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A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name of the work. The author's name may be known only to the publisher, or may come to be common knowledge.

Western literature[link]

An author may use a pen name if his or her real name is likely to be confused with that of another author or notable individual. Some authors who regularly write in more than one genre use different pen names for each. Romance writer Nora Roberts writes erotic thrillers under the pen name J.D. Robb, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens used the aliases "Mark Twain" and "Sieur Louis de Conte" for different works. Similarly, an author who writes both fiction and non-fiction (such as the mathematician and fantasy writer Charles Dodgson, who wrote as Lewis Carroll) may use a pseudonym for fiction writing. Science fiction author Harry Turtledove has used the name H.N. Turtletaub for a number of historical novels he has written because he and his publisher felt that the presumed lower sales of those novels might hurt book store orders for the novels he writes under his own name.

Occasionally a pen name is employed to avoid overexposure. Prolific authors for pulp magazines often had two and sometimes three short stories appearing in one issue of a magazine; the editor would create several fictitious author names to hide this from readers. Robert A. Heinlein wrote stories under pseudonyms so that more of his works could be published in a single magazine. Stephen King published four novels under the name Richard Bachman because publishers didn't feel the public would buy more than one novel per year from a single author.^[1] Eventually, after critics found a large number of style similarities, publishers revealed Bachman's true identity.

Sometimes a pen name is used because an author believes that his name does not suit the genre he is writing in. Western novelist Pearl Gray dropped his first name and changed the spelling of his last name to become Zane Grey, because he believed that his real name did not suit the Western genre. Romance novelist Angela Knight writes under that name instead of her actual name (Julie Woodcock) because of the double entendre of her surname in the context of that genre.

Edward Gorey had dozens of pseudonyms, apparently for his own amusement, each one an anagram of his real name.

A pen name may be shared by different writers in order to suggest continuity of authorship. Thus the Bessie Bunter series of English boarding-school stories, initially written by the prolific Charles Hamilton under the name Hilda Richards, was taken on by other authors who continued to use the same pen-name.

C. S. Lewis used two different pseudonyms for different reasons. He published a collection of poems (Spirits in Bondage) and a narrative poem (Dymer) under the pen name "Clive Hamilton", to avoid harming his reputation as a don at Oxford University. His book entitled A Grief Observed, which describes his experience of bereavement, was originally released under the pseudonym "N. W. Clerk"

Essayist and poet Eric Blair adopted the pseudonym George Orwell for most of his books, including Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. This was done because he felt himself to be insufficiently established in his writing career to publish under his real name.

In some forms of fiction, the pen name adopted is the name of the lead character, to suggest to the reader that the book is a (fictional) autobiography. Daniel Handler used the pseudonym Lemony Snicket to present his A Series of Unfortunate Events books as memoirs by an acquaintance of the main characters.

Legendary comic book writer Stan Lee was born Stanley Lieber. He adopted the pen name Stan Lee because he intended to save his real name for more literary products than comic books. However, Lee's hoped for novelistic career never materialized and after he became arguably the most important comic book creator in history he changed his name legally to Stan Lee.

Some, however, do this to fit a certain theme. One famous example, Pseudonymous Bosch, used his pen name just to expand the theme of secrecy in The Secret Series.

Female authors[link]

Some female authors have used pen names to ensure that their works were accepted by publishers and/or the public. Such is the case of Peru's famous Clarinda, whose work was published in the early 17th century. More often, women have adopted masculine pen names. This was common in the 19th century, when women were beginning to make inroads into literature but, it was felt, would not be taken as seriously by readers as male authors. Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Eliot, and Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant, used the pseudonym George Sand. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë published under the names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell respectively. French-Savoyard writer and poet Amélie Gex chose to publish as Dian de Jeânna ("John, son of Jane") during the first half of her career. Karen Blixen's very successful Out of Africa was originally published under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Victoria Benedictsson, one of the most famous Swedish authors of the 19th century, wrote under the name Ernst Ahlgren.

More recently, women who write in genres normally written by men sometimes choose to use initials or a neutral pen name, such as D. C. Fontana, J. K. Rowling, J.D. Robb, K. A. Applegate, and S. E. Hinton. Author Robin Hobb chose that unisex pen name when she set out to write a fantasy trilogy featuring a male leading character. An example of the opposite situation is Ian Fleming's experimental James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me, which is written in the first person from the perspective of the female protagonist, Vivienne Michel, and purports to be written by her and merely presented by Fleming who 'found' the manuscript. Even at the time of the publication the reality of the situation was not clear, however.

