I’ve had so many usernames for various reasons, and I’ve forgotten majority of them. Odin is one of the names that has been with me the longest yet; I bounce between Odin and the name “Sonserai” frequently. In a way, I actually kind of regret picking Odin here for Kaza, as it is not my favorite, and I don’t feel the name doesn’t really represents or fits me as well as I feel Sonserai does. But there’s reasoning as to why, which I will section off, since it is not my current name and no one here knows me by it, but I enjoy sharing the memory of it, so I will do so, should anyone be interested.
Sonserai
I’d like to explain the other name I mentioned in addition to Odin, as I may end up switching back to it at some point, since I don’t believe anyone uses it here. Sonseray is a name from a book I loved as a kid, “The Library Card” by Jerry Spinelli. He was the first author I knew by name as a kid and would actively seek out his name on any bookshelf. It was the first time a book had related to me in a deep and personal way, so I use that name to honor that memory and character. Sonseray’s story is one of homeless kid who lives in a car with his uncle/father (can’t remember exactly, it’s been years since I read the thing). He’s an outcast: lonely, angry, and a troublemaker, but eventually finds peace and comfort in the pages of books, specifically one his mother read to him as a child before she died.
Anyway, one of the main reasons I don’t use Sonseray or Sonserai as much anymore is because, although it is my favorite, it appears to also be well liked by many other people, as it is usually always taken in most games or forums I’ve been on, so I would go with Sonserai (which if I recall correctly is the female version of the name) whenever it was available, but it was usually a 50-50 shot in most cases. Therefore, when the length of username allows for all of Odinbeard McSparkles, I tend to go with that since no one else ever has it. Otherwise, I use some variation of Odin or Odin_Senpai, assuming Sonserai/Sonseray isn’t available.
It was also a confusing name, and people would shorten it to “Sun” which didn’t bother me initially, but eventually did because I wanted to honor the name and going by Sun felt disrespectful and counter-intuitive to that point.
Considering the extravagant nature of how it reads, many have asked me where and how my name came to be. The exact origin of the name is a bit of simple and unoriginal story, however. Me and one of my friends were talking about funny names we had seen on Xbox Live when playing Halo. We had both just gotten PC gaming rigs, and I wanted a new name to go with it. So I googled funny screen-names and the ones I liked best that came up were “Odinbeard McSparkles” and “Mr. Big McHugeLarge.” My friend preferred the latter, but I liked to former since I had been very interested in mythology from a young age, primarily Greek and Norse myths. I also have a beard that grows very quickly and notoriously hate shaving. I went to a private high school and would get detention slips regularly for having facial hair, so the name fit better than originally expected. (I’ve also been recently getting a bunch of grey hairs in it at the ripe age of 22, so the name is really coming full circle lately.)
I actually didn’t expect to keep it for more than maybe a few weeks or so until I got bored, but everyone ended up simply referring to me as “Odin,” or sometimes even “Sparkles” when I was in a good mood, and I liked the sound of it. It was easy to say and spell, unlike my previous name, which I don’t really remember except for the fact that I made it up myself and people said it wrong all the time because of that. I’m not overly attached this name, and it doesn’t describe me very well, but I appreciate it for it’s simplicity and uniqueness.
