Pen name

A pen name or nom de plume is a pseudonym adopted by an author. Nom de plume is a French-language expression.

Famous pen names

• Cecil Adams (author of The Straight Dope column—real name unknown)
• Guillaume Apollinaire (Guillaume Albert Vladimir Apollinaire de Kostrowitzky), 20th century French poet, writer, and art critic
• Tudor Arghezi (Ion N. Theodorescu), 20th century Romanian poet and children's author
• Richard Bachman (Stephen King) 20th century horror author
• W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings), 20th century diarist
• 'BB' (Denys Watkins-Pitchford), 20th century illustrator and children's book author
• Beachcomber (D.B. Wyndham-Lewis and John Bingham Morton), used for the surrealist humorous column "By the Way" in the Daily Express
• Acton Bell, Currer Bell, and Ellis Bell (Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë)
• Nicolas Bourbaki (a group of mainly French 20th-century mathematicians)
• Kir Bulychev (??? ???????) Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheyko (?????? ????????????? ????????), 20th century Russian science fiction writer and historian
• Anthony Burgess (John Burgess Wilson), 20th century British writer
• Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), 19th century British author, mathematician, Anglican clergyman, logician, and amateur photographer, writer of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
• Cassandra (William Connor), 20th century left-wing journalist for The Daily Mirror
• Sue Denim (Dav Pilkey), writer and illustrator of the popular "Captain Underpants" children's book series (Sue Denim is a parody of the word pseudonym); also used by science fiction writer Lewis Shiner
• Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr), 20th century author of detective stories
• Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), 20th century Danish author of "Out of Africa"
• H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), 20th century American imagist poet, novelist and memoirist
• George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 19th century English novelist
• Paul Eluard (Eugène Grindel) 20th century French Dada and Surrealist poet
• C. S. Forester (Cecil Smith), 20th century writer of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels, "The African Queen". and other novels
• Anatole France (Jacques Anatole François Thibault), 20th century French author
• Pat Frank (Harry Hart Frank), 20th century author of the apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon
• Nicci French (Nicci Gerard and Sean French)
• Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Beatrice Malleson), British author of the Arthur Crook crime fiction novels
• K. Hardesh (Clement Greenberg), 20th century American art critic
• O. Henry (William Sidney Porter), American author of short stories and novels
• Hergé (Georges Remi), 20th century Belgian comics writer and artist, famous worldwide for creating the Tintin series of books
• Iceberg Slim Robert Beck, an African American writer.
• Jinyong or Kam-yung (Louis Cha), 20th century Chinese-language novelist
• Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney, Jr.), the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series.
• Ann Landers (Esther Pauline Friedman), advice columnist
• Stan Lee (Stanley Martin Lieber), comic book pioneer
• Maddox (George Ouzounian), The Best Page in the Universe
• Mao Dun (Shen Dehong), 20th century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and journalist
• Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), Dutch writer famous for his satirical novel, Max Havelaar (1860)
• Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins), 20th century science fiction author
• Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), 17th century French theatre writer, director and actor, and writer of comic satire.
• Natsume S?seki (Natsume Kinnosuke), early 20th century Japanese novelist
• Gérard de Nerval (Gérard Labrunie), 19th century French poet, essayist and translator
• Pablo Neruda (Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto) 20th century Chilean poet. Nobel laureate.
• Abu Nuwas (Hasin ibn Hani al Hakami) 8th century Arabic language poet (Persia)
• George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), 20th century British author and essayist
• Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée), 19th century English novelist
• William Penn (Jeremiah Evarts), 19th century activist against Indian removal
• Q (Arthur Quiller-Couch), late 19th and early 20th century British author, poet, and literary critic
• Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee), 20th century detective fiction
• Pauline Réage (Anne Desclos), 20th century French author and critic who wrote Histoire d'O
• Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), early 20th century Australian author
• Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), early 20th century British satirist
• George Sand (Armandine Lucie Aurore Dupin), 19th century French novelist and early feminist
• Sayeh (??. ?. ????) Hushang Ebtehaj, 20th century Iranian poet (????? ??????)
• Dr. Seuss (Theodore Seuss Geisel), also used "Theo. LeSieg", 20th century American writer and cartoonist best known for his of children's books
• Shahriar (??????) Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Behjat-Tabrizi (Persian: ??? ???????? ???? ??????), an Iranian poet, writing in Persian and Azerbaijani
• Cordwainer Smith (Paul M. A. Linebarger), 20th century science fiction author
• Lemony Snicket (author of A Series of Unfortunate Events—Daniel Handler)
• Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle),19th century French writer
• Max Stirner (Johann Kaspar Schmidt), 19th century German philosopher
• James Tiptree, Jr (Alice Sheldon), 20th century science fiction author
• Toegye (Yi Hwang), 16th century Korean Confucian scholar
• Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins) 20th century editorial cartoonist
• Lazlo Toth (Don Novello), using name taken from that of a deranged man who vandalized Michelangelo's Pieta in Rome, the pen name was used for the satiric "The Lazlo Letters" and other books
• Trevanian (Dr. Rodney Whitaker), 20th century American spy novelist
• Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorn Clemens, also used "Sieur Louis de Conte" for his fictional biography of Joan of Arc), 19th century American humorist, writer and lecturer
• Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby - Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips), advice columnist
• Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 18th century French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher
• Wang Shiwei ??? (Wang Sidao ???), 20th century Chinese journalist and literary writer
• Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne), 19th century American humor writer
• Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox) http://www.wonkette.com, political gossip weblog writer
• Hajime Yatate (Various Sunrise animation staff members)
• Yulgok (Yi I), 16th century Korean Confucian scholar