gamer [gey-mer]

1. a person who plays games, especially computer or video games. tag[tag]

1.a piece or strip of strong paper, plastic, metal, leather, etc., for attaching by one end to something as a mark or label

So what exactly is a gamertag? It is our online persona; a chosen names that defines us or at least attempts to describe what/who we are in our online virtual gaming world. It’s what our gaming friends know us as. My gamertag is Wujman. Where did this come from? Well, back in the early 90s I was playing one of my all-time favorite games and one of greatest racing games for the NES, Ivan Ironman Stewart’s Super Off Road. If you dispute this claim I’d love to challenge you to duel. This game required you to enter a four-character name prior to starting gameplay. As a small child I would do what any young boy would do eager to get into some dirt track racing action; mash buttons. On one fateful afternoon, my father noticed why I had spelled, WOOJ. My father then affectionately began calling me Wuj-boy. As I matured into the man-child I am today I adopted the name Wujman and a legend was created. To this day, this is my Nintendo gamertag and my username on TwinGalaxies.com.

Arguably the most famous gamer of all time, Richard Tyler Blevins would never be recognized by name alone. His gamertag? Ninja. This to me illustrates just how impactful and important ones selection of the gamertag can be. It can ultimately become your personal brand. How did Ninja come up with his alias? During an interview with ESPN published on youtube on July 21, 2018, Blevins stated “it mainly stems from back in the day in Halo when someone was chasing you and you went around a corner and you jumped over their head and backed smacked them it was called the ninja, or you ninja’d them. I loved it and I was like this needs to be my gamertag”.

Branding is essential if you’re selecting a gamertag to propel you into streaming stardom. Would Ninja be as famous if his screen name was FartSniffer69? I prefer to think he wouldn’t. That being said, Ninja’s story as to how he came up with his tag is not that far off from how the average joe goes about selecting theirs. Most people aren’t making their online name choice with the hopes of internet stardom and if you are, good luck. The odds are clearly against you.

While pondering the topic of gamertags, I posted a question to a Facebook group I’m a member of, Gaming Dads ®. I posted the simple question, what’s your gamertag and how did you come up with it? The results were staggering. I got 48 responses in less than 24 hours. Some common themes emerged while I was reviewing the answers I received from the awesome community. Some gamers pick their tag based on old clan names from early online games, such as Socom. A few are based on nicknames given by friends and some just play on their own names. Here are some of my favorite responses:



















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