Showing posts with label name. Show all posts
Showing posts with label name. Show all posts

Friday, March 25, 2011

What's in a name?

As a non-English language person (yes, I am from Romania - you might have heard of it since it's inside Transylvania - that's not even true!), it's hard to write English fiction under your real name - hard, not impossible. Mainly because people can't pronounce it. And sometimes can't even read it. Especially when it contains letters like ş, ţ, ă, î or â - how many people know how to read those?

Take my name for example:

My first name is Ioana - how would you pronounce it? Probably along the lines of I-wanna. Not too bad, but it's actually E - wanna. :)

My middle name is Ştefana - there's already a problem there since it has an evil ş in there. ş is basically sh - but that doesn't work the problem of pronunciation out, does it? It's reads something like: Shteh-pha-nah.

My last name is Pristavu - I can't teach anyone how to pronounce this in writing (something like Pri-stah-voo).

And even so, there's the accent of the syllables, and the the fact that I can't actually spell my name like that on the cover of a book. Therefore, a pen name is in order.
As you all know, Stephanie Jones was my first choice - but I came up with it when I was 10. See a problem here? Plus, it's very common - and if I'm going to be a writer, I want an uncommon name, so that people can recognize me.

And here's how mature I usually am 
  My reasoning when choosing my name was simple (simple ten-year-old logic): it's not my real name, so let's use that middle name no one calls me by - so, I'm Stephanie (and I really don't mind - I've been called Steph face to face and it worked great. I actually   answer to it if I'm called:))
Jones was a combination of my first name - which translates as Johanna and the fact that my last name, even at home, is distinctive  - and I wanted a non-distinctive one. So, Jones it was.

 Meanwhile, I grew up (yes, it unfortunately happens to the best of  us) and it suddenly dawned to me that it's not working (since I  share the name with a photographer, other authors and miss teen  USA).


Change, change, change


And I came up with this:

I'm keeping Stephanie - I grew too fond of it over the years and I like the sound of it. Plus, it really is my name :) Though, I consider spelling is Stefanie.(make it even more standing out)

Jones will turn into Johanna which will turn into Jo which will turn into a J (I actually like the middle letter there :) Plus, I've been told I have a thing for the letter J)

And here comes the huge change - I'm putting my family name there - well, not the real one, but one pretty close to it anyway. So Pristavu = Pristty

My first choice was Pritty, but I think I like it with the S there as well - closer to the real thing. Plus, you can find Pritty as a case against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights.

So, here are my two/four choices:

Stephanie J Pristty    vs   Stephanie J Pritty

Stefanie J Pristty       vs   Stefanie J Pritty

Or, of course, I could always go for S. J. Pritty/Pristty - but I'd rather have my full first name there (so that people would know I'm not a dude:p)

What do you guys think? Which works best for you/looks nicer on paper/are more likely to remember? I'll take your votes to heart, and it might even influence my decision.

For the last time, I sign myself as Stephanie Jones :)