And now for something completely different…
I’ve been curious about why some people chose the Forums logins they have. So, perhaps folks might share what caused them to choose that particular login. (Users with their real names as their logins need not apply. 
)
I’ll start. My high school alma mater is East St. Louis Senior High, popularly known in the St. Louis metropolitan area as “East Side”. Hence, I use “eastside” for a lot of my logins, including for the Forums.
I feel left out. Why don’t you want to know where smith originated? 
Well, the truth is, I just don’t like you very much. I was trying to hide it by excluding a lot of people, but I guess there’s no point now. :mrgreen:
Nolan’s posts are highly regarded here, so I wanted to be like Nolan. Thus: bnolan
Rick Lang, a (once) well known local chess kibitzer (he could kibitz 35 games simultaneously) and comedian, upon finding out I was originally from South Dakota, nicknamed me “The Kid from Smythe Dakota”. This soon got shortened to its last two words.
Bill Smythe
Mine is obviously merges my last name and skill level. I’m not sure if Yasser was the one who first hung the moniker on me or not.
If I had retained my birth name of Smith, I wonder if Boyd would dislike me too? (Not asserting he doesn’t already, of course). 
EnriqueHuerta is a tournament director (some times player) from Arizona whom I greatly admire. So I show that admiration by impersonating him online and posting non-sensical babel in his name.
For instance, all that stuff about GM Kosteniuk a few years back, was TOTALLY not me (I mean… him). :mrgreen:
The nickname fpawn refers to my longtime devotion to chess openings that involve the King’s Bishop Pawn, especially the Bird (1.f4) and Dutch (1.d4 f5). In fact, I first registered fpawn on other chess sites way back in 1994!
Michael Aigner
Great idea, Boyd (his other name).
When I began on the Forum, we were in the midst of lawsuits and the Mottershead Report, with every third post or so pertaining to the turbulent world of the EB and USCF politics at the time. It was often bare-knuckled brawling and something I didn’t really want those googling me (business people) to stumble upon without an opportunity to explain. I picked sides in those disputes and thus was often, perhaps fairly, the target of some sharp comments. So, at that time, a pseudonym seemed like a good idea.
Six years later, I’ve served almost five years on the EB, four of those as VP, and I’m proud to say it’s a different USCF and a different Issues Forum. It may not be as exciting but it’s better for chess.
Anyway, “grayson” is an anagram of “gary” with a “son” thrown on at the end to make it sound like a real name.
Gary Walters
Mine is part of my name plus part of my street address. In other places, I use an anagram or translation of my name.
Galileo used to do that, publish his speculations in a scrambled form so that he could later take credit for the good guesses, and presumably hide from the bad ones. If it’s good enough for Galileo …
I took the name of a furniture store in England. And it just might be my real name too…
Around the time that I joined the forums, I had begun to feel that it was important for people to not appear to be anonymous - even to newcomers - so I used my initial and name.
I hope that in a future version of the forums we could either get actual name on right side, or the ability to click the ID and open MSA in a pop-up window/tab.
(Emphasis mine.)
Great idea.
Actually, it almost works that way already. If you drag across the ID number, then copy (control-C), then go to Player Rating Lookup and paste (control-V) – voila!
Bill Smythe
I wonder what’s the relative priority in the opinion of forum regulars of this improvement versus fixing the Quick Rating system?
At least fifty spots ahead…
Sometimes the order in which things are done depends not only on their importance, but also on how easy each one is to do.
In this case, I’m guessing that creating a Forum link to the player’s MSA is way easier than fixing the Quick system, so that the powers that be (including those who agree that fixing the Quick system is more important) will probably create the link first.
Bill Smythe
Does it matter, if of
there are only Micah and I?
How is the MSA record relevant here anyway? To remind of the stale Quick chess ratings of the forum posters? 
I use MSA to look up names, and sometimes states and TD status. No need to link from this page, though.
Alex Relyea
Re: Quick Ratings: Wondering off-topic a bit, guys. Please stay on-topic to the OP. 
At the time I signed into the forums, the ID number was being shown.
I figured since it was easy enough to look it up from the ID number I might as well use my name.