Things to Consider When Choosing a Pseudonym

Important things to consider when choosing a pseudonym:

1. It is a good idea to perform an internet search containing the words or part of the words of the pseudonym or pseudonyms you are considering. Mark Twain was alive prior to the advent of the world wide web and search engines but if he were alive today and if he were to perform a search for his name he would find that there are quite a few sites that use his name or contain his name. This would make it difficult for people to find him if they were looking. Part of the problem is that if Mark Twain came from the past into the future prior to when he chose the pseudonym "Mark Twain," he would find it difficult to become Mark Twain in the shadow of the historical figure that he would become. However, even in a world where either there was no Mark Twain, or even worse, where the world wide web had been invented when Mark Twain was alive and deciding on possible pseudonyms, a young Mark Twain might think twice about choosing the words Mark Twain. To understand what I mean, imagine in your mind that you have traveled into the past. You are in America circa whenever it was that Mark Twain made up his name (come to the present quickly to look this date up on an internet search engine if you want to more fully imagine exactly what this future might look like). You are Mark Twain and you are sitting at a computer performing a search on the internet. You aren't thinking of pseudonyms or nom de plumes. The internet has been invented so you are thinking of terms like handle, a user name, login name, avatar, screen name, nick or nickname. You are querying the terms "Mark" and "Twain" together. You are trying several different variations. You are typing in Mark Twain together. You are typing in Twain, Mark. You are typing in "Mark Twain" in order to find exact matches. In Mississippi or Calaveras County or San Francisco or wherever else you might have been at this particular time, had the internet existed, there might be many people with websites devoted to river boating. There might be many more with mentions of mark twains, twains, marks, "mark twain," etc. You'd say to yourself, hmmm... perhaps I'd be better off sticking to my second choice for a pseudonym. Then you'd spend the next few minutes typing in variations of Slutty Longtimehorny Clemency. This does not return any matches and has the added benefit which is that you will not have to change the monograms your mother sewed into your underpants.