My normal user ID ('proxima') goes back to the first user ID I ever used when I had to think one up quickly when joining an ISP back in about 1994. I saw it written on the side of a digital overhead projector tablet, and thought it sounded cool enough. Turns out it means "closest" / "nearest" or even "the next".

It's been my "main" user ID for things ever since, including SETI@Home, United Devices, Folding@Home, distributed folding, Find-a-Drug, Rosetta@Home, and probably others I've forgotten.

I seem to remember "proxima" was already taken when I joined WCG, so I used "alver" instead, which is the name of my company. The company in turn is named after a small (but attractive) river near to my home - the Alver River, in the Alver Valley.

I'm using my nickname, because I'm a retired , dreaming of past days watching nice ice pellets clear as crystal.
Some people think it's my real name and I'm female, because of that name, but disappointing for them, I'm a male frog.

A member's handle made me curious... guess who ;>) http://bkcreative.hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Mamajuana

At my last job, I was a chemist, working for the National Water Quality Laboratory. We developed and performed various analyses on water, sediments, sea creatures, and generally anything people wanted us to analyze -- we'd develop a method. Generally we used some type of chromatography, which would generate peaks corresponding to compounds of interest. Hence "littlepeaks". One of my coworkers called our place the National Peak Integration Facility.