Hello! I'm Feemagie. It wasn't easy coming up with a meaningful and/or easy to remember name to use as my online handle. It takes time, research, nerves and having that special ring to it. Sometimes it's also desirable to be easily identified on a variety of different platforms. And for my case, keeping a consistent username between them is quite important. If you're trying to come up with that username for your own online presence, I hope this article of my own journey can be helpful in discovering what yours might be as well.

Something Meaningful

I believe the first step to coming up with an online alias is to pick words that are meaningful personally, hobbies I like, or even the style I enjoy. An important note in regards to personally meaningful though: it does not mean personally identifiable. I don't at all recommend you include your birthday or mother's maiden name in your online alias. Especially as a streamer, I think it's important to keep your online presence disconnected from anything identifiable. Although, something less specific but connected to it would still be reasonable; like incorporating "Autumn" if you were born in the season, or maybe something related to the definition of your mother's maiden name. In any case, ensure what you pick also keeps you safe online.

I started out by writing down three words that had some connection to my name: the country I'm from, and the style I've adopted. And those words were Fairy, German, and Enchanting. From there, I developed a web of connecting words and definitions. I'll admit, I was pretty obsessed with including Fairy in the name. I just couldn't let it go... Anyway, sadly "Fairy" is a pretty beloved/popular name in many many many forms, in English or German.

By the end, I had a plethora of words at my disposal. A very small portion of examples being:

• Sprite
• Elf
• Fee (German for fairy)
• Chante (Anagram of enchant, minus a single 'n')
• Unfiltered (applies to Germans being so straightforward)
• Magie (German for magic)
• Magical

In summary, I tried to come up with two or three words that sparked to me, and create a network of related meanings and things. With this I could easily find new words that spoke to me better!

Something Available

Availability is an essential aspect to selecting my name. It definitely goes without saying... if I couldn't use it on the social platforms I was active on, I wouldn't be able to associate myself with it.

This is where writing down all those all those words and meanings paid off. I had plenty of words to shuffle, translate, and puzzle with. From here, I wanted to find out what names were available on the platforms I wanted to be present on. It was a bit difficult since there were so many: Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Instagram, Steam, Itch.IO... and a few more. I focused on the ones that were most important to me: Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and (although not a social platform) an available domain above all. A great site that helped save a buttload of time was www.namechk.com.

This narrowed my ideas down by quite a bit more, since, of course, these were very popular platforms with a phenomenal number of users with a vast variety of registered names (some not even used, which was quite annoying). I think I was fortunate that combinations of German words were still available... hehe clever me.

Some examples were:

• Toxicfairy – maybe a little too toxic
• Forbiddenfairy – Maybe a tad too dark
• Fairyofsass – too close to being Fairy of "ass“
• Sassydust – too odd
• Sassyfairydust – doesn’t feel right
• forbiddendust – makes me think of drugs like Angel Dust
• Fairyzauber (fairy magic - half English half German) - I like it....and that's why it was already taken * great *

One of the deciding factors was the phonetics of the name! Feemagie is a normal couple of words in German but for all other audiences, it has a cute ring to it….almost like something Japanese or so.

Something to Remember

Memorability was another quality a name needed to have. Memorability influenced how easy it would be to type out in a search, or in a domain, without forgetting how to spell or pronounce the word.

As I continued to narrow down my username, I certainly wanted to consider the level of memorability to my peoples audience. I didn't want it to be too long, complex, or compose of special characters uncommon in the English language. Anything that was longer than three syllables was crossed off the list (and anything less than three syllables was essentially reserved by other users) dun dun duuuuuuuuun.

Something Consistent

And just like that * poof *, a name was born, and by no surprise the chosen name was "Feemagie". I began registering said name on all the platforms I was going to be using.

signed, sealed and delivered, I'm Yours. Easy to find, easy to recognize on any platform without thinking too much about it. Of course, a few platforms I couldn't get the exact name. For example... my Instagram account had to be "fee.magie" since the desired account name was reserved for a very cute cat account... Not mad though, the cat is adorable.

Preview

These were the final two versions of the logo that I put up on instagram to be decided on

Reflecting on the Process

Overall, the process of selecting a name is more involved and challenging than one would think. It was good for me to take breaks to compile the options I had, or even spark additional name ideas to check. At the end, it's well worth the effort of selecting the right name. I'm glad I took my time with all there was to consider.....plus the Instagram polls I did to gather a less biased opinion, which ended up only helping my decision by like 15%.....may 17%

If you're also at the beginning of selecting a fitting name for your online presence, I hope my journey can be of use to you!