My name, in its entirity, goes back to 8th grade for me. I have a thing for tropical fish and I used to wear a lot of t-shirts and horrible, tacky earings and the like accordingly. One of my teachers just started refering to me as "fish" or "fish chick". "Cayci" was an identity thing. I didn't like how my name was spelled...never liked it. I can't even blame that one on being a teenager. A friend of mine and I were bored in class and started doodling different ways of spelling our names. I had a "Hooked on Phonics" moment and wrote down "Cayci". I thought it was awesome in every way possible and immediately started using it whenever I could. My parents didn't like it very much, but they came around eventually. I became "Caycifish" on the internet early in college, and didn't worry so much about security because it wasn't my real name. Well, I made it my legal name just in time for it to be on my college diplomas and at the time decided that I would keep my screenname intact and just not do things on the internet I would be ashamed of.
I smile when I think about how some of my IHB newbie hazing involved folks trying to make fun of me for my name (you know, because you must be a blond idiot when your name ends in an i). I had taken some other crap without much of a fight (because they were right) but when they started targeting my name certain IHB gentlemen in a chat room were informed of evidence of my brilliance and that they could "Go f*** yourselves." I couldn't see him, but I know Nude smiled.