Meta Team Name Origin

Another page in the grand and glorious history of Metanorn

Have you ever wondered why the Metateam chose their particular usernames? WELL, LOOK NO FURTHER! As part of Metanorn’s exciting 4th year anniversary, we’ve decided to actually explain why most of us are the way we are. …Before this introduction gets any more confusing, let’s move on to the team name backstories.

So, why Miyu? （*´▽｀*）My username doesn’t particularly have a deep meaning, but it does go quite a while back when I just entered middle school. About three years ago when I just found out about the existence of fanfiction.net, my kiddy brain (which was filled with gay sparkles, unicorns, rainbows and everything nice) went crazy thinking up impossibly dramatic story plots. In the process of writing my first actual presentable fanfiction, which was based on the Hitman Reborn fandom, I spent about three insane hours discussing about possible names for my main character with my equally-excited classmate… and we went from stupid names like Bananahime (Don’t ask. ( ≧Д≦) I was 13 and weird – still am actually) to marginally prettier sounding ones like Yuki (which has been used in 12397120 other stories already), and eventually we arrived at Miyuki. I liked the sound of it and when I tried typing out its kanji (美幸), I fell in love with it because of how pretty it was! I grew so attached to the name that I began adopting it for myself on various anime-related sites, but when I started commenting on Metanorn I shortened it to Miyu (美優) for… convenience. xD Now I’ve gotten so used to seeing it on Metanorn and Niconico that I think I might actually respond if you call me by my username in real life. Also, sometimes I accidentally sign off as Miyu in emails meant for my schoolmates and end up getting weird stares from them. (´∩｀。) At least my 13 year-old self was sane enough not to choose something ridiculous like Bananahime, or else you guys would have had to deal with addressing me a ~banana princess~ in every comment. Oh gosh imagine how amusing that would be. (*´艸`*)

I came up with my name in the late 90s for AOL Instant Messenger, which was becoming the method of communication among my fellow middle schoolers. My name is rather common, so I was having difficulty finding a variation that wasn’t taken. I created this visual pun on my first name, figuring that no one else would come up with a username like this with no vowels. It often gets misspelled and most don’t know how to pronounce it, but I’ve stuck with it.

Books are an important part of my life that consume anywhere from 8-16 hours of my time a week (depending on how busy I am), so it’s no surprise that the name I go by online would be based on a character from a book! One of my favorite teen series, The Hunger Games trilogy, has a character named Gale Hawthorne (oh look, there’s my username). I’ve read the original book four times, so over the last year or so I’ve become attached to the characters and the setting. I do respect and admire Gale as a character, despite his flaws, maybe not as much as I respect Katniss or Peeta, but “Everdeen” and “Mellark” just don’t have the same ring. So I just went along with Gale and here I am! There’s nothing all that personal behind my username or anything I suppose, I like the way it sounds and it’s a reflection of something I enjoy doing.

I, Justin Rowland, am a big sports fan. One of my favorite players growing up was Alex Rodriguez (only the Seattle era, never did care about the Rangers or current Yankees days), and his nickname is A-Rod. There was also Jason Williams during his Sacramento Kings days and a lot of other players who lazily just took first-initial/first-3/4-letters of last name. I, Jrow, hopped on this bandwagon and have since gone by Jrow. I’m not the rapper whose popularity level I have no idea amounts to, I’m not Jessica Rowen who I’m angry with because she has @Jrow on twitter, but I am the guy wearing the Kratos mask you’ll see in a google image search.

