Nommes de Plume
If someone gives you any of these at a bar, they're probably trying to get rid of you.
In Word Ways #6.2 (1973), Dmitri Borgmann did a piece called “Shrinking Violets,” quizzing readers on the pseudonyms of female authors. I figured it was time for an update! The list below has three names in common with Borgmann’s, two of which share a slot, but it’s otherwise new.
A few pseudonyms are shared by multiple authors. Jane Austen went by the pen name “A Lady,” and inspired Hannah Pickard and Sally Wood to do the same. (Both were early American writers; Wood was a pioneer in gothic fiction and the first novelist from Maine.) “Alan Smithee” is a frequent pen name for directors and screenwriters, mostly male, but not necessarily so.
Female authors adopt pseudonyms for a variety of reasons. Some have “dressed in drag” when they’ve marketed work more associated with male writers: some have been open about their femininity but still kept themselves anonymous.
My friend and longtime collaborator Gisèle Lagacé once considered the pseudonym “Darling!” for her work with Shouri on the series Sticky Dilly Buns. I persuaded her it wouldn’t make much sense, since she’d used her real name (and signature art style) to render its star characters in another series.
I don’t have time to cover these authors in depth, but follow the links if you want to explore!
A.M. Barnard (also E./I. H. Gould) - Louisa May Alcott
Abigail Van Buren - Pauline Philips (now Jeanne Philips)
Acton, Currer, Ellis Bell - Anne, Charlotte, Emily Brontë
Agatha Christie - Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
Ana Paula Arendt - R.P. Alencar
Ann Landers - Ruth Crowley, then Esther Lederer
Anne Rice - Howard Allen O’Brien. Rice is almost unique in that her birth name sounds more like a man’s!
Claire Brunne - Caroline Marbouty
Claire Morgan - Patricia Highsmith
Cotton Mather Mills - Elizabeth Gaskell
Diablo Cody - Brook Maurio
E.L. James - Erika Mitchell
Feminista Jones - Michelle Taylor
George Eliot - Mary Ann Evans
George Sand - Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil
H.D. - Hilda Doolittle
Isak Dinesen (also Pierre Andrézel) - Karen Blixen
M.E. Kerr - Marijane Meaker
Murray Constantine - Katharine Burdekin
Nellie Bly - Elizabeth Jane Cochran
Nils Sjöberg - Taylor Swift
Rob Thurman - Robyn Thurman. Kind of a borderline case since she only shortened her name (and goes by “Rob” to family and friends), but she still admitted she chose to use a male-sounding name to help her sell.
Robert Galbraith - J.K. Rowling. “J.K.” could also be considered a half-pseudonym, chose when Joanne Rowling was worried boys wouldn’t read fantasy written by a woman. Seemed to work out.
Tarpé Mills - June Tarpé Mills
Vernon Lee - Violet Paget
If you want more, Wikipedia currently lists 1,218.
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In response to the piece on pair isograms, Tyler M writes, “M-W and OED both contain the word CONTRAVINDICATE, a legal term meaning to make a counter-claim. If a lawyer has performed this action excessively, might it be said that he has OVERCONTRAVINDICATED?”
This does have potential to be a twenty-letter pair isogram, beating the previous record! I can also picture myself using it without much effort!
True story: I did jury duty on the trial of a small-time counterfeiter. The case was pretty open and shut—they had photos of counterfeiting equipment in his house—but his lawyer didn’t help. She kept acting like every little assertion the opposing counsel made was so unbelievable, reacting to the simplest evidence as if it were a travesty of justice. She might’ve thought she was launching a Trump-style attack on our very ability to care about what was true and false, but she really came across like a spoiled child being given a firm no for the first time. She overcontravindicated, for sure.
Next: Micross time!