What's in a name?

[frost_light]

A watcher emailed these questions in, and since there are a few FFF members with pen names (and maybe more than I'm aware of), I thought it made for an interesting discussion. So, here are the questions

Comments

[rj_anderson]

My pen name is just my maiden name and initials. As soon as I started writing seriously, I knew that "R.J. Anderson" was the name I wanted to use (I think because I was influenced early by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and thought that the initials made me sound more distinguished).

Eventually I got married and changed my legal last name, but since my husband's family is German like Bryn/Marie's and the name is frequently mispronounced (plus it has an unfortunate connotation in English), I had no hesitation about sticking with "Anderson" for my published work.

(Plus it potentially puts me on the same shelf with Laurie Halse Anderson and M.T. Anderson, which can't be a bad thing.)

[dpeterfreund]

I always thought I'd be taking a pen name, because a lot of people seem to have difficulty pronouncing Peterfreund. But when I sold my first book, the publishers who bought it didn't see any reason for me to take a pen name. So I didn't. The pen name most often suggested to me is bad for me as well, for personal reasons.

I was never a huge fan of the practice of taking on a new "version" of my name for every little subgenre. I have a lot of writer friends who switched to "nickname" versions of their names when they started writing YA, and it always just ended up confusing me. Again, I thought I'd be asked to take on a pseudonym when I sold YA. I wasn't.

Anyone who can read my rather gritty YA novels can read my light and funny adult novels.

[rj_anderson]

Mine, too. But it makes it very easy to pick them out...

TELEMARKETER: "Uh, hello, can I talk to a Rebecca [long pause][total mispronunciation of last name] please?"

ME: *click*

[swan_tower]

I do that, too.

[irysangel]

My pen name was based off of a lot of different factors.

1) I'm a chicken and I don't want anyone looking me up.

2) My husband is a huge stickler for privacy.

3) I work for a very large, prestigious corporate entity, doing internal documentation and writing. I didn't want my two careers colliding, especially since by day I am a frumpy, sweater-wearing corporate drone, and by night I write sexy erotic paranormal romance. ;)

Really, it was number 3 more than anything else.

As for the name I picked? Got me. It just sounded good. Only the initials remain the same.

- Jill Myles

[tmthomas]

Few people know James Marsters actually writes paranormal romance under the name Jill Myles.

[jackiekessler]

**dies laughing**

[relby]

I have one pseudonym I've published under, and will probably have at least one more in the next year. My reasoning is two-fold.

First, it's liberating to write as "someone else," and I find I don't have many of my usual hangups in terms of self-censorship (i.e. "Omgwhatifthisturnsouttotallysuckyetc").

Second, and perhaps more importantly, names in publishing tend to represent brands. Unless you're either incredibly successful or totally go unread, readers often have expectations when they pick up more than one of your books. If you a reader who loves romance but hates gore, you'll probably be a bit thrown when your favorite regency romance author is suddenly doing Stephen King-style slice and dice.