File:William_Sydney_Porter.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
pen name
Sign in to saveAlso known as pseudonym, nom de plume, literary double, literary pseudonym
pseudonym adopted by an author (or a group of authors) and printed on the title page in place of their real name
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
William Sydney Porter, known widely by his pen name O. Henry or Olivier Henry, in 1909 A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise the author's gender, to distance the author from their other works, to protect the author from retribution for their writings, to merge multiple persons into a single identifiable author, or for any of several reasons related to the marketing or aesthetic presentation of the work.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “pen name” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.