Collective names[link]

A collective name, also known as a house name, is sometimes used with series fiction published under one pen name even though more than one author may have contributed to the series. In some cases the first books in the series were written by one writer, but subsequent books were written by ghost writers. For instance, many of the later books in The Saint adventure series were not written by Leslie Charteris, the originator of the series. Similarly, Nancy Drew mystery books are published as though they were written by Carolyn Keene, The Hardy Boys books are published as the work of Franklin W. Dixon, and The Bobbsey Twins series are credited to Laura Lee Hope, although several authors have been involved in each series.

Collaborative authors may have also their works published under a single pen name. Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee published their mystery novels and stories under the pen name Ellery Queen (as well as publishing the work of ghost-writers under the same name). Cherith Baldry, Kate Cary, and Victoria Holmes wrote the Warriors series under the pseudonym of Erin Hunter to keep their readers from searching all over the library for their books. The writers of Atlanta Nights, a deliberately bad book intended to embarrass the publishing firm PublishAmerica, used the pen name Travis Tea. Sometimes multiple authors will write related books under the same pseudonym; examples include T. H. Lain in fiction.

Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for utmost rigour and generality, creating some new terminology and concepts along the way.

In 2007 three Slovenian artists legally changed their names to Janez Janša, the Slovenia’s economic-liberal, conservative prime minister at the time. When publicly asked whether this gesture was of an affirmative or subversive nature, they claimed they did it for "personal reasons". Most of their works, including art exhibitions, theatrical pieces, and publications, have since been signed under this name.

Kozma Prutkov is an example of collective pen name in Russian literature.

Concealment of identity[link]

A pseudonym may be used to protect the writer for exposé books about espionage or crime. Former SAS soldier Andy McNab used a pseudonym for his book about a failed SAS mission titled Bravo Two Zero. The name Ibn Warraq has been used by dissident Muslim authors. Author Brian O'Nolan used the pen names Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen for his novels and journalistic writing from the 1940s to the 1960s because Irish civil servants were not allowed at that time to publish works under their own names. The identity of the enigmatic twentieth century novelist B. Traven has never been conclusively revealed, in spite of thorough research.

The Histoire d'O (The Story of O), an erotic novel of sadomasochism and sexual slavery, was written by an editorial secretary with a reputation of near-prudery who used the pseudonym Pauline Réage.

Alice Bradley Sheldon had a multiplicity of reasons to write under the pen name of James Tiptree, Jr.: she was a woman writing in the heavily male-dominated genre of science fiction; she was a bisexual woman who may have wanted to avoid the inherent biases of her readers; and she was a career intelligence officer, first in the Army Air Corps and then in the early years of the CIA, for whom concealment was a way of life.

Eastern cultures[link]

Persian and Urdu poetry[link]

Note: List of Urdu language poets provides pen names for a range of Urdu poets.

A shâ'er (arabic for poet) (a poet who writes she'rs in Urdu or Persian) almost always has a takhallus, a pen name, traditionally placed at the end of the name (often marked by a peculiar graphical sign placed above it) when referring to the poet by his full name. For example Hafez is a pen-name for Shams al-Din, and thus the usual way to refer to him would be Shams al-Din Hafez or just Hafez. Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (his official name and title) is referred to as Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, or just Mirza Ghalib.

India[link]

In Indian Languages, writers put it at the end of their names, like Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'. Sometimes they also write under their pen name without their actual name like Firaq Gorakhpuri.

In early Indian literature, we find authors shying away from using any name considering it to be egotistical. Due to this notion, even today it is hard to trace the authorship of many earlier literary works from India. Later, we find that the writers adopted the practice of using the name of their deity of worship or Guru's name as their pen name. In this case, typically the pen name would be included at the end of the prose or poetry.

Composers of Indian classical music used pen names in compositions to assert authorship, including Sadarang, Gunarang (Faiyaz Khan), and Ramrang (Ramashreya Jha). Other compositions are apocryphally ascribed to composers with their pen names.

