My Name (it sounds like a name that someone might have)

Day 4 - The meaning behind your Tumblr name

I'm guessing this challenge was originally made for tumblr, but I will talk about my blogger name of Arda.

So from 2010-2014 there was this super awesome online game called Clone Wars Adventures, where you were a Jedi in the Clone Wars era of Star Wars, running around the Jedi Temple and playing games with different Jedi Masters. It was even voiced by the TCW voice actors, so you could literally hear Obi-Wan talk to you about lightsaber training and it was the best thing.

I believe you needed a fake first and last name to sign up - you could probably get a random one or add one yourself. Before this, I had usually gone by Rosie Cotton (from LotR) on the interwebz, and this time still wanted something LotRish but a little more...sophisticated maybe?

My brother and I put together Arda Ancalima, basically because both words were from LotR and it sounded good. Arda is the earth Middle-Earth exists on, and Ancalima is part of Frodo's invocation of the Light of Earendil (the phial) in Return of the King: "Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!"

Both words are from the Quenya form of Elvish, and very very roughly translate to most "brightest realm." I have no idea if this is the correct order of the words, or if one needs to be conjugated, and that sometimes makes me worry that I come across as a fake fan (rather than a lazy, ignorant, ooh pretty words one).

In 2011 I joined The Lakehouse Forum for female Star Wars fans, and kept the same name because it was cool and already connected to the Star Wars fandom in a way. Several members already had blogs and inspired me to make my own, so when I signed up on blogger I just used Arda, as I was already used to being called.

And that is the very long version of how I now go by Arda so much you could call that on the street and I would probably think it was me.