#02 Quest for a Name

Every gamer knows the importance of having a unique and cool name/gamer tag. Cz its always the name that stays on your opponents lips as you assassinate him (or her) for the fourth time using that cool ass blade of yours. It gives you an identity. It gives you a goal. It gives you a dream. A dream of seeing that sweet name adorning the top of the leaderboard.
Of course having a cool name doesn't necessarily mean victory. But what's the point of winning if you don't look cool doing it. 
Imagine how pissed you would be if Mr. Poopy Fluffypants beats your ass to a pulp in you favourite game.
So yeah. Your fake name is a really important thing. As important as your real name. It also helps you keep your virtual life and real life separate and safe.
Now I'm on a quest.
Quest to find a really cool name. Not for me. But for my brother. Where this quest will take me, i know not. Would I have to go to the deepest darkest places of my brain for this quest? Or will i get the lucky? I know not.

I was originally going to write a funny story about my brother. I asked him if i should call him Neon in the blog, as usual. And surprisingly he said he wanted another name. He's now grown out of that name i guess. But still. Neon is a pretty cool name. Plus i was the one who came up with that name for him. And now he wants a new name.
He says that Black Rose is a really cool name. This might have been the first time he has acknowledged me with that name. So i feel honored.
Come to think of it, I do have a couple of other cool names. But I use almost all of them for various purposes.   So now I have the quest of finding the perfect name for him.
He wants something original.
But really, i am really original?
All the names I have have a story attached to them.
For example:
One of my most used name is James Nitros. The james part was just a random first name that popped into my head that fit Nitros.
But the main part is the Nitros.
This story is really old. One fine night, during a power outage in my hometown, me and my brother were having a brotherly conversation. Talking about stuff kids usually talk about (I was 11 then), you know,   like building a multi national company. So we were planning on building an electronic oriented company. I was giving ideas on all the gadgets we could build, and he was all about going green. And then came the part of naming the company. Around that time, i was playing a lot of Need for speed : Most Wanted so that was the only thing on my mind. And what's better in a racing game than the boost?  Or Nitrous as its called. So that was my suggestion. Let's name it Nitrous. And he agreed.
Then the power came back on and he forgot all about it. This was also the time around which I started writing my novel. And I had the perfect name for the protagonist.
The following month, i realized it was a good idea to have a separate email address for my gaming needs. And this name was just waiting to be used. And i was all in into online games. So everywhere, my name was  James Nitros.
Two years go by and everything's everything's fine. I even googled the name to find out if it was used by someone else. And it wasn't. I was a bit surprised. But I was happy. And me, 13 years old at that time, finally find out how to spell NitroUs. So yeah Nitros should have a 'u' in it. No shit i didn't find any result on Wikipedia. And I was dumb enough to miss the suggestions/corrections Google gives.
But, hey, I got an original name. Yay!
So yeah im a dumb fuck.

The name Black Rose Blue was something i needed for one of my 4 novels (none of which has more than 5 chapters). And one of my friend told me it was a supercool name and asked if he could use it. I immediately said no. And the rest is history. (2025 update: he's a rocket scientist now) 

So yeah. I can't really say I'm really original.
But as Steve Jobs once said "Good artists draw, Great artists steal". Bill Gates did exactly that and he succeeded alright.

But the best thing to do is to take an idea as the base and start sculpting around it. Morph it until it no longer resembles its source. That's what i usually do. And it works out pretty well for me. You should make it yours. Add your own touch of personality to it.
So maybe I can apply my own principles and give my brother a cool name.

Till next time.

Cout.

-Blue