Japan[link]

Japanese poets who write haiku often use a haigō (俳号) or pen name. The famous haiku poet Matsuo Bashō had used two other haigō before he became fond of a banana plant (bashō) that had been given to him by a disciple and started using it as his pen name at the age of 36.

Similar to a pen name, Japanese artists usually have a gō or art-name, which might change a number of times during their career. In some cases, artists adopted different gō at different stages of their career, usually to mark significant changes in their life. One of the most extreme examples of this is Hokusai, who in the period 1798 to 1806 alone used no fewer than six. Manga artist Ogure Ito uses the pen name 'Oh! great' because his real name Ogure Ito is roughly how the Japanese pronounce "oh great".

Etymology[link]

Look up nom de plume in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Despite the use of French words in the phrase nom de plume, the term did not originate in France. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, in The King's English^[2] state that the term nom de plume "evolved" in Britain, where people wanting a "literary" phrase, failed to understand the term nom de guerre, which already existed in French. Since guerre means war in French, nom de guerre did not make sense to the British, who did not understand the French metaphor. The term was later exported to France (H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage). See French-language expression, although amongst French speakers pseudonyme is much more common.

See also[link]

• Art-name
• Chinese courtesy name
• Ghostwriter
• List of pen names
• List of pseudonyms
• Nom de guerre
• Pseudepigraphy
• Ring name - the equivalent concept among professional wrestlers.
• Stage name - the equivalent concept among performers.
• Raoul Duke

References and further reading[link]

• Room, Adrian (editor). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 11,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins. McFarland, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1658-0

External links[link]

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• Pen Names
• How to Choose a Pen Name
• The King's English, H. W. Fowler & F. G. Fowler

A ballpoint pen

A pen (Latin penna, feather) is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used in ancient period, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but technical pens such as the Rapidograph are more commonly used. Modern types also include ballpoint, rollerball, fountain, and felt or ceramic tip pens.

Modern pens[link]

The main modern types of pens can be categorized by the kind of writing tip or point:

A mark made on paper with a rollerball pen, and the tip of that pen

• A ballpoint pen dispenses viscous oil-based ink by rolling a small hard sphere, usually 0.7–1.2 mm and made of brass, steel or tungsten carbide.^[1] The ink dries almost immediately on contact with paper. The ballpoint pen is usually reliable and inexpensive.^{[citation needed]} It has replaced the fountain pen as the most common tool for everyday writing.
• A crowquill pen is a favorite instrument of artists, such as David Stone Martin and Jay Lynch, because its flexible metal point can create a variety of delicate lines, textures and tones with slight pressures while drawing.
• A fountain pen uses water-based liquid ink delivered through a nib. The ink flows from a reservoir through a "feed" to the nib, then through the nib, due to capillary action and gravity. The nib has no moving parts and delivers ink through a thin slit to the writing surface. A fountain pen reservoir can be refillable or disposable, this disposable type being an ink cartridge. A pen with a refillable reservoir may have a mechanism, such as a piston, to draw ink from a bottle through the nib, or it may require refilling with an eyedropper. Refill reservoirs, also known as cartridge converters, are available for some pens to use disposable cartridges.

A fountain pen

• A marker, or felt-tip pen, has a porous tip of fibrous material. The smallest, finest-tipped markers are used for writing on paper. Medium-tip markers are often used by children for coloring. Larger markers are used for writing on other surfaces such as corrugated boxes, whiteboards and for chalkboards, often called "liquid chalk" or "chalkboard markers." Markers with wide tips and bright but transparent ink, called highlighters, are used to mark existing text. Markers designed for children or for temporary writing (as with a whiteboard or overhead projector) typically use non-permanent inks. Large markers used to label shipping cases or other packages are usually permanent markers.
• A rollerball pen dispenses a water-based liquid or gel ink through a ball tip similar to that of a ballpoint pen. The less-viscous ink is more easily absorbed by paper than oil-based ink, and the pen moves more easily across a writing surface. The rollerball pen was initially designed to combine the convenience of a ballpoint pen with the smooth "wet ink" effect of a fountain pen. Gel inks are available in a range of colors, including metallic paint colors and glitter effects.

