How did you choose your alias?

[Paladin UK]

I chose ..Paladin UK for two reasons....the first was because of the political climate in the UK about 10 years ago, My Alias at that time was.. Mad Dog and after the handgun ban it seemed a bit aggressive and so it was time to think of a new one to use, it came down to two...A dentist called Phil McCavity!! a play on words incorporating my first name Phil=fill and again McCavity=My Cavity and secondly Paladin. My better half..   Annie `O`s Father was an HGWT fanatic! bearing in mind I am now talking about a 55yr old man in the 1960`s... He actually MADE his own `White Knight` holster from a rather blur image in a magazine, and from what I heard it was absolutely beautiful! So, In his memory I am proudly carrying on his Fantasy. I added `UK` cos `Paladin` had already been taken.A pard answered one of my posts and abbreviated it to `PUK` and its stuck ever since!!

Paladin (What lurvs his Annie `O` ) UK

[Rube Burrows]

Grew up in North Alabama and my grandma actually owns part of Rube Burrows old land. He was at one time during the late 1880s the most wanted man in the country for his Train Robbing. Growing up, as a kid we would take turns playing Rube Burrows and Pinkertons. When it came time to pick my SASS alias Rube Burrows was my first and only choice.

[maldito gringo]

I didn't. My Mexican friends just keep callin' me that.

[Grizhicks]

Nickname I've had for about 20 years; just seamed like the right thing to do.... Grizhicks

[Kent Hitnuttin]

Delmar,  I got busted up a few years ago and quit shootin around 1998.  I decided that I'd like to shoot my Winchester 73 that has been in the family for 40 years and hasn't been shot since it was aquired. I didn't have any confidence in my 40 year old ammo, So I went to a local club to see if any of the pards there shot .44-40 blackpowder. Several did but none of them showed up that shoot.  I went back the next month and met up with them and one of them gave me a few rounds to try, wouldn't take no gold for them, just told me to bring them back when I got the chance.  I went home that saturday afternoon and shot the rifle for the first time, then went inside and bought a Lee classic loader kit, brass, bullets, wads, all kinds of stuff.  Reloaded his brass only crushing 1 of them, (.44-40 reloaders know what I mean) and carried them back the next shoot.  When he asked me when I was going to start shooting with them, I replied that It's been so long since I've shot much and since I can't afford the ammo to practice, I can't hit nothing.  There you go,  Kent Hitnuttin

[Mule Ear Mortensen]

I tossed around several aliases when I first joined SASS. Most of which were just too long, and / or wordy.

One day I thought to myself, what is a more modern alias, that I'm actually familiar with, that also sounds cool? I thought of depression era gangsters like "Baby Face Nelson" nah. Next I thought of "Machine Gun Kelley", yeah! MG Kelly I really liked so I tried to make it western sounding.

I asked myself what was the sub-machine gun of the plains? Short ranged, feared, able to supress a room with raw intimidation / reputation, yet justifiably fearsome in action. Gattling was the first stillborn misfire into my consciousness. Then Shotgun sprang up to replace it! Better but still not overly western sounding, until I remembered some slang used to refer to an external hammergun - Nothing is more cowboy then Rabbit Ears! (just kidding) Mule Ear! Then, just had to pick a name  tha twould go reasonably well with that??
Long story short, Mo. For the flo.

Funny thing is my better half, without even needing to hear an explaination of it's origins, loved it and laughed. "That's the one for you," she hooted.  I sometimes believe she has found in it a meaning all her own???

And No! I don"t have unusually tall or fury ears.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Struggled with a couple of names, other than the first 50 or so that were taken.  Then sitting on the porch watching the sun set over the hills logic sort of slid in ...

My name is D. TwoWalks and my 9th Great Grandfather is John Fox Baldridge .... so I thought that would make me TwoWalks Baldridge.  Checked and by jimminy no one had taken it.   

[RickB]

My nickname (for now) is Rick "Blackjack" Boylan. The reason I chose Blackjack is because my grandfather Bill Meyers, rode with General Blackjack Pershing to chase Poncho Villa around Mexico when he was a calvarty soldier in the WW1. He rode with him and a young fellow named Patton.

My granddad had lots of great stories about Pancho and actually said the man was very brave and quite wiley.

[Bugscuffle]

It was all that I could think of at the time. Dumbass was already taken.

[Alp Arslan]

Alp Arslan was the third sultan of the great Seljuk Turk empire in Persia and Anatolia who defeated a Byzantine army four times his size at the battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt) in the year 1071 AD

According to folklore, before the battle, Byzantine emperor Romanos IV told Alp Arslan that if he captured the Turkish warrior chieftain, "you (Alp Arslan) would be paraded through the streets of Constantinople and then killed and beheaded".

Then Romanos IV asks him: "What would you do if you captured me?"

Alp Arslan's response: "I would do far worse...I will pardon you, and set you free!"

