The Perils of Pen Names

[Paul Whybrow]

Actors commonly use pseudonyms, sometimes for boring administrative reasons, such as there already being someone with the same or similar name in the profession. Usually though, it's to make them sound memorable or less weird at least. A name change can enhance manliness or sexiness too.
Cary Grant has more elan than his real name of Archibald Alexander Leach, and Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra did better as Meg Ryan. Hollywood studios went through an amusing period in the 50s, when they renamed male stars giving them tough, rugged identities such as Tab Hunter (originally Art Gelien), Troy Donahue (Merle Johnson), Rory Calhoun (Timothy McCown) and Rip Torn, who started out in life as Elmore Rual Torn.
The most famous of this stable of name-changes was Roy Fitzgerald, who became Rock Hudson - the Rock to imply strength, with Hudson being plucked from the Long Beach phone book simply because it sounded right by suggesting a rock in a mighty river.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

so Augustus Devilheart I became (stop laughing at the back!), which I thought worked OK. After slow sales for my ebooks, several female friends advised me that some readers might be finding my pen name intimidating, thinking that I was a devil worshipper - so why not try my real name? I did, and it helped, though it was a real pain to have to change all of the manuscripts, deleting them from the online sales sites and uploading the new version.
In trying to establish Augustus Devilheart as a creative entity, I'd joined various social media sites using that name. Some of these were easier to alter than others, and I found to my consternation that Goodreads would hold onto my nom-de-plume forever. They don't allow authors to delete books published using a pen name. This made me think of them as more intelligence-hungry than the FBI, KGB, CIA and MI5 combined.
I was assiduous in saying that a book had been previously published using the pen name, by adding a note to the frontispiece and on my blog and social media site profiles. I rather thought that I'd left my former identity behind, until I received a spooky contact update from LinkedIn on my Paul Whybrow Gmail account, asking me if I knew Augustus Devilheart? Well, do I?
Have any of you had problems with pen names?

You did at one time, know him very well, but you're not in touch these days.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

You can tell a lot about someone, by the "dangerous weapon" they pick. Knife. Quarterstaff. M-16. Machete.

I think Nicole wins the hand on account of range. But I can throw my machete. So...

I choose runes.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

You did at one time, know him very well, but you're not in touch these days.

I've wondered about the pen-name dilemma as being a retroactive personality split. I have twin sisters, and about the time that they appeared so did my imaginary friend Peter. He did all of the naughty stuff, of course... Perhaps my Augustus Devilheart persona was a release mechanism to allow myself to reinvent who I am. It's what a lot of performers do, hiding behind their stage names.

 

[Frances Gow]

I recently applied to be upgraded to an author account on Goodreads - previously my account was in the name of Frances Gow, but because my book is published in my maiden name FG Laval, they automatically changed the name of my account and my previous profile has disappeared. Apparently, you can't have any books attached to your author account unless they exactly match your profile name. How do authors who publish in multiple names manage that? Do they have to create separate accounts? Seems a bit of a pain to me...

 

[Jason Byrne]

I choose runes.

Futhark of Ogham KTLN?