Seil was given to me by my friends of more than 50 years. We call ourselves the "Group W" after the Arlo Guthrie song from "Alice's Restaurant". We used to number around a dozen but have lost several members recently and there are only 5 of us left. But we still all get together as often as we can. We were talking about nicknames one evening many, many years ago and I said I'd never had one because there wasn't really any good ones for my given name, Sharon, and I didn't like Shar at all. They came up with Seil and I've used it ever since. It is pronounced like the animal, seal, by the way, and I've since learned there is an island off the coast of Scotland with the name. It's famous for its ancient Roman bridge that is still in use!

Thanks, Sharon, I'd wondered about that! Mine is very straightforward. Eons ago, when I had to come up with a screen name to set up my on line account, everything was taken, except this combination. It had to be something I could REMEMBER and that's what it's been since the beginning. I was firmly entrenched in my rose search at the time, so it fit. I don't see the need to change it from one forum or email account to the next, so I just keep it. Kim

My name is very ordinary, I am Marianne from Sweden and wanted the nick Marianne-SE to show where I come from. But GW wouldn't accept the dash when I registered.

Mine is kind of funny

My parents expected to have a son and had no girls names picked out. So surprise I was a girl and they had to come up with a name. So my dad Karl decided he could make me after himself, Carol. This though had occurred to his sister Caroline who named her son Carl and daughter Carol. Makes for some interesting family talk..which Carol. And there was the little problem that most of my relatives have a hard time saying Carol (like my mom). So I was nick named Kippy. If I have meet you via my parents you would probably not think to call me Carol.

So back in the day there was giant mansion next door to our little house it was filled with "hippies". We had a fruit stand and drove a VW Bus. I rode the church school bus home to the tune of "Kippy the hippie" the whole way home every day. I hated it.

But as an adult, I see now that there are a lot of formerly "hippie" idea I like, wasting less, caring for nature etc.

So I guess Kippy the Hippy is a complement now :)

Mine is also pretty straightforward, to make my last name shorter and a "female agent" (i.e. '-stress'). I avoid hyphenating my last names since my maiden and married names both evoke gardening, but I rather like that connotation for GW. And contrary to all the "rose-" names that Kim discovered were already taken, there weren't any "nip" ones taken yet.

Cynthia

When I was coming up with my name I wanted something I wasn't likely to outgrow and something that was easy to spell and remember. I really liked the name I had for a game I played for over five years, Elven Candy, but I didn't think it matched a rose forum very well so I came up with Rosecandy!

I chose "SFV4Life" with an ironic intention. Before I retired, I taught English and ESL in the LA public schools. Many of my students came from a particular area of the Caucasus and were (as they should be) very proud of their ancestry... to the point where they would write "[Ethnicity] for Life" on their notebooks, on their arms, on the desks, on the walls, in the hallways, wherever they could squeeze in a Sharpie. I admired the sentiment but deplored the practice. Besides, the phrase always sounded a bit like a punitive sentence, as in "jailed for life."
I live in the San Fernando Valley, the butt of many jokes. I'll probably be here forever since I can't afford to move (not within the L.A. area certainly). I love it here, but it is a bit of a life sentence in a way... hence the name.
Sylvia

I happen to the like the fruit of the Strawberry Tree. The Latin name is Arbutus unedo which refers to the fact that most people eat "edo" one "un-" and stop. I could eat plenty so I replaced the 'un-' with 'omn-.' I currently grow a dwarf cultivar in a large container and its fruit are very good.

I'd probably go for a different name at this point if I joined, but it's fine as is. Interesting to read about some of the names!

Jay

Great stories everyone, thanks so much. I'm enjoying learning more about you!

Arbutus, I LOVE scientific names. Taxonomy is a bit of a hobby of mine. I wouldn't change your user name at all! When I was a TA, I used to add bonus questions to my quizzes - an organism's full taxonomic name from kingdom down to species. If they could work out the organism from the meaning of the words, they got the bonus.

That's terrific Karen! I studied Classical Languages so I'm pretty good about remembering the scientific names of plants. Often the genus and species name roots are derived from words I just never came across, but it usually is of some benefit.

I sometimes fumble up plant names since I'm used to pronouncing Latin in the Revised Classical way with all hard "c" sounds, w for "v" and a few other noticeable differences in convention from scientific Latin. I'll never be able to pronounce Rosaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and the like as is done by most plant people but rather with "ae" sounding like "eye/I" as I'm used to. I do prefer hearing "Acer" with a soft c sound, but have confused some people when I say "Ah-care.'

