I felt like a good way to start off my blog is to talk about how I came up with the current gamertag I use. “hojo” came from when I was a bit younger, around 12 years old. It was around the same time Final Fantasy 7 (FFVII) came out, and my one friend was pretty into the game. I did play through the first disc but I didn’t have a memory card, so I lost my progress. Fun Fact: I still haven’t beat the game yet.
Anyways, during this time in my life, I was really into wrestling and so were the people I hung out with. We got the idea to start a backyard wrestling league, and we had to come up with personalities. My friends came up with some interesting personalities, one had a hunchback, a few were rappers (kinda like how nWo had that going on) and so on.
When it came to me, I honestly didn’t know what to name myself or what my personality would be. My friend decided to say I should be “Helletic Hojo”, which is stolen straight from FFVII. Not knowing too much about the character except for seeing it in the strategy guide at the time and that he was a boss fight, I decided to go with that name.
If you want to know more about “Helletic Hojo” or “Professor Hojo”, I would recommend following this link: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Professor_Hojo
The personality around “Helletic Hojo” was that he was from the 7th lair (or maybe 9th lair) of hell and that was about it. My finisher was a stunner because I was a child still, and I was able to do most of the basic moves that you would see on TV. It helped a lot that the matches were on trampolines. I was pretty much used in matches because I was light and easy to throw around.
From that point forward, I tend to use the name “helletic hojo” or “hojo” for a lot of my screen names. I usually use “hojo” just because it is simple, and also my first name is Joe, so it works out. I have used other names in the past but nothing really stuck for me. I think the only other name that I used for sometime was my initials, “JnS”. I still like that name but “hojo” was always the name I went back to.
I don’t think I have any plans to retire the name, and it has become a part of my life seeing that gaming is still a part of it as well. I can only see getting rid of the name if I completely stop playing games, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Besides, now that I go to tournaments and other events, people actually just refer to me as “hojo” instead of Joe. I don’t think I have a choice to stop using it with that going on.
I wish I could say the name came from a deeper or more interesting place, but just like how most childhood names come about, it’s usually just a simple story.
