What's in a name?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 2 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

A friend e-mailed this thing to me and I couldn't resist. So I checked it out for my real name (first and maiden) and there were a mere 10,973 other females out there with the same name. That's the joy of having two incredibly common names. Next I checked it out with first and married names. The number dropped dramatically to 643. Finally, I entered my pen name in the system. And discovered that I'm darned near unique--two or less. Heh. So I think I probably did a pretty good job picking a pen name.

Ideal pen names have three things. 1) Easy to recognize and pronounce. 2) Easy to spell. 3)Distinctive in the sense that there aren't ten thousand other people out there with the same name!

A lot of female authors use their maiden names for their pen name. Clearly, that would not have worked well for me. For all I know there are several authors out there with that name. Good job that I didn't go that route.

So, the link is up there. Give it a try... Find out where you are in the general scheme of things. Who knows? You may be one of a kind--or one of a thousand or more.

Anny