Pen Name

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If you were a published author, would you use your real name, or adopt a pen name?

Non-hypothetical authors are welcome too.

Personally, I'd use Apera, or whatever interesting name i could make up. I don't want to be famous.

depends on what I'm writing. If I was doing some 'unseemly' story, my real name is so unusual it would be pretty easy to track me down. Pakleds rule!...

Yes, I use a pen name. It's nothing fancy, just my first and middle names.

I'm not a "published" writer, but I use it when I write a blog (I wrote on a mildly prominent presidential candidate web site) and it's written on my fiction that's floating around the internet.

I've used a pen name for my fiction, but that one is... odd. Furlings Are Cats. *anyone watch SG1? Anyone?*

When I get my stuff published, my pen name is Kip Cathey. My real last name, and a first name nickname.

I'm going through the same thing right now, trying to come up with a good stage name. I'm using my real name as a default, but it's not a good one to use long-term because my last name is hard to pronounce and spell, my middle name is boring, and my first name is also boring and associated with a certain age group - I was born at the end of the era when "Kim" was a popular name, so a lot of Kims are older than me, and few are younger. In music, you have to seem young if you can.

I use my nom d'plume that I assumed in 2000 - Xelebes.

Maybe pick something similar to a well known authors but different enough to be easily noticed as not being the same author, example Robert Jordan is well known therefore use Hugh Jorgan.

I kind of want to make up a pen name to establish my own identity as a writer.

I think my real name's catchy enough. I'll stick to it.

I use a shortened version of my first name and my middle name as a pen name. Or at least I would, if I ever saved any of my writing.

My real name is pretty boring. Short and surprisingly common - I've never met someone with the same name, but there is a website with my name, and I can never get myname@ any email address carrier. I like my last name, so I'd always assumed I'd just trick-out my first name, extend it so that my real name, Amy, could still be an abbreviation.

But on the other hand... "Amy" is starting to sound less like a cheerleader name now that we've got Amys Winehouse and Lee and Poehler and Hempel on our team.

I have two pen names for my poems that I write:
Eel Nadroj
Jae Lee

however I mainly use my real name when I make poems for intimate friends(girlfriends, admirers etc)

Because my last name is short and only has one syllable, and would sound too corny and Waltons-esque, it would be one of the rare occasions where I would use Timothy in lieu of Tim.

I would adopt a pen name esp being a female. I've heard study showing that most people including women won't pick a book with a female's name on it. Now that sounds overly dramatic but if push came to shove, I'd use a pen name like initials.

The same as for the woman who wrote the Harry Potter books. There's been a lot of successful authors without the pen names as well but I'd want to play my cards right.

Yup, I would use/do use pen names. That way I don't feel like my privacy *gimme SPACE, man!* isn't invaded.
For writing I use a rather androgynous name. Partly because it gives me more distance, and partly like what MissConstrue says.

If I wrote a book or a collection of poems or anything like that, my pen name would be Jillian Viles.

If I was in a band, my band nickname would be Bloodloss.

I'd use my real name if I made a comic book, but I sign my work "Meep". I've done that since I was seven.