The brief answer is: I am an academic who happens to like science fiction.

Spouse and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica, which starts with the demise of the 12 colonies settled by the tribes from the ancient planet of Kobol. Note how it’s Kobol, with a “K”, and not Cobol (as in one of the oldest programming languages). Which got me thinking that certain letters — namely X, Y, Z, W, Q, and K (poor K  is horribly underutilized in the English language) — have a higher-than-average sci-fi appeal. For instance, the enemies of the human race are Cylons, a name that looks considerably more ominous than Cilons. 

So I played with a couple of made-up words that would include as many of these letters as possible. Some contenders that didn’t make it are xyloqwikz (contains all the letters,  but just didn’t grow on me) and xyqwarz (no k!)

Finally, ‘xykademiqz’  stuck. I am an academic, after all.