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Here's another one (which I can't take credit for, since I came across it in a Star Trek fanfiction): Haywood Jablome. Oh, and there was a boy at my high school named Guy Doer. His brother's name is Gnome. Phil Ahtio could also work.

When the day comes that what I'm working on gets published (I say 'when' and not 'if' because I don't care how long it takes, I'm going to get published!) I'll be using a pen name. I came up with it a couple of years ago and fell in love with it, and I've been using it as my online name for ages now.

Aside from the fact that I've always thought pen names were awesome, I wouldn't want to use my real name for two reasons that have already been mentioned by other people. 1) It doesn't sound right to me when I imagine it on the cover of a book, and 2) I'm not that huge a fan of it anyway.

The only issue I'm even the slightest bit worried about is the fact that it's the same name as one of the characters in the story I'm writing. I chose the name for the character before I decided I liked it enough to use it myself, but I wouldn't want people thinking that I was trying to do a self-insert or anything. But I'll leave that thought on the back burner.

My real name is unpronouncable to foreigners, so I'll need an English name. A gender-neutral one, so either with some initials or a neutral first name.

I could loosely translate my name as Felicity German, but man, it sounds silly. mrgreen


Do you think people buy books better if they think the writer is male? Or could I use a female name? If female, it will be Isabel-something.

hmm... I have a few pen names I wouldn't mind using...
Ame Eddy for a chance,the first letter or my first middle and last name... but still very similar to mine... but I'd only do that if I published well still in school... You know how much crap, good or bad you would get from people...

It depends. J.K. Rowling used her initials (well...the K is for her grandmother, since she has no middle name) so Harry Potter would have a higher chance of being read by male readers. I find a lot of female authors tend to use their names in the "female" genres like romance and fantasy, but adopt gender-neutral or male pen names for genres that are more "male" oriented.

But, as I said, it depends, as female authors have had success with their real names in "male" genres. I think that is a call you need to make with an editor.

My dream is to be one of those crazy authors who publishes multiple books a year. Most publishing companies will only sell one book per author a year so a lot of authors write under multiple pen names.

I was always told that my name would look great in print because both my first and last name starts with K. Plus I have a pretty epic last name. Someone once told my brother (he's a comedian) that his real name sounds like a stage name.

A nice penname option would be Ann Fitzgerald, which are really important family names to my families. Mine, my mother's middle name is Ann, my paternal grandmother's name was Anne, my father and brother's middle name is Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald was the last name of one of my father's grandmother or something. So they are both very meaningful to me.

Another penname option for me (which I would probably use for humor) is Krystal Claire Knight.

I suppose since my main priority is sci-fi I should use my real name for that. But sci-fi is a male genre, so idk. I can't really think of any male penname, but I might use my first initial and last name, that might look good.