Historic pens[link]

These historic types of pens are no longer in common use:

• A dip pen (or nib pen) consists of a metal nib with capillary channels, like that a fountain pen, mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. A dip pen usually has no ink reservoir and must be repeatedly recharged with ink while drawing or writing. The dip pen has certain advantages over a fountain pen. It can use waterproof pigmented (particle-and-binder-based) inks, such as so-called India ink, drawing ink, or acrylic inks, which would destroy a fountain pen by clogging, as well as the traditional iron gall ink, which can cause corrosion in a fountain pen. Dip pens are now mainly used in illustration, calligraphy, and comics.
• The ink brush is the traditional writing implement in East Asian calligraphy. The body of the brush can be made from either bamboo, or rarer materials such as red sandalwood, glass, ivory, silver, and gold. The head of the brush can be made from the hair (or feathers) of a wide variety of animals, including the weasel, rabbit, deer, chicken, duck, goat, pig, tiger, etc. There is also a tradition in both China and Japan of making a brush using the hair of a newborn, as a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir for the child. This practice is associated with the legend of an ancient Chinese scholar who scored first in the Imperial examinations by using such a personalized brush. Calligraphy brushes are widely considered an extension of the calligrapher's arm. Today, calligraphy may also be done using a pen, but pen calligraphy does not enjoy the same prestige as traditional brush calligraphy.
• A quill is a pen made from a flight feather of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used as instruments for writing with ink before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the ballpoint pen came into use. Quill pens were used in medieval times to write on parchment or paper. The quill eventually replaced the reed pen.
• A reed pen is cut from a reed or bamboo, with a slit in a narrow tip. Its mechanism is essentially similar to that of a quill. The reed pen has almost disappeared but it is still used by young school students in some parts of India and Pakistan, who learn to write with them on small timber boards known as "Takhti". Popular belief has it that writing with a reed pen improves handwriting.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

Ancient Indians were the first to use the pen. According to ancient text the earliest of pens made in India used bird feathers, bamboo sticks, etc. The old literature of Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharta used this kind of pen roughly 500 BC.^{[citation needed]} Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the Juncus maritimus or sea rush.^[2] In his book A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty or about 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages although they were slowly replaced by quills from about the 7th century. The reed pen, generally made from bamboo, is still used in some parts of Pakistan by young students and is used to write on small boards made of timber.^{[citation needed]}

The Quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to around 100 BC. The scrolls were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans had difficulty in obtaining reeds^{[citation needed]} and began to use quills. There is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century.^[3] Quill pens were still widely used in the 18th century, and were used to write and sign the Constitution of the United States in 1787.

A copper nib was found in the ruins of Pompei showing that metal nibs were used in the year 79.^[4] There is also a reference to 'a silver pen to carry ink in', in Samuel Pepys' diary for August 1663.^[5] 'New invented' metal pens are advertised in The Times in 1792. ^[6] A metal pen point was patented in 1803 but the patent was not commercially exploited. A patent for the manufacture of metal pens was advertised for sale by Bryan Donkin in 1811. ^[7] John Mitchell of Birmingham started to mass produce pens with metal nibs in 1822,^[8] and thereafter the quality of steel nibs had improved enough that dip pens with metal nibs came into generalized use.^[9]

M. Klein and Henry W. Wynne received US patent #68445 in 1867 for an ink chamber and delivery system in the handle of the fountain pen.

The earliest historical record of a pen employing a reservoir dates back to the 10th century. In 953, Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen which held ink in a reservoir and delivered it to the nib.^[10] This pen may have been a fountain pen, but its mechanism remains unknown, and only one record mentioning it has been found. A later reservoir pen was developed in 1636. In his Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae (1636), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described a pen made from two quills. One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill with cork. Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1809, Bartholomew Folsch received a patent in England for a pen with an ink reservoir.^[11]

While a student in Paris, Romanian Petrache Poenaru invented the fountain pen, which the French Government patented in May 1827. Fountain pen patents and production then increased in the 1850s, especially steel pens produced by John Mitchell.

