Looking back at My Previous Usernames

September 17, 2024

It’s crazy to think that a stupid name you pick as a kid somehow becomes how people address you in real life years down the line. When I first went on the internet between 1997-1999 I just kind of used it as a tool, so my real name was enough. As time went on though, “Simon” was far too common of a name to choose when registering on websites, so I had to change it up. Thank Christ I changed my name from some of these early names below, I might’ve been known as “Bulba”, “Gohan” or “Rocky” LOL.

Bulbasaur (2000)

This is the earliest username I could find for myself, dating back to 2000ish. It looks like I used it to shitpost on Outlook Express Newsgroups back in the day (The days before forums boomed). I never really registered on any websites at this point so I just picked a name randomly.

From: “Bulbasaur” <simon@edwards126.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: I know where to get mew
Date: 2000/05/08
Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon

I have just figured it out how to get mew this is how:

get surf and go to ss.Anne and go to the man who asks for your ticket and
get past him and go to the harbour and surf right and you will see a
pokeball that contains MEW!

thanks for reading

I clearly heard this rumour on the playground at school and rushed to the internet to get some clout.

simodbz2000 (2000)

Yahoo! was huge around this time in the early internet, especially when it came to their search engine, messenger and games platform. To sign up for a Yahoo! account you needed a username, which was foreign to me. In 2000 Dragon Ball Z hit the UK and I became obsessed with it instantly (Still am honestly), so it made sense that my first real username on a website would reflect this.

Yahoo Messenger on Windows 98

gohan_ultimate_ssj2 (2001)

Oh boy, as cringe as this name is (And was), I had a fucking blast under this alias. Not too long after getting into Dragon Ball Z, I discovered a Yahoo Club called “DBZ Underground Fight Club II”, which was ran by a guy called “vegeta_super_jin”. “Simon” wasn’t exactly intimidating, so I quickly dropped “simondbz2000” in favour of something a bit more character specific, so I went with my favourite at the time, Gohan. In those days, a lot of Gohan names were taken, so I went with the ever catchy… gohan_ultimate_ssj2.

The club itself was basically a roleplaying group and I was HOOKED on this for months. The members of the group would all roleplay scenarios out on Yahoo Clubs, and the owner would observe and determine points/money. These points would then be applied to some Geocities looking website which contained our profiles, and our progress would increase our power levels (PL). It was the nerdiest thing ever and I was all in for it. I recall being so obsessed with it that I couldn’t go a day without checking it, even on vacations. Computers weren’t exactly everywhere in 2000 so I remember finding cybercafes just so I could login and check the group.

Because I was a little over-obsessed with it, I jumped up the power levels leaderboard way too fast, ruining the fun for everyone else who could no longer catch up. To fix this, power levels were reset, which unfortunately killed the group off pretty quickly after that.

the_rock_returns_2000 (2002)

I really don’t know much about this phase, I just recall “the_rock_returns_2002” being taken… somehow… so I went with 2000 instead. I used it for my email when building my RuneScape Website in 2002, but that’s really about it. I was and still am a big WWF/WWE fan, so it makes sense I’d have some cringey wrestling name at some point.

Link 64 2002 (2002 – 2004)

When the time came to start playing RuneScape, I once again looked to what I liked at the time. At that moment I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time so I went with Link. Every combination seemed to be taken, so I eventually set on the super catchy name Link_64_2002… Funnily enough I met Link_64 in the game at one point which was pretty fun.

At the time I didn’t have a huge interest in Zelda, Ocarina of Time was just a lot of fun to play at the time.

Link and SiLink (2002 – Present)

I met A LOT of friends through RuneScape so the name Link kind of stuck from here onwards. This name followed me through tons of forums, Matrix Online, Quake 3 and finally Jedi Academy where I met all of my closest friends. It’s how most people know me by these days.

I tried to stick with very few avatar changes so people could identify me in the past on different forums.

While the name Link grew on me pretty quickly, it’s unfortunately a very common name and not exactly the easue to register on a lot of services. So I just combined it with my real name to get SiLink around 2008. Funnily enough it’s an actual surname which I found out as time went on. I tend to only use it as a secondary name when “Link” isn’t possible for whatever reason, like this domain name!