Ovaries are pretty good at making you popular, I hear.
As for me, I played a lot of duels in Viridian earlier on and beat many solid players frequently but mostly rode Unreal's coat-tails. I had really bad luck in a handful of tournies when 3v3 and 4v4 were popular and complained to a few competitive players who understood my pain. Recently have done very well in the tournament scene since 6v6 has been the norm, winning several tournaments including the Master's Brawl, so I guess I am pretty well-known now.
Also I manage the tier list with ThinkNice and we started a competitive team, so maybe that gives me some notoriety too.