Nom de Plume

[Lokasenna]

As a fair few of the people here will be either aspiring or already published writers, I was just wondering where people stand on using pen names. A fair while back I made the decision to publish academically under my real name, and to use a pen name for any fiction of mine that gets picked up.

Anyway, I was having a chat with some literary friends when the topic came up about how to manufacture a suitable pseudonym. Being terminally unimaginative, I'd decided to use my initials and mother's maiden-name, producing the rather respectable 'D. H. Anderson', which I think sounds rather good. Now one friend is already an artist, for which he uses his real name; for fiction, he plans to use his middle name, and has translated his surname (Bishop) into Greek, giving him the name 'Alex Episkopos'. Finally, my friend Phoebe suggested going for something completely off the wall; I think her choice was something like 'Raymond de la Fontayne' - very obviously made up.

So, what process would you go through to make a pen-name, or perhaps you already have?

[Niamh]

My Main one if Anne Synge. Anne being my middle name and Synge being the surname of one of my favourite writers. :) I think it sounds good.

[Nightshade]

Well I well we really alot of us go by psuedoms already don't we? My real name means Night, well actually the darkness of the night- so Night's shade? and also I love the Ode to melancholy and was kind of unable to shift it from my mind when I sighned up hence Nightshade.
But if I ever do write anything to publish and am prolific as Say Nora Roberts, I plan on having lots and lots of names. One for every genre of writing.
Vesper means Night as well ( also I love the story the Day boy and the Night girl by George Macdonald , where I first came across the name-he may have invented it. ) So Vesper something wouyld be anice one.
:D :nod:

[Emil Miller]

This is an interesting topic for discussion.
For many years I wondered why some authors decided to use a pseudonym and I discovered that there are various reasons.
For example, as you know, George Orwell is the pen name of Eric Blair who disliked his Scottish ancestry and so anglicised it by using George, from England's patron saint and Orwell from an English river in Suffolk.
Lewis Carroll may have been used because Charles Lutwidge Dodson didn't want to compromise his standing as an eminent mathematician.
Mary Anne Evans probably decided to use George Eliot because a masculine name was more likely to be taken seriously than a feminine one during her lifetime and Samuel Langhorne Clemens may have wanted something less portentous for his readers to use. These are just a few examples but the most common reason seems to be that many writers are dissatisfied with their name and writing a book is a golden opportunity to do something they have always wanted to do without actually changing their name by deed poll.
In the majority of cases it makes little or no difference, either to a writer's standing or the sales of his/her books, as some of the most successful authors have used their own names without resorting to pseudonyms.
In my own case, a number of characters in my first book who are portrayed,warts and all, are closely based on people I have known and it was advisable to use a pseudonym. I chose Emil Miller who is a minor character in Of Human Bondage because it is a favourite novel of mine

[Stargazer86]

and Samuel Langhorne Clemens may have wanted something less portentous for his readers to use.

Samuel Langhorne Cemens aka Mark Twain used to work on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. The term "Mark Twain" has to do with measuring the depth of the water and was something that the crewmen would shout out.

This is a good question, Lok. I don't know what I would use. I used to sign my journals Erina Kirk when I was a kid. Erina is my middle name and Kirk is my grandmother's last name (and several aunts and cousins). But I don't think it flows well at all. I certainly would never use my real name because my last name is quite laughable and I was teased for it most of my life :lol:

D.H Anderson sounds good as does Anne Synge :)

[Lokasenna]

Another favourite of mine is the social commentator and philosopher Dr. Anthony Daniels, who publishes under the infintely grander 'Dr. Theodore Dalrymple'. He gave his reason for the name as being one that evoked the image of a reactionary aristocrat completely cut off from the reality of the world, a criticism he suspected (rightly) that would frequently be leveled against him, despite his extremely humble origins.

[Dark Lady]

As other people have said, this is a great question!

I think I'd go with my own name and not bother with a pen-name. Just because if I saw my book in a bookshop and it had a different name on it I'd feel disconnected from it somehow. I'd like to see my own name on a book!

My problem is that I'm engaged but we're focusing on getting a house at the moment so no date set as of yet. I'm close(ish) to finishing my first novel. So if I manage to get my novel published before I get married should I stick with my name just now or use my fiance's surname, which will be mine when we get married? Or even if we get married first, should I stick with my maiden name anyway on the offchance we one day get divorced and I'm stuck with his name for my writing? (Obviously I don't think that's going to happen but then I doubt anyone gets married thinking it won't last - yet divorce rates are high. ;))

[stlukesguild]

Intriguing topic of discussion. I have always been fascinated with J.L. Borges' false attributions and misquotes (not unlike the forgotten Robert Burton). I am also enamored of Fernando Pessoa's "hetronyms" and even thought of attributing very different works of art from my own oeuvre to different artists... and perhaps even inventing fictive bios for them. However... I never really took the concept seriously until recently. Having returned to working figuratively as a painter my work often conveys erotic overtones. I never really though much of these as they certainly are not overtly shocking or uncommon within the context of the whole of art history.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2434/3630173340_b886551995_o.jpg

I was surprised, however, at how several coworkers expressed a degree of shock and discomfort at the very idea of me employing the nude... let alone working from a nude model (which I actually haven't done in some years). Considering the fact that I am employed in the public schools this response has led me to a degree of concern for just how some parents or administrators (noted for their liberal mindedness:rolleyes:)... to say nothing of my students might respond to such work. Considering the fact that nearly every artist employs the internet as a means of promotion, the possibility of a student "googling" my name and uncovering my art is very real. I actually like Lokasenna's solution of employing my initials and my mother's maiden name... which would make me D.K. Leininger.

[billl]

i love that painting, wow, what an unexpected treat. the patterns and colors and the skew are all really cool, not to mention the lovely figure.

[Dark Lady]

I don't know a lot about art but that does look very good.

I actually looked into being a life model for a while (it pays pretty well). I was in contact with an artist about it but he was trying to use a range of shapes and sizes of models and already had quite a few who had similar measurements.

I will start my PGDE to become an English teacher after the summer. If I had done the life modelling and people had found out (they wouldn't have because the guy doesn't use the models' actual faces but hypothetically) I wonder if that would have shocked them more or less than stlukesguild's situation.

[stlukesguild]

billl... Dark Lady... thanks. I suspect that there are those who would be less than comfortable with the notion of a teacher having stripped off... even if it was only for a bunch of art students. There is an increasing paranoia about sex-offenders lurking everywhere (heightened by the fact that one can be labeled as such for something as innocuous as a college student mooning the opposing school's football team or being caught relieving oneself behind the bar at 2:00 AM). There is also the notion that school teachers should be morally impeccable... and the very notion that the teacher who has charge of one's "innocent" cherubs during the day may indeed have sexual urges... or even swig a beer from time to time... is actually disturbing to some who still imagine that teachers should be as above reproach as they were in the old Puritan days of schoolmarms. I might note that the religious overtones of the imagery I employ... as well as the allusions to biblical and fairy-tale narratives (Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland) that I employ may make the already Puritanical-minded even more upset.

[Niamh]

If i went with my innitials and mothers maiden name, i'd be N.A.Bowden

[Stargazer86]

If i went with my innitials and mothers maiden name, i'd be N.A.Bowden

That sounds good :)

Using the same format, I'd be E.E. DeSilva

[Maximilianus]

Using the same format, I'd be E.E. DeSilva

This as well as Erina Kirk sound equally literary to me. I like them both.

I think I would go with something like Maximilian Castle, which would be the English form of my Spanish name, though I'm not sure of its literary sound :p