What's the deal with your callsigns?

Hey Mike, why do people call you Eclipse? or
Eclipse? Merkur? Who really are you?

I have had quite a few callsigns since I was young, but Eclipse has always stuck with me. I have been Eclipse since about fourth grade. Not that anyone called me that back then, but I had the AOL instant messanger name forever, and when I'd go to laser quest and stuff I would always be Eclipse.

That was before the name Eclipse was so popular that they made everything from gum to lamps named Eclipse.

I was very saddened when, about my freshman year in high school, everything started being named Eclipse. It seemed then, to the LAN party folk at least, that I was as unoriginal as the guy who used his first name as his callsign. It was about the 400th time that someone asked me if I owned a Mitsubishi Eclipse that I reluctantly decided I needed a new callsign. Ask Yash, a new callsign is often very hard to find. Nevertheless, I came up with "merkur".

It's German for Mercury.

I've always been fascinated with outer space, and typically name everything as something from outer space (Aphelionsites, Eclipse, merkur, etc). All stemming from wanting to be an astronaut when I was five, of course.

But merkur has never really stuck with me. All my friends call me Eclipse, and I'll admit it; I like being Eclipse more than merkur. Eclipse is just so common, and I don't want to be seen as the newbie eigth grader, chewing his Eclipse gum and holding a matchbox mitsubishi. I want to be the one true Eclipse. The one before the others. But who am I kidding, I'm not even the only merkur. Everyone else has these unique names that they can register on gmail or steam and I'm stuck with stooping to merkur737 or Eclipse278.

Now I've evolved from merkur to merkury. People understand it more and I'm still usually unique enough to stand out.

So basically, I use the name Eclipse with my friends or at minilans, and I use merkury on the internet and at larger LANs.