There is an article on Nameberry that was published a while ago that was titled “Question of the Week: What’s your Perfect [name_u]Pen[/name_u] Name?”, and I really did enjoy reading the comments. However, no one is commenting on that piece anymore since it’s so old. SO, I thought it would be fun to make a new one! Please comment and enjoy!
Intriguing. Perfect pen name for me, or perfect pen name for me to be intrigued by the author? For me, if or when I use a pen name, it’ll probably have some significance to it. I’ll probably either honor my grandmother, or my best friend–both of whose deaths sort of defined me as a person, and when I look to make accomplishments, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, “Look, [name_f]Nana[/name_f], look, [name_f]Millie[/name_f], I’m making you proud!”, so it only seems fitting that I would honor one (or both) of them with my pen name. I’ve tossed around the FN [name_f]Lily[/name_f] and the surname Croixet in their honor. Plus, [name_f]Lily[/name_f] Croixet seems like a pretty cool pen-name, although I’m afraid Croixet would be nearly impossible!
For someone else, I don’t know, I’m more honestly looking at the title of the book and what the book’s description is. So something that’s more interesting than [name_f]Linda[/name_f] or [name_f]Susan[/name_f] or [name_f]Amanda[/name_f], maybe, something that creates presence and intrigue. I think it’s great if a pen name reflects the genre of writing the author does. I think P. D. [name_u]James[/name_u], for example, is a great pen name for what she writes.
[name_f]My[/name_f] full name is SUPER common, so if I ever publish anything I will most likely use a pen name. The surname is the easy part - I will just convert my surname back to its pre-[name_u]Ellis[/name_u] Island form.
The first name is harder because I feel like it should be short so that it doesn’t compete with the longer last name.
Here are a couple of choices…
[name_f]Lena[/name_f] (lai-na) Johannesson - a pet form of my mn
[name_f]Nell[/name_f] Johannesson - another pet form of my mn
[name_f]Lina[/name_f] Johannesson - close to the first one, but chosen to honor a beautiful character in one of the first fantasy books I ever read - The [name_f]Princess[/name_f] and Curdie by [name_m]George[/name_m] [name_m]MacDonald[/name_m]
[name_f]Do[/name_f] these work? Which would you choose of the above?
BTW kitchi1 - thanks! [name_f]Do[/name_f] you have pen name picked out? What would you choose/what have you chosen?
[name_f]Primrose[/name_f] Fernsby was a pen name I created. It’s so pretty but I didn’t think it was serious enough for the stories I write. I love it tremendously, though.
[name_f]Harriet[/name_f] [name_u]Roscoe[/name_u] is the pen name I do use. It has a serious tone to it but it’s very spunky in my opinion.
[name_m]Gideon[/name_m] [name_f]Martel[/name_f] is a masculine pen name I’ve been experimenting with. I think it’s very sophisticated.
Kaede Ezura is a pen name I’ve used in contests and such, and it’s pretty cool. I’m 1/4 Japanese, and I wanted to use a Japanese name. I’ve always liked the name Kaede, and it means [name_f]Maple[/name_f], which is the type of tree I used to read in when I was little®. And Ezura was just a really good surname that I found that went along with it.
Hmm.
I could probably use a name which in a way would still be my name. [name_f]My[/name_f] last name is patronymic created of one of Polish variants of [name_m]Andrew[/name_m], so I could use Andrews for surname; and the only short form of my first name which I can stand is [name_u]Mika[/name_u]. That would give [name_u]Mika[/name_u] Andrews. The other possibility is that I would just pick something of names which I like - difficult to say what names exactly I would choose, but it would probably be something rather short (I always wanted to have shorter name) and simple, but not too popular.
In Polish, I would use [name_f]Renata[/name_f] for first name (I used to be kind of obsessed with this one, and I still like it), I’m not sure about a last name.
Oh, and one time I had a character who used her middle name and her mother’s maiden name as a pen name. Having my mother’s first name for middle name, I wouldn’t do that myself, though.