Wednesday, January 11, 2012

RTW: Pseudonyms

I love today's Road Trip Wednesday question:

This Week's Topic

If you couldn't use your own name, what would your pseudonym or penname be?
As a former aspiring actor, I spent many years thinking about a stage name.  I am blessed/cursed (sorry Mom!) with an unusual middle name--Kaylor, which is my mother's maiden name.  As much as I could stand to live the rest of my life without ever saying, "Taylor, but with a K" again, I also really like the sound of it.  And I think it goes well with my maiden name (which, of course, was my last name in high school and college, when I was considering this question much more seriously.)  So my choice has pretty much always been Kaylor Phillips.  (Although in my mind, that is the name of someone with much better hair than me.)  

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19 comments:

  1. Ooo, Kaylor Phillips is an excellent pen name. I use my maiden name for writing, which is currently about as close as I get to a pseudonym, but now I'm thinking about all the different possibilities. Fun post!

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  2. I like Kaylor!
    I also use my maiden name. It sounds better on my ears lol my husband just laughs when I tell him that ;)

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  3. Kaylor Phillips is great, and the fact that such a unique name is actually yours is even better! I couldn't use my maiden name, as it also belongs to a famous person, but I think it's nice when a combination of your own names is possible.

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  4. Kaylor Phillips is a great author name--not that your real name wouldn't be either, I'm sure. I only know your real last name, and I could quite see it on a book cover.

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  5. Kaylor Phillips is great!
    My married name is Schieffelbein, which is long and no one knows how to say it. If I ever get a picture book published I'd go by Rachel Mary Bean. Mary is my grandmother's name (and my real middle name.) Bean was my husband's nickname when he was in the Marines, because no one could say Schieffelbein!

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  6. Love Kaylor, a very unique name. I as well use my maiden name as my writing name :)

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  7. I love that. Kaylor is an awesome name.

    And this: (Although in my mind, that is the name of someone with much better hair than me.) Made me laugh out loud.

    New Follower :)

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  8. Much better hair. LOL. I so know what you mean.
    Kaylor Phillips is great. Not plain, but not crazy unusual either. :0)

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  9. Thanks, all! Maybe if and when I start having to use that name, the hair will follow? A gal can dream.

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  10. I like it! Kaylor has a nice ring to it.

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  11. I agree with Marilyn, 'Kaylor' is a very unique name. I like it! I really like Kaylor Phillips as a full pen name too. =)

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  12. Kaylor Phillips...love it!
    My name is actually not my name given to me at birth or by marriage. I had it legally changed after a bad divorce. I took my middle name, Colleen, as my last name and then took an old family surname as my middle name, Carroll. So, I guess I already kinda created a pen name which is my name in real life, too. Its like I re-created myself as Marcie Carroll Colleen.

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  13. Kaylor Phillips definitely works. And it's just androgynous enough that it would make you appeal to both genders on a bookshelf. If you ever didn't want to write, I imagine Kaylor being a very successful 80s singer in another life.

    I haven't run into the trouble of maiden name versus married name yet, since I'm still single, but for now I'm using my given name when I publish.

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  14. I really like Kaylor! I think it's neat that you just switched out a letter, I've done the same thing while naming characters.

    Plus I'd probably want to read a book by a Kaylor Phillips.

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  15. In agreement with everyone here -- I love Kaylor!

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  16. I like Kaylor a lot too. As a Jennifer, I've always envied unusual names.

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  17. Kaylor Phillips does have that popular girl in high school sort of ring to it. I've always figured that if I had to do a pseudonym I would simply shorten my first and last name by taking away the first and last letters so that it would become Liss Ross.

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  18. Kaylor Phillips does have a nice ring to it. More so than what I would use, Joe Bob Gristleneck.

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  19. If you don't use Kaylor for your name, how about one of your characters.

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