Do you use Street names? Most of my group avoids this-we have them for simplicity of record keeping, but when it comes to actual play they just make up names (Simple stuff Bob, Fred, Simon, etc....regardless of their gender or actual backgrounds.) Since most Law Enforcement Information Network's include monikers and Aliases we decided a long time ago the simple solution is to have none, or far too many common names to bother keeping track of. ("Tom? Tom who? Know how many Tom's, Thomas's, and Tommie's are out there pal?")

Yeah, but there's also too many "Spyder"s, "Blade"s, "Spike"s, "WizWyrm"s, "Ronin"s, and "Little Sally Schoolgirl"s out there as well that it doesn't matter.

I tend to use them, but mostly because it's just part of the genre goofiness that is Shadowrun.

For me it depends on whether or not I think of the name first.

From the other side of it, it goes back to the old saying that every job is a sales job. As a shadowrunner, Johnsons will hire you because they think you're a competent professional who can get the job done. (Or because they need three warm bodies to take the fall. Work is work.) To do that, there has to be some way for them to tell you apart from every other shadowunner out there. Then again, if everyone has a street name, not having a street name may be what makes you distinctive.

Street names are really just nicknames. So I'm thinking of names that aren't necessarily what the character would call himself, but what people on the street might call him. My arguably most successful samurai was named "Slagiron" because his background was he put together his cyber while working as a bounty hunter, and he'd take whatever piece of 'ware he could get out of the criminals he was tracking down.

Still, the best line about street names comes from "True Lies":

"They call him 'The Sand Spider'."

"Why?"

"Probably because it sounds scary."

The funny thing is, I have a team who call themselves The Warm Bodies. They are very good at not dying.

*yoink!*

You want their write up? They're the stars of my fanfic in my sig, and I have a sequel on the back burner.

Sure, why not. But I like the idea by its lonesome.

Here we are. The fanfic is at the start of the thread.

Yes, No and kinda of.

Some use their street names because that is their names as they are street characters. Some use their real names because their to stupid/sociopathic/clueless/brillant not to and some want all the more animiety of a handle they can without the loss of rep which gets the work.

Lastly, you can always change a handle and give yourself some extra time before you leave the shadows.

Whether your handle is Mr John Johnson of smithville or left handed Paulle with the eye patch and pink mowhawk, its another layer to the character persona at our table.

We use Street Names alot, some characters are called differently by every contact they have.
Telling your real name to a shadowrunner is a gesture of real trust and a sign that you want to accept him as a real friend imho.
Also its easier to dump your nick when you messed something up, if you sign in on a run with your (fake) SIN its an invitation to the opposition to visit you at home while you sleep nice and soundly.

<-- Using one right now.

I can't imagine not using street names in Shadowrun, if only because it's so ingrained in online culture, sports, military, and so on. Nicknames take a life of their own, and a runner probably has a few once he's a few years into his career. Heck, in a game I played in, set in New Orleans, my Ork was using 'Gator' as a handle. There are ... well ... there are a LOT of 'gators' in NO, and there were a few mix-ups when someone would go looking for the wrong one. We even had a nice scuffle planned out where I'd be fighting for the name against another Gator (But, sadly, the game fell apart befor ethat trigger could be pulled.)

Besides, nobody wants to hire Herbert Finklestein when they can hire El Inferno.

Smack to his employer. Harry to his friends.

Mr. Pink: Hey, why am I Mr. Pink? Why can't we pick our own colors?
Joe: No way, no way. Tried it once, doesn't work. You got four guys all fighting over who's gonna be Mr. Black, but they don't know each other, so nobody wants to back down. No way. I pick. You're Mr. Pink. Be thankful you're not Mr. Yellow.
Mr. Brown: Yeah, but Mr. Brown is a little too close to Mr. Shit.
Mr. Pink: Mr. Pink sounds like Mr. Pussy. How 'bout if I'm Mr. Purple? That sounds good to me. I'll be Mr. Purple.
Joe: You're not Mr. Purple. Some guy on some other job is Mr. Purple. Your Mr. PINK.
Mr. White: Who cares what your name is?
Mr. Pink: Yeah, that's easy for your to say, you're Mr. White. You have a cool-sounding name. Alright look, if it's no big deal to be Mr. Pink, you wanna trade?
Joe: Hey! NOBODY'S trading with ANYBODY. This ain't a goddamn, fucking city council meeting, you know. Now listen up, Mr. Pink. There's two ways you can go on this job: my way or the highway. Now what's it gonna be, Mr. Pink?
Mr. Pink: Jesus Christ, Joe, fucking forget about it. It's beneath me. I'm Mr. Pink. Let's move on.
Joe: I'll move on when I feel like it... All you guys got the goddamn message?... I'm so goddamn mad, hollering at you guys I can hardly talk. Pssh. Let's go to work.

And that movie teaches you that tipping the waitress is bad.

