Sometimes those of us who love to write don't really have a name to conjure with. Is this a big handicap? This story from The Guardian written by a writer with the improbable surname of Scruton, really is fun. Do read.
Wish I had a surname like Eugenides. It has such a learned weight to it. (Socrates, Plato, Eugenides.)
Love too the exotic sound of Hijuelos, Ondaatje and Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
And I just have to read Jonathan Safran Foer, with a name like that I don't think much can hold him back.
I've toyed with the idea of a nom-de-plume, but discarded it because I can't bear not to be me and known as me, even in the blogosphere.
Sadly, most people can't seem to get their head around my adopted surname. To most Malaysians I'm Sharon Baker, because I have to have a Mat Salleh name, isn't it? Then many Mat Salleh's give my surname an exotic twist by stressing the second syllable and not the first, which turns me into someone else entirely. My husband is anyway thinking of Anglicizing his name to Ashburn.
But if you feel like changing your name, or acquiring some new ones for your characters, try out this and this.
Let me know the best new names you come up with.
9 comments:
Now are names and handles important?
'What is your name, each of you?' My name is nameless. I have no name.
You give yourselves names, because you believe they are important.
Understand, your existence is nameless. It is NOT voiceless, but it is nameless. The names you take are structures upon which you hang your images . . . What you are cannot be uttered, and no letter or alphabet can contain it.
Yet, now you need words and letters,
and names and objects. You want magic that will tell you what you are.
I have had TOO many identities to cling to ONE name
Gosh. Thanks (sincerely!)for the food for thought.
Just wondering though, if we were all nameless, how would anyone find our books in the bookshops?
Naming oneself is part of knowing oneself. It's part of one's identity. It's also self-determination and ownership. When someone names you, they are telling you who you are, and for many, that will not do. That's why some have been known to legally change their names to something they, and not someone else, have chosen for themselves.
BTW, I also like my given name, but as of now, am not sure if I want to be published with my full Chinese name or the shortened Anglicised version. Like as if I'm ever gonna be published.
Like as if I'm ever gonna be published.
Can see I'm going to have to come and slap you around the head, Chet.
the actor Laurence Fishburne, in Malaysia, would be known as "Laurence Ikan Bakar".
In London, I have been called several names, one of them is Mrs Wrong, Mrs When, Mrs Van...
...whatever it is, doesnt look good on cover of a book! :)
Visitor - I am never going to be a ble to look at Fishburn in the same way after that!
Poor Kak Teh!
Very interesting.
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