since.

So, there you have it - how Kit came to be. And nearly ten years later, I'm still happy to call it mine.