After the battle, when the entire Roman army was annihilated, Alp Arslan indeed captured Emperor Romanos IV, and true to his word, set him free and allowed him to return to Constantinople.

[Two-Step]

I started using my alias back in the days when I did military/police tactical simulations. Originally, I took it from the mythical " Two Step" snake... it bites you and your dead in two steps. After so many years it just kind of stuck with me.

I am kind of thinking of going by Jimmy Two Step (because my first name is James and it sounds "spaghetti") or Arbuckle Two Step because I drink way to much coffee. Hmmm... maybe Jimmy "Two Step" Arbuckle. Then my alias could have an alias. 

[maarty]

The name I shoot under was given to me on my second visit to the club.... I'd been talking to one of the guys before the shoot about work (I'm a pest controller) come time to shoot I got asked if I'd thought of an alias. When I said I hadn't they decided a coon catcher was a good enough name for a pest controller so that's it for me.

But to tie it into the time frame, I'd been camped at a shack way out on the range wintering a herd for a rancher when me and my horse got caught in a blizzard, we rambled along trying to find shelter and found an abandoned cabin in a fold of the hills. I dragged my cow pony inside and lifted the lid on the old stove to get a fire started and out jumped a coon. I tried to shoot it but shot my horse instead, the horse bolted out the door into the blizzard. I fired again and hit the stove, the bullet ricocheted off the stove and hit my spur. That twisted me round and dumped me like a sack of beans right on top of that coon, we went to scratching and clawing and biting and in the end I managed to whomp it on the head with the stove lid before tripping and whacking my head on the edge of the bunk...... Anywho, the pony found his way home with a bullet hole in his ear for his troubles but it took a week for my buddy to find me.... at least I had a coon to eat while I waited.

[maarty]

Oh great!
Now I'm getting called a racist on facebook because of my alias.... I had NEVER thought to associate the name coon catcher with anything other than catching Racoons but someone has just been hassling me about it and saying I deliberately chose that name because I'm racist.

I've been using the name for ages and this is the first time anyone has jumped to that conclusion......

[RickB]

In this day and age, you'll have no trouble finding someone who is just dying to play the race card on you for any little reason. What I tell them is that they are so obsessed with the race issue that it is they who are proving themselves racist by always putting color into every topic. Most of us know what you mean, especially those of us in the Midwest or rural areas. 

[wildman1]

+1 RickB. Usually the ones callin it are thinkin it. WM

[RickB]

+1 RickB. Usually the ones callin it are thinkin it. WM

So true. So true.

[maarty]

Thanks, I'm glad to see that most of us are stable and well rounded enough (not physically although I'm working on it) to not think everything is about race.

[wildman1]

It was all that I could think of at the time. Dumbass was already taken.

BS, that took a lot of nerve, someone taking yer "alias" before ya could get to it.  WM

[Dances With Coyotes]

I was Dances With Coyotes on a muzzleloader forum a long time before I even thought about doing CAS. When I finally did sign up with SASS i was surprised to find it was not already taken as apparently there is a Dances With Pitbulls, Dances With Wolves, Dances With Clams, Dances With Lead............So I was pretty tickled that I got my first choice.

[Ben Bitten]

Initially my SASS alias was going to be "El Lagarto" - Spanish for "The Lizard" - but I'd been dragging my feet and hadn't sent my registration info to SASS.  ...I'd had it since early September.

I am a freelance graphic designer by trade, but I've had a life long love for reptiles. I've been keeping Boa Constrictors since I was 10 years old (...I'm now 41).  A couple of years ago I picked-up a part-time job as a Wildlife Educator.  It was a dream job in that I got to work with reptiles and amphibians, and share them with kids.  I did wildlife/reptile programs for Scouts, schools, camps, fairs, festivals, etc.  We had over 100 animals, and among them were two gators, a caiman, and a croc.  We were always extremely careful with the crocodilians: they were transported in locked totes, and were taped so they could not open their mouths, an so on.  Well, on October 1st I was at the office preparing for a program.  I'd packed all of my critters, and had saved the croc for last.  He's a 4ft Nile Crocodile (not huge, but as feisty as they come).  I got him out of his enclosure, straddled him, secured his mouth, and was about to wrap it with tape (something I'd done dozens of times) when he jerked his head just right and broke from my grip. ...A second later his jaws clamped down on my left hand.  I received 37 stitches (30 on my ring finger and 7 on my pinkie).  Thankfully I'm right handed! 

About a week after the bite I received a message from a friend on Facebook asking me how I had been doing since the bite.  ...that's how I came up with the name: Ben Bitten.  ...I had my SASS registration out that day!  

As of now my pinkie is doing well - I have full mobility - and my ring finger is coming along too - I have regained a decent range of mobility there.  I can bend my middle and base knuckles well, but my top knuckle is still a big zero.  Doctor says to give it another week or so.  The important thing is I can still shoot, and come spring I'll be ready to tear up some steel out on the range!