Fur Names

[lupestripe]

Recently, I have been thinking about the creative process behind choosing names for our fursonas.

Lupestripe came in the back end of 2006, when I first joined the Fandom. The weekend before I joined, I attended a little university reunion to celebrate Christmas and a friend of mine (who is not a fur) was talking about how he would like to buy a badger suit and go under the name "Earthstripe" (for what reason I don't know but it is a dream of is anyway).

The Tuesday after this, I joined the Fandom. My original moniker was Packwolf. I had had this since April 2004 but I thought that this was too generic and a quick Google search highlighted that this name was quite common in the Fandom. I wanted something a little more unique.

It had taken me six years to get to this stage of joining the Fandom so waiting on the log in screen for IRC, I wasn't going to surrender all that courage and give up just because I couldn't think of a name for my fursona.

Remembering back to my friend, I decided to take the word "stripe" and as I am a wolf, I decided to stick the word "lupe" in front of it to form Lupestripe. Ten minutes into my first IRC session, I quickly worked out why there were few people with the word "lupe" in their names as it was easily bastardised to "lube", in my case to form Lubestripe. By that point though, I had already made an impression and it stuck.

I am not too sure whether I am 100% happy with my name but it's not too bad so I'll probably just stick with it lols.

Where did your name come from?

Comments

[marston.livejournal.com]

I was looking for something that felt timeless and reflected the sense of history we have in England so I started thinking about battle sites. Bosworth was an early idea but rejected on the grounds there already existed an Emily Bosworth over at Yerf. Marston Moor may not be quite so romantic sounding but the anti-royalist in me liked the link :)

Before that I'd been calling my character Vincent (from the title of an ITV drama with Timothy Spall, if i remember right) but in my head there was the distinction this was a character rather than "myself" so such a lame name seemed acceptable.

Bloodwolves

[bloodwolves.livejournal.com]

my furname came from a toyline of action figures created by Stan Winson.

[ember-komodog.livejournal.com]

quite an interesting topic this :) I may pinch it and post it on UKFur ;P

mine? Well when I first joined the fandom, I was in Wales, so I wanted something Welsh... so I thought "hmmm, Cym sounds pretty welsh".

The name stuck for about... ooh.. 5 months, people kept pronouncing it as "cum" XD so it had to change!

It was my ex who came up with the name Ember, guess it was because of the firey colour scheme or something :) Either way, the name's stuck ever since!

[bucktowntiger.livejournal.com]

My name came from the nickname of my hometown. :)

[kiffylee.livejournal.com]

I was accidently named... some one went to call me Kitty and it came out as Kiffy... The name stuck with me and I ended up thinking up a proper full furname extending it to Kiffert Lee Yifferson X3

[moth-wingthane.livejournal.com]

Ok...

In RL I'm called Moth because of my flying. Wingthane was just a made-up name to keep me separate from other moths out there :)

Baiji is from the fact that the dolphin he is (chinese river dolphin) is called the baiji by the locals. Phinthane is sometimes added as well.

Lipovexi comes from the latin for the baiji (LIPOtes VEXIllifer) to keep a nice link between my characters.

Make sense? :D

[daisuke-miles.livejournal.com]

cools tokio hotel hehhee, rescue me is very good ;)
my name came before i joined fandom in march 2007, the name Daisuke was my nickname since around 2004 or so because i liked that japanese name that i got it from Digimon, i thought was good :P
so i picked it to be the green huskehh and to Miles, was thanks to Second Life, i had to choose the last name for the game/chat and i love it! i felt in love with the name when i saw it, so today my 2nd fursona is Miles.
you should be Lay's since theres ruffles already :P or u can be Sagres, Super Bock, Bacalhau... LOOOOL so many names u can choose if ur note happy with ur name

Just be yourself

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

I used to like Pokemon, particularly the bad guys, Team Rocket (TR) and for the furry channels tried to think of an animal that would suit them most... a wolf perhaps.

Now, 'TR' can just stand for anything you like, I like letting people come up with their own ideas.

However, Im the same person online as offline, no RP-ing.

[baloki.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was a b not a p as everyone calls ya that xD

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Shep was my nickname for many years before I joined the fandom, as I've laways had a thing for German Shepherds :)

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Mine's from a book - or, rather, a series of books. :)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Avon came from a real life experience I had when I was about 5. I fell into the river of the same name when my family were visiting friends in Bath.

[fen-ra.livejournal.com]

Started out as Fenrir, stolen from the Fenris Wolf. But then I later decided that it was too unimaginative so I mutated it to Fen-Ra because the 'Ra' bit makes me feel important. (Egyptian Sun-god.)

[crosseyeddragon.livejournal.com]

No idea where Raul came from. But Crosseyed-dragon came before I knew about furs. I was buggering about in a winmx chat room and somebody called us a bunch of cyber pirates. So everyone in the channel changed their user names to make them more piratey :)and the screen promptly filled up with "Arrghh"s and "Shiver me timbers". Anyway I was just Dragon at the time so I changed it to crosseyed-dragon and the name stuck. I even had an eye patch and everything!
"Argh me hearties we be boardin' yer hard-drive and a plunderin' yer mp3's."

As for your non-fur friend, I think he might have been making a reference to the Redwall books. In Salamandastron there is a badger warrior called Lord Urthstripe.

[greyshay.livejournal.com]

I found mine on a baby name website :) I wanted to have a name with a meaning...short and catchy... so I started scanning baby name websites... those that you can use to come up with a name for your new born brat.

I found Shay in there... something Gaelic for the word Gift / Present. Since Shay was a gift of freedom and expression for me personally... I thought it would be a fitting name.

[daisuke-miles.livejournal.com]

hehe i love ur name and ur fursona! :D

[greyshay.livejournal.com]

Mehehe.. thankies :)... im just too creative at times ^^

[daisuke-miles.livejournal.com]

:P

[tungro.livejournal.com]

My name came from a minor otter character in one of Brian Jacques' Redwall books. I picked it because I signed up for the official website, and that was the username I tried (and it was available!). So that's where it came from :)

Although I sometimes tell people it's because of a rice crop disease which is called Tungro!

Admittedly, if I had thought a bit more about it, there are a lot of negative aspects to the name.

...Tongue - grow...
...the rice disease...
...Tongue - ey...

But it's stuck, and I guess just like some other words such as "microwave" that take on a different meaning (people think of a microwave oven rather than the waves themselves), I'll stick to Tungro.

[sabotlours.livejournal.com]

Mine came from saboteur. Sabot + ours (bear in French).

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

My name actually sprang from a pet peeve of mine:

I can't stand people who mispronounce opossum.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the interesting insights into your fursonas lols. It seems that we choose the names for our characters along different lines and there are many diverse ways of getting there. I guess it just highlights the wealth and diversity of experiences of furs in the Fandom.