Forget the title, who’s the author?

Forget the title, who’s the author?

jEN and I got talking the other night about writing books/novels/stories and the like – since we are both undertaking such, erm, undertakings – and we got onto the subject of pen names; would we use our real names or made up names just to make it sound like we are real authors ;)

jEN mentioned that apparently the classic way of deciding on your pen name is to take the name of your very first pet as the christian name, and the road name of your very first address as the surname. We decided that, due to the fact that anyone who might provide additional, pre-memory information was a good few hundred miles away at the time of the conversation, this meant the first pet and road we could personally remember.

For myself, this would provide a pen name of Scott Hodgeson – quite an acceptable name and disappointingly sensible. Scott was my trusty old Jack Russell terrier I would wheel up and down the garden in a miniature wheelbarrow, while living in Hodgesons Road.

jEN, on the other hand, discovered her pen name to be: Beauregarde 32nd. We extended the search to the next road/street name in an attempt to discover something vaguely useful, thus: Beauregarde 15th, Beauregarde 18th, Beauregarde Highway 40… and so on. Beauregarde was a mouse, and the streets are self explanatory so long as you know that she grew up in the USA. She actually had two pets at the same time. In addition to Beauregarde the mouse, there was Willie the dog, which doesn’t improve the options much.

So my question to you is, what might be your pen name(s)..?

Posted: October 24th, 2007 | Filed under: General | 8 Comments »

8 Comments on “Forget the title, who’s the author?”

  1. 1 Noebie said at 7:45 pm on October 24th, 2007:

    i would be “stranger bower”

  2. 2 Noebie said at 7:48 pm on October 24th, 2007:

    in the u.s. – this method is used to determine a “soap opera” name

    there’s also a formula for “porn star name” but i forget what it is…perhaps middle name and mother’s maiden name?

  3. 3 Chris Leydon said at 8:39 pm on October 24th, 2007:

    Mine would happen to be George Victoria – George being an old (now deceased) black cat who ironically got run over in Victoria Avenue. The same adress that would happen to be my first address.

    Somehow I don’t think George Victoria would suit me, think I’ll stick to Chris Leydon.

  4. 4 Natalie Ford said at 2:26 am on October 25th, 2007:

    Mickey Abbey
    My first guinea pig was called Mickey (after the Mouse) and I was born in Abbey Road. No, not *that* Abbey Road.

    Better ones would be Trixie (our childhood dog) Broughton or Sandy (another guinea pig) Middleton. I actually like that last one!

  5. 5 Annette said at 5:38 pm on October 25th, 2007:

    Muffin Harmapaadentie or Spears Aaron.

    That first one is obviously not a U.S. street. If I were male, I’d have a few other options that might actually sound human.

  6. 6 Alex Bellinger said at 11:23 pm on October 26th, 2007:

    I’d be Jean Pierre Maidstone. Another guinea pig bought after a holiday in France.

  7. 7 Emma said at 8:10 am on October 30th, 2007:

    Squiffy Brackens :o )

    (Squiffy was a hamster)

  8. 8 neil said at 9:09 am on October 30th, 2007:

    @Chris Leydon: Swap the names around and Victoria George is a pretty decent Mills & Boon author ;)

    @Alex: Why did France of all places inspire the purchase of a guinea pig?

    @Annette: OK, you have got to explain ‘Harmapaadentie’ !

    Thanks to all for taking the trouble to comment, it was fun reading them.