You've Been Saying These Streamer Names Wrong This Whole Time
Internet celebrities have existed for decades, but video game streamers have certainly moved to the forefront in more recent years. Millions of people tune into Twitch and YouTube every single day to see what their favorite streamers are up to. Whether they're playing competitive games or "just chatting," every big name streamer has a following that cares deeply about their every move. Some have even leapt out of the streaming world and landed appearances in movies like Ryan Reynolds' "Free Guy."
Unlike your typical celebrities, streamers are known for having outlandish names attached to their accounts. A screen name is a powerful thing for a streamer. It can really act as the foundation of their entire brand, so making sure it's distinctive, memorable, and, most importantly, easy to say is extremely important. Or not.
There are plenty of streamers who haven't lost their entire viewer base, regardless of whether or not fans can say their names out loud. Some of them might even be among your favorites. Here are some streamer names that you may have been saying wrong this whole time, along with the origins of their unique handles.
Amouranth
Kaitlyn "Amouranth" Siragusa is a wildly successful streamer with over 5 million followers on Twitch. The content creator may have her shady side, but she's created a social media empire that earns enough money to allow Amouranth to live her dream lifestyle and also afford to pay her staff six-figure salaries. As she noted in an interview with TheGamer, her Twitch success is especially impressive when one considers how male-dominated the platform still is.
She might be a Twitch star, but if you're not familiar with Amouranth, you might stumble through reading her name at first. The name is a bit of a mystery because Amouranth has never really explained what it means or how she came up with it (per GameRant). It appears to be like the word "amour" — with its multiple meanings centering around love — should factor into the pronunciation, but her screen name is actually pronounced with a soft "a" sound: "AM-uh-ranth."
As it happens, amaranth is also a perennial grain which creates some spectacular red and purple flowers. Amouranth's fans continue to speculate about whether she intentionally combined the flower with a word for love.
Sykkuno
If you've ever called this streamer "SICK-ooh-NO," you aren't alone. With 4 million followers on Twitch, Sykkuno — actually pronounced "sye-KOO-noh" — is accustomed to longtime fans and friends knowing how to pronounce his name, but that doesn't make it any easier for newcomers. Sykkuno definitely has an interesting ring to it, but it doesn't seem to be made up of multiple familiar words, and there isn't an obvious meaning to the name at first glance.
That's probably why, as Sykkuno admitted in a YouTube video, he still regularly has people asking him to explain his name. Anyone hoping for a secret origin story or hidden meaning to the name was probably disappointed by his explanation. "I thought 'Sykkuno' sounded cool, so I went with 'Sykkuno,' and that's pretty much the entirety of it," he said, adding, "I wish there was a cool story, though."
Backstory or no, at least he's right about it being a cool name.
Tfue
Tfue is a massively popular streamer with over 10 million followers on Twitch and nearly 12 million subscribers on YouTube. He's best known as a competitive "Fornite" player, and some might remember him as a former member of Faze Clan. He sued the team back in 2019, and though they settled the case a year later, he won't be rejoining anytime soon. Going solo hasn't slowed him down a bit, however, and Tfue is still one of the biggest streamers around.
Even so, fans have probably looked at Tfue's name and been momentarily baffled. How do those two consonants even work together? The secret is that they don't. But when "TEE-foo" pronounces his name himself, it rolls right off the tongue.
In retrospect, the pronunciation seems about as straightforward as they come. A hyphen between "T" and "fue" would probably clear things up entirely, but since Twitch screen names can't be hyphenated, the world will have to make do.
Elxokas
Elxokas has amassed nearly 3 million followers on Twitch by playing a wide variety of games. He streams competitive games like "League of Legends" and "PUBG," as well as more relaxed games like "Terraria" and the latest "Pokemon" titles. Elxokas got his start by winning fans over with his "World of Warcraft" streams, and his expanding catalogue has helped him become one of the biggest Spanish speaker streamers on Twitch (via TikTak Draw).
Elxokas hasn't given an official explanation for the origin of his name. Maybe, like Sykkuno, he just picked some sounds that he liked and put the name together. There are a handful of different ways to pronounce "x" sounds, so "Elxokas" could be a bit of a challenge to pronounce. Rather than using a "z" sound, as in the name Xander, this streamers name uses more of a shushing sound. Pronounced properly, the name sounds like "El-SHOW-cuss."
The Grefg
Here's another name with a very unique combination of consonants, but it's actually not as much of a stumbling block as you might think. Although TheGrefg's handle might look like an abbreviation or some initials, his real name is actually David Martinez, and pronouncing this one is as simple as "greff-JEE."
The name and the handle are worth remembering, because Grefg is only getting more popular. In January 2021, the streamer set a record for concurrent viewers on Twitch when over 2 million people tuned in to watch his "Fortnite" skin reveal (per Esports Talk). Since then, all of his online channels have continued to grow, and his YouTube channel is closing in on 18 million subscribers.
TheGrefg is best known for streaming "Fortnite" and his co-ownership of esports org Team Heretics, but recently he's made waves by getting suspended from Twitch. In March 2022, he earned himself a 3-day ban from the platform. His offense, ironically enough, was criticizing Twitch's suspension policies by inviting another banned player, Brunenger, onto his channel for a discussion.
