The practice of Voldemorting was first characterized by Emily van der Nagel, social media researcher and lecturer at Monash University in Australia, though she credits coinage of the term itself to a 2013 discussion forum comment by user Eugene. The word is based on the character Voldemort, an evil wizard in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, who was such a terrifying villain that the other characters were too afraid to mention his name, instead substituting it for expressions like ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’. There’s also some evidence for use of Voldemort as a countable noun referring to substitute online names (e.g. ‘birdsite’ is a Voldemort for Twitter).