Jay

It's nice to know the meaning of other people's web name. There are a few that I wondered about. As for mine, there was a Star Jasmine plant at the side of my house that died suddenly, for a reason unknown to me. I was thinking of replacing it with fruiting vine of some sort, but my neighbor was concerned about rats. He suggested that I plant a climbing rose instead. Well not knowing anything about growing roses, I came here with a question. When establishing a name for the garden web, I still had my Jasmine plant on my mind, so I thought of the names starjasmine or jasminerose, but those were already taken. So next, I tried jasminerose4u. I was happy when the name was accepted, so I could finally ask my question to the garden web. I've asked many other questions since then and met lovely people here. My rose plants will enter their second year this coming spring :)

Back when I was young and cute, I had pictures taken for a comp-card for possible commercial work. On these my "statistics" were to be printed. When the person asked for my eye color, I said they're blue-green. She said "let's put 'aqua' because that sounds more exotic." I thought that was rather funny, so from that day forward, virtually any screenname or username I created was some variation of "AquaEyes", often ending with a number such as my birth year or zip code it the numberless-name was already taken.

:-)

~Christopher

You will RARELY see me use a Latin name for anything since I don't know most of them. I learned some Latin in Catholic school but still have trouble with pronunciations. But I learned most everything I know about plants from my Grandmother and Mom and they only used the common names for things so I never knew what the Latin names were. I've picked up a few here and there from the forums but even still rarely use them because the first name that usually comes to mind is the common one that I learned as a kid. I know that can be confusing sometimes because there are different common names for the same plants in different parts of the world. But one picture is better than a thousand words so I usually post the picture and everyone knows what I'm talking about then!

Karen, I'm happy to know how you came by your user name since I had always assumed there must have been some interesting association between you and the rare red wolf. I'm equally glad to know how others came by their names, although Kim's is a no-brainer.

Since I have the attention span of a fruit fly I used my real name and the initials of the small town where I live. I was pretty sure that even I would be able to retain that much.

Ingrid

Jay, it's over 50 years since I had Latin in school and we had to learn to pronounce it much like Italian. I didn't know about the revised Latin pronunciation and have spent an interesting half hour reading about it on Wikipedia. Thank you for the information. I won't adopt it though, I'm too old to change and it would be too confusing to listeners used to the older pronunciation.

Most older Swedes had to learn botanical Latin in school so that pronunciation is firmly established.

hi: :)

mine is very straightforward too luckily, 2 cities/ 2 countries and I garden in both.

I agree though that trying to find screen names is so difficult, pick a good name and then try to configure it 50 times to get it accepted, although for me GW was easy.

Hi, mine simply is just my first name and my birthday.

I write about a uke-playing moose and his band, so when I was asked to put a name, I chose the character.

Also, I like moose. :D

This thread is so much fun!

JoeMoose, can you give us some titles? Moose: Alces alces. ;)

Ingrid - once upon a time I wrote a 400+ page dissertation on the red wolf. One of the great things about being a grad student in such a small field as zoo-based conservation biology is that your work is cutting edge. I was part of the species recovery planning group for the red wolf for three years running. I had several opportunities to be near/around/in contact with actual red wolves in the breeding program. Other species too. I always felt extremely privileged to be a part of that work. Of course, I also am intimately familiar with less appealing aspects of animal care (i.e. cleaning up after them), but even that made me feel lucky. Funny thing about red wolves - in reality they're not that rare. Species distinctions within the dog family are very difficult to tease out, as wolves by nature range over large areas and most North American species can interbreed. Differences get fuzzy. Although the red wolf is extremely rare in the US (all current animals are descended from a group of just 14 founders), there is a large population of "Eastern grey wolves" near where I live in Canada that have been shown to be genetically indistinguishable from red wolves. The reason they aren't listed as red wolves (Canis rufus) or part of the breeding program is completely arbitrary in terms of nature: different governments, different laws, different conservation programs. It's ridiculous that species management must fall within political boundaries, but there you have it. In fact, it can be argued that species distinctions in general are naught but a human construct...

Sorry for the long lecture. I do go on a bit - I'm a mite excitable about these things. I do the same to my non-gardener friends about gardening. And yes, my garden spreadsheets include scientific names. :)

Aqua Eyes, I'd bet you're still cute. ;)