Long Names

My pen name (Nom de Plume) is Kay Hemlock Brown.  I'm comfortable with it, because, well, basically both Kay and Brown are short, single-syllable names.

Of course, the whole thing is a fiction, which you ought to know.  When I was ready to self- publish the first story (the second part of Jane,) I decided to use a pen-name, just so I wouldn't be identified by my students.  (Luckily, they don't read anything, let alone sapphic romance, so I'm safe.  They didn't even read the syllabus, or even the questions on their exams!!)

Well, I'm noticing that authors of fantasy fiction are increasingly giving their heroines long, multiple names.  I don't get out much; I actually never did, so I don't have my ear to the ground.  It must mean something that they're doing this; it can't be a coincidence that an entire generation of authors—especially female ones—are giving their original characters (OC's, as they're called) long, fancy names.  The most recent one is Isabella Gabriella Angelina Aurora Renata Anastasia Fielding-Horne.

Her initials would be IGAARA F-H.  That's 26 syllables.  (Am I pronouncing the names correctly?)  In really big families, the mothers gave the infant names from many relatives, to make sure that the various namesake aunts would be favorably disposed towards the new family member.  Long names were selected to impress.  And hyphenated family names (like Fielding-Horne) to please two branches of the family; possibly the two parental lines.

My pen-name, in the nature of pen-names, wasn't chosen to please anybody.  In fact, Brown was chosen because of its very dullness, and Kay because you couldn't deduce anything from it.  (Did you know why Max Eastman chose to name his photographic process Kodak?  It was because he liked the letter k!! No better reason, in my book.)

Jane was chosen also for its simplicity or dullness, Maia was an abbreviation of Mayaserana, which was supposed to be the name of a princess.  So was Helen borrowed from the name of a princess.  Many girl- children were given names from princesses; we can assume that numerous little girls born in the fifties decade were given the name  Elizabeth, because people the world over loved Princess Elizabeth, and later, Queen Elizabeth.

Well, off I go to continue reading my story.

K