Did you know that you can blog anonymously? You totally can! Even I do it!
Yep, that’s right! Raven Lee Gracey isn’t my given name, it’s just the name I use publicly in my writing. It’s my nom de plume, my pseudonym, my assumed name.
What is a Pen Name?
A pen name is a name that one chooses to go by that isn’t their legally given name. In a way, it’s like a “professional nickname”.
Pen names are mostly used in the world of literature, but are also common in the entertainment industry.
Why would someone use a pen name?
Usually, the answer to this is simple: privacy.
Most of the time, a pen name is used to hide the person behind it. It’s not the same as a name change you would get from the Witness Protection Program or something, it is just a way to disconnect your business or art from your legal identification. For example; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a very private man. He didn’t want his private life connected to anything in the public, so he chose to use a pen name when he published his novels under the pseudonym, Lewis Carroll.
Another reason for using a pen name could be because you have a very common name, such as John Smith, or a highly unusual or hard-to-spell and pronounce name, like Nikolina Konstantinova Dobreva, which is Nina Dobrev’s given name. Or maybe your parents were huge Stephen King fans whose last names also happened to be King when they decided to name you Steven.
Are pen names legal to use?
Yes! Technically, anyone can use a pen name without issue. However, if you want to be able to open a bank account or receive payments in your pen name, you will need to file a DBA, or Doing Business As, form with your local government office so that it can be recognized legally.
So, why do I use a pen name?
Privacy. No, I’m not trying to hide, exactly, but I do want to maintain some level of privacy.
A blog is a very personal thing. Yes, you don’t blog for yourself, instead blogging for your readers, at least if you want to be successful. Still, I know that a lot of me is going into each post. All of you get to see my personality, you read about my life and my experiences, and you are privy to personal information about my children. That doesn’t mean I want to be easily searchable on the internet.
I don’t want my children plastered all over social media. I don’t want you to have such a deep understanding of my life that you could easily track me down in person. I don’t even like having my photo made public, which is why I currently show pictures of my family and me only from behind or that have been created using AI and based on actual photos. I’m totally fine sharing caricatures of my family and me, but I’m not comfortable with publicly posting photos of us. Maybe that will change in the future, maybe not. But that is how I feel for now.
I know that it’s possible that an internet sleuth could find me with enough searching, but most people aren’t that bored. I see my pen name similar to a deadbolt lock on your front door. It won’t stop someone really determined, but it will act as a deterrent for someone, hopefully, enough to grant me a bit of privacy.
How did I decide on my pen name?
In an ideal world, my given name would be Raven Lee. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my legal name, it was given to me by my beloved grandfather, after all. I’ve just never felt connected to it. I look in the mirror and yeah, it fits, it suits me, but I’ve never felt it in my heart and soul. I’ve cycled through dozens of nicknames throughout my life, but Raven is the one I’ve come back to over and over.
Raven has been a nickname of mine since I was about 4 years old. There was a time I shied away from using it because it was too “dark” and I cared too much about what my friends thought about me. Bunny and Pixie were more “appropriate” names for who I was during that time. Or at least, they more closely matched the mask I wore during those years.
If I thought that I could actually get my family to use it, and get my husband on board with me doing so (he doesn’t feel that Raven is “professional” sounding enough for a given name), I would legally change my name to Raven in a heartbeat. In doing so, I would adopt Lee as my new middle name, a tribute to my grandfather as it was his middle name as well.
As for my adopted last name, Gracey, its purpose is also privacy. My husband has a ridiculously common last name. His first name is Jason, which just makes it all the worse. There are 896 people with his first and last name in Texas alone. Meanwhile, there are 111 people in Texas with my legal first and last name. You would think that it would be easier to hide behind such common names, but it’s really not. Not when you put yourself out there on the internet.
Gracey was chosen simply because I liked it. I’m a huge fan of The Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, and Edward Gracey is a character in the ride. I originally didn’t plan on having a last name for my pen name, and thought to just use Raven as my name everywhere, but thinking about it more, I realized I needed a full name.
I do want to eventually publish a novel (I’ve written 14 of them that are gathering dust as drafts because I’m too self-consensus to let people read them), and at some point within the blog, I’m sure I will need a last name as well. Raven Graves was too dark, and Raven Darcy was too obvious considering my love of Pride and Prejudice, but Raven Gracey worked. It fit! Thankfully, it also wasn’t used by anyone famous or well-known, so there wouldn’t be any complications like there was the last time I tried to use a pen name just to learn it was taken by an adult film star. Whoops.
I don’t use my family’s real names either. As far as the blog goes, we are the Gracey family. I use my husband’s legal first name, Jason, but only because it’s so common. Jason was the third most popular boy’s name the year he was born. Growing up, he says there wasn’t a single class in school where he didn’t have at least 2-6 other “Jasons” there with him. As for my children, I just chose two names from my old list of possible baby names and connected each name with the child who had the same number of letters in their given name. I figured that way, it would be easy enough to remember, but also because the top five names for their birth years were the same names in different orders and I have relatives or close friends with four of those names. So my kids are Sage and Willow. I originally considered using their middle names, but Jason wasn’t comfortable with that, so I had to go with something completely different for them. It works out for me though, so I like it.
So I am Raven Gracey. Yes, it’s a fake last name, but the first name is real. It’s used commonly. It’s me. I introduce myself as Raven to people I meet, even if I am open about it being a nickname in my personal life. It’s a perfect compromise for us; I get to maintain a sense of privacy, while you, my dear reader, still get to know me, even when you don’t know my legal name.
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