Waterman pen and fountain pens made for Air France’s Concorde

The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on October 30, 1888, to John J Loud.^[12] In 1938, László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor, with the help of his brother George, a chemist, began to work on designing new types of pens including one with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Bíró filed a British patent on June 15, 1938. In 1940 the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, moved to Argentina fleeing Nazi Germany and on June 10, filed another patent, and formed Bíró Pens of Argentina. By the summer of 1943 the first commercial models were available.^[13] Erasable ballpoint pens were introduced by Papermate in 1979 when the Erasermate was put on the market.^[14]

Modern marker pens

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, a naturalized Croatian engineer and inventor of Polish-Dutch origin from the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in Austria-Hungary, became renowned for further development of the mechanical pencil (1906) – then called an "automatic pencil" – and the first solid-ink fountain pen (1907). Collaborating with an entrepreneur by the name of Edmund Moster, he started the Penkala-Moster Company and built a pen-and-pencil factory that was one of the biggest in the world at the time. This company, now called TOZ-Penkala, still exists today. "TOZ" stands for "Tvornica olovaka Zagreb", meaning "Zagreb Pencil Factory".

In the 1960s, the fibre or felt-tipped pen was invented by Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan.^[15] Papermate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the 1960s, and it has been the leader ever since. Marker pens and highlighters, both similar to felt pens have become popular in recent times.

Rollerball pens were introduced in the early 1970s. They make use of a mobile ball and liquid ink to produce a smoother line. Technological advances achieved during the late 1980s and early 1990s have improved the roller ball's overall performance. A porous point pen contains a point that is made of some porous material such as felt or ceramic. A high quality drafting pen will usually have a ceramic tip, since this wears well and does not broaden when pressure is applied while writing.

Although the invention of the typewriter and personal computer with the keyboard input method have changed how users write, the pen has not been entirely replaced.^[16] Higher end pens including types such as fountain pens are still a status symbol.^[17][18]

Manufacturers[link]

The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (November 2009)

United States[link]

Statistics on writing instruments (including pencils) from WIMA (the United States Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association) show that in 2005, retractable ball point pens were by far the most popular in the United States (26%), followed by standard ball point pens (14%). Other categories represented very small fractions (3% or less).^[19] There is however also a thriving industry in luxury pens, often fountain pens, sometimes priced at $1000 or more.^[20] Pens are also used as advertisements for business entrepreneurs. Companies use pens to advertise their company names to possible customers.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: pens

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pens

Look up pen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association

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Ceremonies, such as baptism, can be used to give names.

A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning also) and is a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes, more loosely, called names; an older term for them, now obsolete, is "general names".

The use of personal names is not unique to humans. Dolphins also use symbolic names, as has been shown by recent research.^[1] Individual dolphins have distinctive whistles, to which they will respond even when there is no other information to clarify which dolphin is being referred to.

Caution must be exercised when translating, for there are ways that one language may prefer one type of name over another. A feudal naming habit is used sometimes in other languages: the French sometimes refer to Aristotle as "le Stagirite" from one spelling of his place of birth, and English speakers often refer to Shakespeare as "The Bard", recognizing him as a paragon writer of the language. Finally, claims to preference or authority can be refuted: the British did not refer to Louis-Napoleon as Napoleon III during his rule.

Etymology[link]

The word "name" comes from Old English nama; akin to Old High German (OHG) and Sanskrit नामस् (naamas), Latin nomen, and Greek ὄνομα (onoma),^[2] possbly from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *nomn-.^[3]

In mythology[link]

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In Arthurian mythology, part of the code of honor and chivalry practiced by knights was that a knight who lost a duel must reveal his name to the victor. It was considered a breach of honor or decorum to reveal one's name before combat. A frequent topos in the legends is that a defeated knight would, after revealing his name, ask the victor what his name was: if the victor turned out to be a much stronger and more famous knight (e.g. one of Arthur's knights) the loser actually saved face, because he was beaten by a knight already held to be stronger than him, and thus there was no shame in defeat. However, if a strong and powerful knight was defeated, and the victor turned out to be a relatively unknown and not particularly strong knight, it was a grave humiliation.

As a result of this pattern, it was considered extremely odd within the rules of Arthurian society when a knight refused to take off his helmet or reveal his identity, even after he had won a duel. Sometimes this happened because the victorious knight simply did not know his own name, as was the case with Lancelot and Percival during their early careers. This inability to reveal their own names even in victory led many to assume incorrectly that they were trying to insult the vanquished.

A major exception to the rule was Sir Gawain: Gawain considered himself to be the greatest of his uncle Arthur's knights; he felt that his honor was so great that he did not need to hide his name before a duel. Thus at the opening of any duel Gawain would openly announce "I am Gawain", as he expected never to be defeated and so it would not diminish his honor to reveal his name.

