A name explained

[vakkotaur]

In the past I have been asked why I use the name Vakkotaur and how I got that name. By now many know, or probably don't really care, but since I expect I'll be asked again, I may as well write it down and have a ready explanation that doesn't require my typing the whole story out again.

I have long had a liking for the equine form. Horses look good, to me. Nothing much came of this as while I lived the country for some time, it wasn't until rather recently that there were horses nearby. Perhaps if I had grown up around them and dealt with their care I might have different feelings. As it was, I was an occasional observer.

When I went to UW-Platteville (that's University of Wisconsin, I still find UW referring to Washington to be jarring) I had an account on the cluster of Vax computers. If one looked at the list of users, one would see who all was logged in by the official username or maybe account number, I forget. There was another column with a process name or some such. The neat thing is that this could be changed. There were various names used. I recall one Electrical Engineering type using Agent EE7. A fellow who had done code work in the armed forces used Crypto-Knight, and so on. I eventually settled on Silver Unicorn. I had little notebook with a silvery unicorn on the cover and from a tracing made a not too bad piece of ASCII art. This appeared on my logout - it was typical to leave terminals on and just let them go dim with a screensave feature if idle as someone would almost always be along to use a free terminal.

                                /
                           .,. /
                         ,ttttn
              ,,.__    .,XXX"nI)
             X  XXXXXXXXXXXXX ""
             .X XXXXXXXXXXXXXXxx
            "  .XX"XX      X  ./
               *X' (X      X  "
                X   ")      X
                X,   '"     '"

Also while at UW-P, I started reading alt.tv.animaniacs via gopher. Later we'd have a real usenet feed and I was able to post there as well. Just before I graduated, I read of an Animaniacs IRC channel, but didn't look into it. I noted it and pretty much forgot about it. One of the folks on a.t.a. was the curious "Jennette" who was and remains something of a mystery. She had a penchant for puns, as did I. She mentioned that she a fan of the Xanth books by Piers Anthony.

I spent several months without any connectivity at all, which may seem surprising now. One thing I did to pass time was read. Yep, started in on some of the Xanth books and found that yes they were punny. And the early ones were fairly good, too. Later books... well, I never bothered finishing the last one I picked up. These are fantasy novels, with various creatures such as ogres and centaurs.

And then I got a computer and a friend sold me a modem, and I found a local BBS. This BBS was, as I recall, free or nearly so. I sprang for the few (extra?) bucks to get e-mail that could go over the real net. It was collected daily. Hey, it was something and it was cheap. Not long after that, the BBS went to checking the mail more often, eventually being live or close enough. The BBS also had some other internet connectivity. No web, and no usenet, but I had FTP and IRC. A very odd DOS-based IRC, but there it was.

To use IRC, I need a nick(name). I chose Wakko from Animaniacs. That nick, of course, had been taken. So I blundered along with a few others for a little while and then settled on Vakko. Vakko was simply Wakko pronounced with a German accent. Having German ancestry, this seemed a reasonable fit, and Vakko wasn't already in use.

On IRC I met another person who used the nick Wakkina. Somehow the Xanth stuff came up and we talked of that some. Centaurs came up in the discussion. Well, /nick Vakkotaur and there I was, a quadruped. I likely had seen kinkyturtle's art of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot as centaurs. If I hadn't, I certainly did right after that. This worked out well as the result was an equine form, but with hands and such. After looking through a book or two, I decided that the horse body would be approximately based on the Fell pony, only not black. I like the liver chestnut or similar colors better.

I used Vakko and Vakkotaur for some time, usually just Vakko with the occasional morph into Vakkotaur. This went on for some time, but someone else noticed something I had missed. The person who used the nick Dot pointed out that I seemed to be more at ease, if not happier, as Vakkotaur than as Vakko. I didn't change right off, I think, but did notice it to be the case. So after a while I was, and am, Vakkotaur with the occasional morph to Vakko.

The name has become an identity. When I've met IRC folks in Real Life, I have had no problems with being called Vakko or Vakkotaur, or even just horsie. I still respond to my real name, of course, but there are many people with the same first name. I haven't heard of another Vakko, at least not beyond a business in Turkey. So, when I needed a name for LiveJournal, it made sense to use the name that many on the net know me by.

There, more than you might have really wanted to know.