Our groups use them, you don't give out your real name. That's intimate knowledge of you that can make you more easily traced and things used against you.

Knowledge is power. you don't willingly give it out for free.

Just so people know, because it appears there is some confusion I'm not suggesting you use a characters real name. When someone says their name is "Tom" it's no different in some ways than saying "Sand Spider." It's no more real either.

"'Robert? You said your name was James!', and that, gentlemen, is why I no longer have more than one woman in each port."

The thought of not using a street name never occurred to me.

My characters usually get something descriptive as their street name, so i can remember who they are, what they do and how they are supposed to act . .
Me? I use one because my buddies, whom i play with, actually got to know me under the short hand form of one of my oldest internet handles, because that's how i was introduced to them . . Or, more correctly, they had heard stories about me . .
Basically, it went like this: me and my oldest buddy show up with me in tow for the first time for a gaming session. He goes:"Guys, that's "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here" the guy i told you about" Other guys:"Him? THE "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here"?!?!?"
Me with a wry look at oldest buddy:"what did you tell them about me you old ass?" <.<
And some months of playing together (both shadowrun, battletech and computer games) i got asked what kind of name it was and how my parents decided on that.
I cracked up and could not stop laughing for several minutes. I told them my RL name. They forget. They remember "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here".
So i stay with "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here".
And it's gotten to the point where, at conventions if they are around too and introduce me to other people they go:"People, this is "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here" whom i have told you so much about!"
People usually go:"What? THE "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here"? Really?"
Me in deadpan voice:"What did you tell them now again?"
Them usually:"Ah, nothing too bad . . just how you managed to build a character that just would not die, even when you wanted him to . . Oh, i still have his character sheet here, with me, coincidentally, he is doing fine, recovering great and having fun in the black forrest"
Me:"You. Ass."
So yeah, even people i don't know have heard of "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here".
And i don't bother to correct people anymore.
Hell, even one of my colleagues at work calls me by "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here", because he, over two corners, is friends with my gamign group and, of course, has heard of me under "insert short hand form of oldest internet handle here" . .
*le sigh* ._.
People, THIS is what's fame and/or good/bad reputation in real life.
It could, theoretically, only be worse if people knew what i looked like and came to me without me being introduced to them . .
Just good there are no pictures of me anywhere that i am aware of . .

Yeah police record contain alias but the trick then is to have the ifle have your alias and not your legal name. so while they may know "Hawk" to borrow from Robert Parker, is a well known area assassin, no one knows Hawk is dudley simpson who graduated from James Earl Jones HS and lives at....

Like the 'witches' of the 17th century people using alias within the group are harder to betray is something goes wrong:
"Who are your comrades?"
"there's mr pink, mr brown and mr black."
"No their real names"
"Got me sparky those are the only names I ever had."

One of the short stories that came out in the 90's had a character learning the real name of a comrade only after she was dead.

Also remember that corp extraterritoriality limits poolice files a great deal. Odds are MCT is not going to share it's evidence with nayone else-amoung other things that means admitting you were raided and another is giving your sec levels and proceedures to someone else who might use it against you later.

In our world the police, the good ones, actually have a pretty poor opinion of the corp cops, not because of their ability but because of their snobbish attitude. "You don't want us on your soil, that's fine, have fun solving this on your own." we once got our buts saved by a cop pulling over a Yamatestsu van in pursuit of us, we later learned he cited them for speeding.

I'm going to ask the question.

I always liked the ideas of handles. If only because of Shadowrun's number one decker who is numbers one through five on Renraku's BRING THEM IN list.

More than one person I've met on line under an internet handle knows me by that name and uses it IRL when I meet them or get together.

It gets interesting when trying to order Pepsi at a restaurant and people are callin' you either "Pepsi" or "Jedi"

Likewise.

(Except the pepsi and/or jedi part)

Yeah, we use street names pretty much all the time. Sometimes the street name can be 'just' a name, though.

In the current group we have the hacker called 'Flapjack', a vietnameses mage whose real name is Thang, so is street name is 'Thing', the jaguar shapeshifter 'Nine', and the rigger 'Hammer' whose real last name is Sledge.


I also encourage my players to come up with names for their Fake IDs, to keep them apart.

which one?

I have always thought this was way over played. Sure if MCT had a reason to not reveal your name, nothing could push them off of it-because of extraterritoriality laws. But unless that reason is there all they stand to do is lose cooperation when they need it.

I agree that admitting your company is vulnerable is a consideration-however there's a lot of options available to a world super power. Things like editing the footage so it's simply not useful for anything other than prosecuting someone, or even releasing only enough data to help another corporation-who is not burdened by current standards of evidence-track you. Now obviously some areas it'd be hands off. Corporate intrigue, relations, proprietary data-etc...there are areas where they wouldn't share. And areas where they wouldn't share willingly, areas where they'd share but not honestly (Yeah that Paul is a murderer. See we have this tape from our security team that proves it. The rest of the tape? Gosh Paul destroyed it! That bastard!) and finally a number of areas where there's simply no reason not to share.

