Name Dictionary

I get a reasonable number of requests about how the nickname system came about.  Since most of these have random bits of funny trivia to them, I guess it could be amusing?

Here's an intentionally incomplete list (with all the ones that make it too obvious who the person is removed), for people who might be amused.


3Stack - Once decided to pay Supplies back 3,000 dollars in cash. Supplies wasn't amused.

Batman - real nickname. He had a nuts roommate freshman year who walked in his room, asked his name, and responded "Matt is a boring name, I'm calling you Batman."  It stuck.

Billy - Looks freakishly like Neal Patrick Harris. Sometimes changes out his facebook profile photo for a photo of him and nobody notices.  Dresses up like Dr. Horrible on Halloween (whose real name is Billy).

Bit - Short for Robbit, my nickname for her in college

Bluebeery - named for a flavor of beer he made/invented for me when I was homesick.

Bobby - Short for Bobby Tables, the xkcd character.  A former employee, his legal last name broke the account creation system for the Feds when it was typed in, and everybody started calling him Bobby.  When he asked for a recommendation from Crash 8 months later, Crash had never heard his real name. When it was explained this guy was Bobby, I got an unhappy phone call from the kid who said "I can't turn this recommendation letter in, he wrote it literally for a kid named Bobby Tables."

Carne - devout vegetarian

CoLo - Pun: operated a server co-location business for some time (once legitly, once semi-legitly, and once as a heater), personally known to often be or live in many places at once.

Crash - an actual fake name he gives out in bars and such.

Dreamer - smart creative kid who prefers the theoretical and the ideal over reality in planning

Drummer - former employee would bang on his desk at work when thinking

Duckling - started work later than the others, and spent some time following me around learning the ropes.

Enron - got the idea for his first company watching "Smartest Guys in the Room," one of the few in our generation who can really admire the brilliance behind that company before they started cheating and everything fell apart.

Exupery - loves "The Little Prince" and gives copies of it to everybody


Firefly - took a whole post on this one


Gadget - has absurd love of technology toys


Gemini - Pun: studied early spaceflight obsessively, and from the Greek myth of the constellation we are both in many ways treated like Crash's twin children


Gilby - likes some pretty crappy vodka


Ginger - no really, he's a guy, and his hair is not red.  It's short for Gingerbread Man.


Hammertime - Pun: known for mixing absurdly strong drinks, she is also nicknamed "T"


Hannalore - Named for the OCD character in Questionable Content


Issac - Issac Newton was theorized to have Aspurger's Syndrome


Jace - Name of a blue (the color of control decks) Planeswalker in Magic the Gathering


Java - Believes almost any project can be made with ubuntu, lua, and java... mostly Java


Jesh - really "Josh" but he had a funny accent


Joat - Jack Of All Trades


Kaleidoscope - always herself, but acts very differently in different moods and contexts


Magpie - has a habit of collecting all manner of "shiny" technical crap in his room


Nexus - knows pretty much everybody


Pacem - this post


Phil - this kid was born in like '89 ish and likes Phil Collins. We can't figure it out.


Purple - had Purple hair, liked dressing up like Lela from Futurama for Halloween


Py - Pun: heart's Python, little brother of Magpie


Roo - Yellowtail wine being too classy for him, he found knockoff yellowtail by this name.


Supplies - has literally everything in his truck. Hired him in summer 2008 and he still had an entire Ron Paul campaign in his trunk.  Next summer when he moved in he hauled a car full of stuff in, then had people mail him his clothes. He still had the Ron Paul campaign though


Sys - In high school decided putting all of his code in the Windows System32 folder was cooler than updating his path files. Hilarity ensued.


Urza - another character named from Magic the Gathering, this one is a strong force never directly seen in the cards


Vex - Pun: advanced student more or less constantly frustrated with his lab partners, also the name of a kit one project partner butchered.


Whacker - general slang term for people who are obsessed with lightbars and generally looking kinda like a policeman/firefighter/EMT/badass