Origins of the name "Draccyning"

The name was born of necessity. Over the Christmas holiday of 1996, I--and who knows how many million other suckers--took advantage of AOL's free trial offer and thrust myself headlong into the World Wide Web. Perhaps I should clarify myself by saying I just wanted to interact with others in the regional chat rooms. Web sites were still uncommon for the everyday Joe.

Before I could get started, I had to create a screen name. To my disbelief, there were several Lonnie Colsons already online. Lonnie90210 just didn't have the same appeal to me. I tried any number of combination looking for a unique moniker, but nothing worked.

I finally remembered an old character that I had created while playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He was a paladin known as Lancer Draccyning, and he was my greatest champion. Lancer was the very embodiment of every noble ideal that I had admired while poring through the many Arthurian legends. The surname was drawn from a combination of the Anglo-Saxon words DRACA [dragon] and CYNING [king]. It seemed the perfect name for my virtual personification, and it has stuck with me over the years.