This Sounds Familiar.
I'm SURE I did this only a few months ago, but here it is again!
WAAAAYYY back in '84 (before MANY of you were even BORN!), I was stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia (next to Augusta, GA), for my Advanced Individual Training (AIT), for the Missouri Army National Guard (MOARNG). I met some local civilians at a local Godfather's Pizza place, after seeing an ad one of them had put up in a hobby shop at one of the nearby malls.
I created a High-Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief, for a 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D)game, & needed a name for him. Frankly, I SUCK at coming up with Fantasy names. I first thought of naming him "Groo", after the comic book of "Groo the Wanderer", but decided that would be too obvious. I saw a comic strip for a character named "Thrud the Barbarian" (imagine this-the body of Conan, the head of a child. :lol: ), & squished the 2 names together, coming up with Grud.
In '85 or '86, whenever I first got personalized license plates for my car, I got GRUD on them, & when I was in Hawaii, while on Active Duty with the Army, I had everyone (about 40-50 people!) in my Platoon calling me GRUD, & MOST of the rest of the people (another 70-100!) in the Company calling me that as well!
I've seen MY name in 2 sci-fi novels, & 2 RPG adventures. 1 was as a human brigand in the "Temple of Elemental Evil" adventure, for the 1st Ed. AD&D, while the 2nd was as a Troll in an adventure for the Middle Earth Role Playing game. I can't remember the 2 book references. :hammer: