In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset
that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all
but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also
became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in
Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Ibrahim smashed the idols with the ax and not Ismail so this wouldn't make much sense. Now this one I would give some credence to:
Other theories speculate that Ismail Ax could be a reference to Cho's
nickname on a video gaming site...
I checked some World of Warcraft sites but only came up with one 3rd level Tauren Warrior named Ismail. It might be a Counterstrike nickname since one of the pistols that he used was a 9mm Glock like the Terrorists start with.