In religious thought[link]

In the ancient world, particularly in the ancient near-east (Israel, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia) names were thought to be extremely powerful and to act, in some ways, as a separate manifestation of a person or deity.^[4] This viewpoint is responsible both for the reluctance to use the proper name of God in Hebrew writing or speech, as well as the common understanding in ancient magic that magical rituals had to be carried out "in [someone's] name". By invoking a god or spirit by name, one was thought to be able to summon that spirit's power for some kind of miracle or magic (see Luke 9:49, in which the disciples claim to have seen a man driving out demons using the name of Jesus.) This understanding passed into later religious tradition, for example the stipulation in Catholic exorcism that the demon cannot be expelled until the exorcist has forced it to give up its name, at which point the name may be used in a stern command which will drive the demon away.

Biblical names[link]

In the Old Testament, the names of individuals are meaningful; for example, Adam is named after the "earth" (Adamah) from which he was created. (Genesis 2)

A change of name indicates a change of status. For example, the patriarch Abram and his wife Sarai are renamed "Abraham" and "Sarah" when they are told they will be the father and mother of many nations (Genesis 17:4, 17:15). Simon was renamed Peter when he was given the Keys of Heaven. (Gospel of Matthew 16).

Throughout the Bible, characters are given names at birth that reflect something of significance or describe the course of their lives. For example: Solomon meant peace, and the king with that name was the first whose reign was without warfare. Likewise, Joseph named his firstborn son Manasseh (Hebrew: "causing to forget") as a gesture of forgiveness to his brothers for selling him into slavery.

Biblical Jewish people did not have surnames which were passed from generation to generation. However, they were typically known as the child of their father. For example: דוד בן ישי (David ben Yishay) meaning, David, son of Jesse. In a sense, they used their fathers' first names as their own last names, a practice done by most Muslims today. Similar to Jewish names, the "ben" is in place by "bin" or "ibn" for males, "binte", "binti" or "ibnu" for females to Muslims. Sometimes, names include "Al-", "Ali-", "-allah", "-lah/-llah" or "-ullah" as it means "a servant to God" or "God's servant". They would sometimes indicate the place they or their child live in.

Talmudic attitudes[link]

The Babylonian Talmud maintains that names exert a mystical influence over their bearers, and a change of name is one of four actions that can avert an evil heavenly decree, that would lead to punishment after one's death. Rabbinical commentators differ as to whether the name's influence is metaphysical, connecting a person to their soul, or bio-socio-psychological, where the connection affects his personality, appearance and social capacities. The Talmud also states that all those who descend to Gehenna will rise in the time of Messiah. However, there are three exceptions, one of which is he who calls another by a derisive nickname.

Technical names for names[link]

Naming convention[link]

For Wikipedia's own naming conventions see Wikipedia:Article titles

A naming convention is an attempt to systematize names in a field so they unambiguously convey similar information in a similar manner.

Several major naming conventions include:

• In astronomy, planetary nomenclature
• In classics, Roman naming conventions
• In computer programming, identifier naming conventions
• In computer networking, computer naming schemes
• In the sciences, systematic names for a variety of things

Naming conventions are useful in many aspects of everyday life, enabling the casual user to understand larger structures.

Street names within a city may follow a naming convention; some examples include:

• In Manhattan, roads that cross the island from east to west are called "Streets". Those that run the length of the island (North-South) are called "Avenues". Manhattan streets and avenues are numbered, with "1st Street" being near the southern end of the island, and "219th Street" being near the northern end, while "1st Avenue" is near the eastern edge of the island and "12th Avenue" near the western edge.
• In Ontario, numbered concession roads are East-West whereas "lines" are North-South routes.
• In San Francisco at least three series of parallel streets are alphabetically named, e.g. Irving, Judah, Kirkham, Lawton, Moraga, Noriega, Ortega, Pacheco, Quintara, Rivera, Santiago, Taraval, Ulloa, Vicente, Wawona.
• The same tendency is seen in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, where Arlington Street is followed by roads to the west running parallel to it and named Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, and Hereford.
• In Washington, DC, East Capitol Street runs east-west through the Capitol. East-west streets moving away from Capitol Street toward both the south (toward the Potomac River) and the north are lettered A, B, C,..., omitting J to avoid confusion on street signs and addresses, but after these are exhausted to the north, the streets are named with simple words in alphabetical order, omitting a few letters such as "x". The first cycle of names consists all of one-syllable words; then followed by a cycle of two-syllable words; then followed by a cycle of three-syllable words, and before these are exhausted, Maryland is reached. (Washington has north-south streets that are numbered, increasing to either side of North Capitol which likewise runs through the Capitol.) Suffixes (NE, SW, etc.) are used to distinguish between (up to four) duplicate addresses. For example 140 D Street SW, to indicate the 140 D Street location southwest of the Capitol
• In Montgomery, Alabama, the old major avenues are named for the Presidents of the United States, in their order of entering office, omitting John Quincy Adams. Hence, these streets are Washington Ave., Adams Ave., Jefferson Ave., Madison Ave., Monroe Ave., Jackson Ave., but not much farther than that. This was just the old plan from a long time ago, and it was eventually dropped. For example, there is not a Buchanan Ave., a Lincoln Ave., or a Johnson Ave.
• In Brampton, Ontario, different sections of town all have streets starting with the same letter and the alphabetical order reflects chronology.
• In Phoenix, Arizona, roads east of Central Avenue are termed streets while those west are avenues. A similar system applies in Nashville, Tennessee, but only to the numbered avenues and streets, west and east of the Cumberland River respectively, all of which run roughly north-south.

Large corporate, university, or government campuses may follow a naming convention for rooms within the buildings to help orient tenants and visitors. Otherwise, rooms may be numbered in some kind of a rational scheme.

Parents may follow a naming convention when selecting names for their children. Some have chosen alphabetical names by birth order. In some East Asian cultures, it is common for one syllable in a two syllable given name to be a generation name which is the same for immediate siblings. In many cultures it is common for the son to be named after the father or a grandfather. In certain African cultures, such as in Cameroon, the eldest son gets the family name for his given name, also, giving names such as "Thomas Thomas" (but the names are not European names like this one).

In other cultures, the name may include the place of residence, or the place of birth. The Roman naming convention denotes social rank.

Products may follow a naming convention. Automobiles typically have a binomial name, a "make" (manufacturer) and a "model", in addition to a model year, such as a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette. Sometimes there is a name for the car's "decoration level" or "trim line" as well: e.g., Cadillac Escalade EXT Platinum, after the precious metal. Computers often have increasing numbers in their names to signify the next generation.

Courses at schools typically follow a naming convention: an abbreviation for the subject area and then a number ordered by increasing level of difficulty.

Many numbers (e.g. bank accounts, government IDs, credit cards, etc.) are not random but have an internal structure and convention. Virtually all organizations that assign names or numbers will follow some convention in generating these identifiers. Airline flight numbers, space shuttle flight numbers, even phone numbers all have an internal convention.

Brand names[link]

The process of developing a name for a brand or product is heavily influenced by marketing research and strategy to be appealing and marketable. The brand name is often a neologism or pseudoword, such as Kodak or Sony.

Literary names[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2012)

In fiction, proper names of people or places are often unique to the work in which they appear. Although, within the work of fiction proper, the name may nonetheless be said to have a certain ethnic origin, the name itself may not actually exist. For example, the character of Ororo Munroe (Storm of the X-Men franchise) is of African descent.^{[citation needed]} Her first name, however is not an authentic African name. Names may also be created to either represent ethnic neutrality or corruption of a name with the passage of time. This is a common technique used by science fiction and fantasy writers who may also employ alternate spellings of existing names. Also, many science fiction operates on the premise that racial and ethnic boundaries will cease to exist in the future thus producing names that appear to be mixes of different ethnic sources.^{[original research?]} Yoshiyuki Tomino (creator of the anime Mobile Suit Gundam) is notable for creating character names that are unusual, exotic, and sometimes silly sounding. Examples include Char Aznable (which is actually based on a real person), Bright Noa, Quess Paraya, and Marvel Frozen. The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov has also created names which may or may not be variants or corruptions of existing or ancient names. Examples include Dors Venabili, R. Daneel Olivaw, and Giskard Reventlov. The Star Wars and Dune franchises contains many character names that juggle existing names with created ones; Leia Organa, Ben Kenobi, Paul Atreides, Vladimir Harkonnen.^{[citation needed][original research?]}