Any character at our table who doesn't have a street name gets dubbed "Jasper the Gasper". Only one guy ever kept it.

I meant other corps might not want to share with the people in toruble "Have you seen this jerk who just hit us?" "Maybe, maybe not, what's it worth?" or "You remember that time you screwed us over the X? Well...." big corp leaders might think they are all good but the guys on the street...?

Most the the characters in my game have two or three names. They all have their given names, their street names (which sometimes are their real names), and then they also have call signs they use on runs. They came up with the idea to use call signs after they realized that the tacnet could be compromised and they could be tracked down later with a bit of legwork. Thankfully, the group uses names that make sense for the characters (The naga is Zig-Zag, the medic is Rez, and so on), which makes it easier for us to keep track of who really is who.

Also, as snowRaven mentioned, I expect all of my players to give me names and basic info (like where they work, what they do there, and where they're from originally) on all of their aliases. That way I know when our face has to use his Rating 2 AmerInd PCC ID rather than his Rating 4 CAS military ID. Honestly, it's only a little extra bookkeeping and it add a bit more realism and danger to what would ordinarily be something glossed over. Besides, I've found when players add little details like that to the IDs, they're a lot more willing to actually play out those scenes.

Everyone has a street name, though more and more the desired street name gets lost when the team assigns a more appropriate one. Examples include: Red Shirt, Cherry, Squirrel & Velcro.

Squirrel Girl, OTOH, is a name of power!

What was your oldest internet handle?

One of our players' frequently gets his characters earned the Street Name "Bob." Too often he makes their names some multi-part asian sounding name that us poor white geeks can't pronounce, so we dub him Bob. Annoys him, but it is what it is.

My first handle online was JohnnieRico. In 1996. I've --still-- got a group of friends that call me "Rico"

First shadowrun character I ever made was a cybersam with the street name "Blades" because of the plethora of cyberspurs and other edged weapons he had. Kinda annoyed the GM when he had a character grapple mine from behind in a fight, and when my next action came up I said "Okay, I pop my reversed spurs out my elbow and jab the guy in the sides." (think Guyver).

Oh, that one.
Nekekami < =
They call me Neke for short, because calling me Kami is right out somehow.

A street name isn't what YOU come up with to call yourself, they are what OTHER people on the street come up with to call you. So they are typically not terribly complementary to but they are memorable/descriptive.

I guess that would make my two favorite characters Money-Bags and Drunky.

I'd agree. As I said a few years ago...

I see characters that have several names:

1) The one you were born with. "Jonathon Dexter Smith"
2) The one you call yourself and would like people to call you. "Dex"
3) The one people actually call you. "Dipstick"

#3 almost never sounds as cool to the person it is stuck to as #2 does. The more pretentious the name for #2, the less complimentary #3 turns out to be, in my experience.

The best and most "true to life" street name I've seen in a group was "Avacado" - because the player didn't come up with it - the other players did.

Between this and what redjack wrote that makes a lot of sense. Someone may call herself "nightwraith" or some multisylabic name in another language that makes sense elsewhere or because it sounds cool but once other people have to deal with her they are going to use what comes easily. You might end up with a lot of 'newbie' and 'FNG's or just scoffing "Blood rat? Rat? You look more like a hyperactive squirrel to me." and the name 'hypersquirrel' sticks.

Then there's the Doctor Who companion known as 'Romana.' Her full name was something like Romanavurundalunda but the doctor declared "I'll call you Romana."
"I'm not sure I like that."
"Yes but by the time I can say 'Romanavurundalunda look out,' It will be too late."

Yup. Fat Tony, The Chin, Allie Boy, Bugsy, The Mad Hatter, Tony Bananas. All mafia street names.

The Crew consists of Kestrel (or Kes for short), Lex AKA The Pale Rider, Mr Nicks, Leila and Seriously Mike. Now, their real names:
Kestrel - Olga Voronina (although she now runs two fake IDs, Ekaterina Savchenko and Mara Demrikov. Nickname comes from her former platoon's designation.)
Lex - Alexandria Jane Vincent (the other nickname comes from the fact that she's an albino and drives like crazy. And she doesn't have a SIN, so even considering the fact that it's her real name, the papers are pretty much fake.)
Mr Nicks - Masaru Shiba (although he uses two fake IDs too, Matthew Hwang and Omar Torivos. Nickname is a short for "Phoenix" - a reference to Legend Of The Five Rings)
Leila - Amina Saidi (her name is real, although it was never officially registered, she also has another fake ID, Heleyne Castillo)
Seriously Mike - Matija Jovanović (prefers the name of his fake SIN, Mike Finley, also has another one, Jesse Vetaura. The nickname comes from his overuse of the word "seriously")