Luckily for fans (who may have just learned the proper pronunciation of his name), TheGrefg was quickly back in action.
CouRageJD
Jack "CouRage" Dunlop has been involved in the professional gaming community for nearly a decade. In 2014 he worked as an intern with the eSports Report, and when the show's host called in sick, CouRage got the opportunity to go on the air, launching his career as an esports commentator (via theScore esports). Today, CouRage has a dedicated fanbase and spends much of his time streaming games for his 3.6 million subscribers on YouTube.
But what is up with that name? If you haven't been an avid follower of esports for the past ten years, his name probably looks like "COO-rage." The capital letters would seem to imply that "CouRage" is two separate words smushed together, but really the letters are just a stylization.
Whereas folks like Sykkuno want to make sure their name sounds cool, CouRage's screen name is all about the look. Feel free to charge right ahead and say it as a single word the next time you're discussing one of his streams.
Bugha
We've looked at names with no backstory, names with simple explanations, and names that are still shrouded in mystery, but here is a name with a truly touching meaning behind it. Bugha is a popular "Fortnite" player who streams to 5 million followers on Twitch multiple times a week. He also regularly posts "Fortnite"-themed videos to his YouTube channel, which boasts more than 4 million subscribers. His videos rack up tens of thousands of views, but it's not uncommon for his livestreams to have over 100,000 concurrent viewers.
Bugha's professional gaming career has been so successful that it has landed him appearances on late night television. During an interview on "The Tonight Show," Bugha explained that his name — which is pronounced "BOO-gah" — actually came from his childhood.
"My grandpa gave me the name when I was, like, a baby," he said. "He used to say 'bugha, bugha, bugha,' and I used to laugh." The nickname stuck, and Bugha happily turned his streaming name into an homage to his grandfather.
Auronplay
Auronplay is a Spanish streamer with over 12 million followers on Twitch and nearly 30 million subscribers on YouTube. He streams on Twitch just about every single day, and most days nets more than a million viewers when he goes live. It didn't start out that way, though. Auronplay has definitely put in time and effort to get to this point. He started uploading videos back in 2009 (via ¿Quien es?), and his clips have generally always been focused on gaming. But Auronplay had no way of knowing how the streaming scene would explode whe first started.
"Auronplay" is supposed to be pronounced as the first half of his name would be said in Spanish — that's "AH-oo-RUN-play" — but there's been some confusion caused by a popular video game. "Auron" is also the name of a character in "Final Fantasy X," where it's pronounced differently. This character's name has confused gamers for some time, with some hashing out the proper pronunciation on Reddit. When it comes to the real-life streamer, though, leave what Square taught the world behind and stick to Earth-based languages.
Muselk
Muselk is another "Fortnite" streamer with over 9 million followers on YouTube. He's been uploading to YouTube for eight years, and his earliest videos were focused on "Team Fortress 2" content. Video games and YouTube culture have changed quite a bit since then, but Muselk is still going strong, uploading a new video every day. In addition to being dedicated to his craft, he also has a pretty unique name.
In a 2015 video, Muselk explained where he came up with the idea for his screen name, and there's no deep secret here: He liked the sound of "MUSE-elk" put together and stuck with it.
"And then of course," he said, "you've all gone out there and turned it into 'muscle-kay' and 'moose-click.'" Despite all the mispronunciations he's heard, Muselk still says that he loves his "weird-sounding name"– and considering all the success he's had as a streamer, maybe there's something to be said for choosing a name that raises a few eyebrows.
CohhCarnage
When it comes to his streaming career, CohhCarnage is beyond dedicated. He goes live on his Twitch channel every day of the week, and the games that he plays are on constant rotation. CohhCarnage plays so much that he has a whole website dedicated to letting his fans know when he'll be playing and which games they should expect to see. He most often plays roguelikes or other popular single-player games like "Elden Ring."
At first glance, the "Cohh" in CohhCarnage's handle might seem like an obscure surname, but Ben Russell wasn't thinking of himself when he was thinking it up. According to an FAQ on his official website, Russell based the title off of the traditional name "Ko," which belonged to a friend of his in Hawaii and is pronounced just like it is spelled. However, when he began playing "Everquest," the game required a longer name, so he changed it to "Cohh." Eventually, he added "Carnage" as a reference to the name of the guild he and his friends were all in.
Pokimane
Pokimane first gained attention while playing "League of Legends" back in 2017. She's gone on to become one of the biggest streamers in the world, with 9 million followers on Twitch, nearly 7 million subscribers on YouTube, and countless other fans on Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms. Pokimane's day to day operation now involves an entire content ecosystem, but she still finds time to go live on Twitch several days a week.
She may be one of the most recognizable streamers on the planet, especially after making an acting appearance in the Ryan Reynolds film "Free Guy," but many people still have trouble with Pokimane's name.
Back in 2016, she made a video explaining where she got her name and why people shouldn't have trouble pronouncing it. As it turns out, her name is pronounced "POH-kee-mahn" — as in, almost exactly like the beloved monster-catching franchise. As she explained, "It's really just supposed to be, like, a little play on words."
Her real first name is Imane, and she wanted to combine that with one of her favorite games when she went into streaming. It's not only a solid pun, it also sounds a whole lot better than "POH-kee-main."