What’s a pen name?

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A pseudonym, also known as a pseudonym or nom de plume, is an assumed name that a writer uses to claim authorship of a particular work, whether fictional or non-fiction. There are many reasons a writer might choose to use a pseudonym, and while they are used for published articles, poems, and short stories, their most frequent use is in writing literature such as novels. There are few restrictions on what a pseudonym can be, and an author can have more than one that he uses at a time. While pseudonyms may not be copyrightable, the names of celebrities and famous people often carry additional weight that allows them to be registered as trademarks, and the use of these names as a pseudonym is restricted.

There are several common reasons why authors around the world over the centuries have chosen to use pseudonyms. One of the most frequent is the theme of sexism. A woman writing in a field or manner frequented by male authors may choose a male pseudonym and vice versa. Sometimes the gender is simply masked, however, by using initials for the first and middle names and spelling out the last name.

Another reason to use a pseudonym is when an author decides to write something experimental. Publishers may not accept work when it is outside the normal range of the writer, resulting in a form of typecasting that even famous actors often suffer from. The pseudonym protects an author from nullification of comparisons and criticism of new work. Even Benjamin Franklin used the pseudonym Silence Dogood to write a series of letters which were published in The New-England Courant, his brother’s newspaper, as nothing he wrote at the young age of 16 had ever been published. American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, actually used a number of pen names in his writing career in a variety of genres.

The fictitious names are also used for a much more mundane reason. An author’s real name may seem inappropriate for the type of material he is writing. A name that is overly formal or one with obvious connotations of strong masculinity or femininity can be misleading as to the type of work the author wishes to produce. Novels in particular are often purchased based at least in part on the kind of image a reader has in the author’s mind, and pseudonyms are very carefully chosen to project the appropriate tone the author seeks for her work.

Famous pseudonyms sometimes cause authors more harm than good. Some authors have become well known for work written under their real names, when it is later revealed that they have an entirely different body of work under a pseudonym. When creating a pseudonym, often a whole backstory of the life of this fictional author must also be created to satisfy curious fans. When these fans discover that the author behind the name and its entire story doesn’t actually exist, it can negatively impact the writer’s image.

Some authors also use pseudonyms for the sole purpose of remaining anonymous. When writing is a business and their primary career is at stake, authors often choose to use a pseudonym. An athlete or small-town mayor, for example, might be negatively affected if others knew that they regularly produce gothic horror novels for teens or epic stories about the adventures of cartoon badgers. When Joel Chandler Harris, a 19th-century American journalist, decided to write folk stories based in the rural South, he invented a fictional character who would regularly visit his newspaper and tell the stories. Harris knew he couldn’t use his real name, so he created one that became an American icon of the period, Uncle Remus, who had stories to tell about a woodland creature named Br’er Rabbit.

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