Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-89.88.36.93-20140301205834/@comment-174.117.107.206-20161012103212

From Podpedia

The reason why Burnie perfers being called his nickname 'Burnie' instead of his actual first name 'Michael' is because there are TWO Michael's (two people with the first name 'Michael') working at Rooster Teeth. So to avoid confusion, they call him Burnie. (The second one is the Jerseyman Michael Jones, obviously). You can read Ryan's full explanation here . Basically, he said that his parents called him that much more while he was gorwing up in Georgia. So it's not only his nickname, but his stage name as well as he much more perfers being called Ryan And another part of the reason is the exact reason why Burnie perfers being called his nickname. There is MORE THAN ONE people named James who work at Rooster Teeth. (i.e. James Willems from Funhaus). And although the Funhaus team work at Rooster Teeth's LA offices, AH and FH meet to compete each other in gameplay frequently. There is also James Chung (HemboHero), and although he does not work for RT, he still highlights RT's content. I hope this explanation clears everything up.