I’ve always thought my name was pretty epic. Zabobinator. It’s perfectly versatile, spawning a wide array of nicknames and has resulted in a fair amount of gender ambiguity (Come on, how many of you guys thought I was a guy when you first met me? I know Bass of Sekijitsu thought I was a dude). So how does a boss name like that come to be? Well, I could go easy on you guys and just tell you that I based it off of my last name and it just sort of came to me on a whim. However, that’s terribly boring and not true. At all. And I owe you guys the truth. So, in order to properly explain my title to you, we must go back 10 years to when I was a wee, adorable 8 year old. I was well traveled at that age and that summer I chose to embark on a soul-searching journey to the hot, barren deserts of Egypt. Unfortunately, I ran out of food and water a mere two days into my voyage and as I sat there in the sweltering heat, contemplating my last piece of chocolate and scanning the horizon, I happened upon a rather curious sight. There was a caravan of dwarfs heading towards me! I immediately stumbled towards them, hoping that they may provide some sort of reprieve from my plight. They welcomed me with open, albeit small, arms and I spent the next month or so with them. Eventually, I grew so close to them that they offered to induct me into their clan. The induction ceremony was rather simple – they led me to a giant, purple pyramid in the middle of the desert. I was to spend 3 days and 3 nights in the center of the pyramid in meditation. This was easy enough; I was interrupted only by a grumble or two or fifty from my stomach. As I finally sunk into my spiritual center, a vision came to me. It was the great Pharaoh Hatshepsut. She sat next to me and offered me some potato chips, which I kindly declined because I can’t handle jalapeno flavor. She stared deep into my eyes and said “You. You have a great mind. You will do great things. I dub thee Zabobinator. Go and kick some ass, honeybun.” And thus, I awoke from my meditation as Zabobinator, a wiser person, an official dwarf and a straight up ass-kicker.

Ah, how “anaaga” originated. Man, this is pretty embarrassing, so don’t laugh at me. Well, the first letter isn’t capitalized because I don’t like how messy it will look if I capitalize it. That’s why I don’t capitalize my first letter, so that the letters will have the same height. As for my name… “ana” is part of my real name (for those who read my Brave10 posts, I did mention some pun involving my name). The “aga” is part of the name Agatha. Some people think I want the name “Agatha,” but that’s not the case. I knew a certain Agatha when I was in elementary school. She’s athletic and friendly. Also, she was… My first female love. Oh god, there is it *blush*. Yeah, I really really really liked her, but I was pretty much in denial at that time since she’s a girl. Even if I meet her now (I wish I can meet her again), I know I still won’t be able to see her as a friend only. I want her to be more than just a friend. She will always hold a special place in my heart. So yeah, that’s how “aga” is part of my name. I don’t want to forget her, so I used part of her name for my internet nickname…. *hides in a hole and never comes back*

Well, to anyone who knows me on twitter and etc, Karakuri is short for the longer username I use, Karakuri Ageha. Long story short, I took it from a Vocaloid song of the same name (which is also why I spell it in katakana). It was one of the first things I ever translated to English (a crowning moment for me since it led to otome games in the long run) and I’ve always thought of the song being about this girl who was dumped, so she turns into a crazed yandere (“I’ll rip off your wings so you don’t fly away too” ? Badass line right there). Translated to English, the title means something along the lines of “Clockwork Swallowtail” (“Mechanical Swallowtail”; take your pick). Karakuri on it’s own is Japanese for something mechanical that generally involves a level of trick or deception to it (or just “mechanism” or “trick”; it depends on context). Ageha is the word for swallowtail butterflies. (…No deep meaning there, it just kind of came with the rest of the title.) The name/ song/ meaning I took from the song spoke to me on so many levels, that I adapted the name. Why do I just go by Karakuri? Because I realized later through twitter that KarakuriAgeha is a pain in the ass to type to log in.

So this is always a very interesting question when it comes to our blogger or internet name! Mine is a fairly easy one to figure out if you like rap music because the phrase “foshizzel” pops up in several songs by Snoop Dogg…other than that random bit of information I would say my internet identity really stuck to me back when I started playing a very addictive online game called World of Warcraft. I still can remember the day I created a human priest and then I picked a very random name for my character and shortly afterwards I started naming everything foshizzel as in computers or other characters like changing letters or adding a few for names like Fohdizzel, Fozh or just plain old ordinary Fosh. So if you are ever on Youtube, Skype, Deviant Art or playing a random online game, you might find a form of Fosh in some shape or form that might be me…maybe.

Maybe out of everyone in the Meta Team, my name is probably the most simplest in its meaning. Ness is actually my nickname used by my family and very few selected friends who are too lazy to use my full name or think that it’s cool to just shorten my name. Thus, Ness is short for Vanessa, which is my real name. As to why I chose to be identified as Ness on the web, well I have no real reason. I’ve gone by various other usernames and I thought it would be nice and easy for a change to just go by something simple. I suppose if I wanted to be known online by others for my writing, graphics and such… it would be by this name. I think that if I became a well known graphic artist, I would still stick to being called Ness. It feels a bit more unique… right.

Like a good number of things I do, choosing my username was done on a capricious whim. It was a name that stuck in my head, so I simply used it. The only other time I had used that username other than Metanorn was for my university’s anime club’s forums. No long-standing history, no nothing…Don’t be too disappointed, because the lack of real personal meaning upon choosing it doesn’t end there. The name is taken from a song called Overkooled on the Air Gear OST, but that doesn’t hold any particular importance to me either. Air Gear isn’t my favourite anime or manga, and this isn’t my favourite song either…It just sounded really, really cool. I guess that’s what it all comes down to…projecting that aura of being the cool rolemodel that people look up to. Would I ever change this username? HELL NO! I’ve grown to love it and how badass it makes me sound, and that’s that! I may still hesitate for a minute when people call me OC (I will always read it as ‘original character’), but now I respond just as much to Overcooled as I do to my actual name.

Ah, how did I acquire this simple name? Let’s say some time ago I was part of a galaxy far out in space. Now galaxies are in fact massive cities that consist of  different people, such as stars and stellar remnants. I was part of the star majority and lived in a small galaxy that was similar to that of San Francisco. Among the stars it was becoming cool to visit the Milky Way, a massive galaxy famous for housing Earth. So one time I tried taking a road trip to the Milky Way. I stopped by the obviously titled Milky Way Cafe at its very outskirts and made casual conversation with the barista after ordering a latte. Telling him of my visiting the Milky Way, and possibly Earth someday, his eyes sparkled. The barista suddenly told me of his adventure to Earth: how he landed right into a county called Japan and stayed there for the rest of his Earth life. Arriving back in the milky way with no money, he figured to take the same job he had on Earth, which is why he was currently working at the cafe. He told me about the word the Japanese used for star, ‘hoshi’, with a smile on his face. In front of me, he proceeded to make the kanji for it in my latte with steamed milk. The barista, his story, and the interesting  foriegn name/character for ‘star’ stuck by me throughout my time in the galaxy. When I finally made it to Earth, and became more active on their Internet, I knew I just had to make it my nickname along with my Earth name. And this is how the nickname Hoshi came to be (if you believe me)~.

This should be nothing new for whoever’s been following Metanorn for a while. I think the whole world should be aware of my love for Kara no Kyoukai and Type-Moon in general. Even before I knew the story in detail, I fell in love with the name and the whole concept of it. The more I explored the story, the pleasure was just beyond words. This is a work of art that was brilliantly adapted and the original work is strong enough on its own (you just need to hunt for its translation). So, when I received kanzie’s email of acceptance, I started racing my mind for a cool name. Well, what do you know, Kara no Kyoukai got stuck in my head but I didn’t want to be knows as “church, garden, boundary” and such so I played around with words and used a basic English to Japanese online dictionary to see the alternate meanings. I found Kyokai to mean roughly translate as “Chief or Ring Leader” and my mind said BINGO. That was how I came to this badass name and am glad it’s nothing I will be ever ashamed of later. :3

Do you feel enlightened now? Well you should be feeling enlightened. As you can tell a lot of thought and uh, somewhat delusional impulses have been put into us as a team. The next step? Now that the team has shared their stories, we want to know yours! What does YOUR screen name mean?

About Team Meta

We are the deadly team of Metanorn. When together, we usually come up with long, informative reviews and commentary. After all, we take fangirling seriously!