.name domains[link]

This section appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links. (May 2012)

According to Verisign,^[5] the .name top-level domain name (TLD) is designed for individuals to create a presence and make online communications easy and accessible. Not exclusive to registrars, social networking and community sites may also offer .name registration to their members and customers as a value-added service to help establish an individual identity online.^[6]

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• "Names" by Sam Cumming, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), a philosophical dissertation on the syntax and semantics of names
• Matthews, Elaine; Hornblower, Simon; Fraser, Peter Marshall, Greek Personal Names: Their Value as Evidence, Proceedings of The British Academy (104), Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-726216-3
• Name and Form - from Sacred Texts Buddhism

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Name

• Kate Monk's Onomastikon (Dictionary of Names) or Kate Monk's Onomastikon Names over the world throughout the history
• The etymology of first names
• Meaning of Names The etymology of first names
• What is a Name?

Chris Castle
Chris Castle, 2007
Background information
Birth name	Chris Castle
Born	January 29, 1976
Origin	Sandusky, Ohio, United States
Genres	Folk
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals Guitar harmonica
Years active	1994 – present
Website	[4]

Chris Castle (born January 29, 1976, in Sandusky, Ohio) is a folk/Americana singer-songwriter. Cleveland Magazine has described his writing as an "authentic connection to the world-weary soul of American roots music",^[1] while The New London Day's Rick Koster calls Castle "a visionary songwriter"^[2] and "a tunesmith of almost scary vision, narrative acumen and hooky instinct".^[3]

Early life[link]

Born in Sandusky, Ohio, in 1976, Castle's family moved to the village of New London, Ohio around the time he was four. His parents had migrated to Ohio from eastern Kentucky in the late sixties, and Castle was exposed to Appalachian Music from a very early age. His father (a Vietnam War veteran) committed suicide when Castle was nine years old; a theme that would later inspire Castle's first official single and video, Both Ends of A Gun.^[4]

Early career[link]

Castle spent his teen years as a staff-writer in Nashville, Tennessee, working under such notable writers as; Casey Kelly (The Cowboy Rides Away), Wood Newton (Bobbie Sue), and Earl Bud Lee (Friends in Low Places). At twenty-one, he would leave Music Row to again perform in bars and coffeehouses in northern Ohio.^[5]

Castle enrolled in Bowling Green State University as a Political Science major, where he met Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee in 2006. The veteran playwright convinced him to return to songwriting and Chris began crafting the songs that would become Hollow Bones in Monotone. "He's the one who talked me into dropping out of college, so I can blame it on (him). He was telling me about holding up a mirror to our society and holding it up to yourself. He had great stuff to say about real art."^[6]

As A Recording Artist[link]

Castle's 2007 release, Hollow Bones in Monotone, received solid reviews,^[7] and established Castle as an accepted player in the modern folk scene. That same year, Castle was named featured artist at Folk Alley,^[8] in addition to being a finalist in the Granite State Songwriting Contest, in Newmarket, New Hampshire.^[9]

Since then, Castle has shared stages with artists including: Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen, Uncle Monk (with Tommy Ramone), David Amram, Jimmy Webb, Radney Foster, Richard Shindell, Darrell Scott, Jonathan Edwards, Junior Brown, The Wood Brothers, Amy Speace, David Wax Museum, Tommy Womack, Eilen Jewell, Will Kimbrough, The Everybodyfields, Peter Case, Jim White, Jenny Owen Youngs, and Jeff Black, among others.^[10]

In January of 2012, Castle released Last Bird Home through his own record label, Dirtsandwich Music Company. Dirtsandwich also serves as Castle's publishing arm, and is a BMI-affiliated limited liabilty corporation. The album was recorded and mixed in late Summer of 2011 by Grammy-winning engineer Justin Guip at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, NY. Contributing to the performances were the Band's Garth Hudson, Maud Hudson, Tommy Ramone of the Ramones, Larry Campbell (musician), Gabriel Butterfield (son of Blues legend Paul Butterfield) and The Womack Family Band, among others.^[11] Last Bird Home marks the first chart success of Chris Castle's long career.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Chris Castle's official site
• Official MySpace for Chris Castle
• Folk Alley profile
• ReverbNation profile