Pseudonyms 1

An explanation of this part of the blog, and a list of all the sub-categories, can be found on the list of Pages on the top-right of your screen.

On this page you will find: 

1. Genuine Pseudonyms: noms de plume, de brosse, de camera, de highwire in one case, plus aliases, and even noms de guerre and de religion

2. Nicknames now assumed to be, or treated as, their actual name

3. Translations from foreign languages (mostly into English but I have included Latinisations and some others)

*

1. Genuine Pseudonyms

Everyone here is listed by their nom de, with their birthname afterwards

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, who was really Bill (William August) Fisher of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; this was his nom de espionage as a Russian spy on May 1

Adorno, or fully Theodor W. Adorno, the W keeping the Wiesengrund of his birthname, which was Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund, for sentimental reasons: an inferno of over-written criticism on Feb 11 [philosophers]

Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko), an Akhmatova being “a rare yellow Hawaiian honeycreeper, Hemignathus munroi, having a long slender down-curved upper bill and a short straight lower bill” according to Collins’ dictionary; though elsewhere I read that “Akhmatova is a patronymic coming from Akhmat, which is a Tatar name. Akhmat is a form of Ahmad. It is possible that Anna Akhmatova's family were Keräşen Tatars. Keräşens are a subgroup of Tatars - they are the descendants of Tatars that converted from Islam to Christianity after Russia conquered the Tatar khanates. (The Tatar people are fairly obscure outside of Russia, but they are actually the largest non-Russian group in Russia. Most of them are Muslim. They tend to use different names - a lot of feminine Tatar names end in consonants, whereas Russian girls' names almost always end in A.) Other Keräşen Tatars include the House of Yusup. One of Victor Serge’s Acme poets on Aug 20; painted by Modigliani on July 12 [The Poets]

Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Naumovich Rabinovitz): fiddling on the roof à la Chagall on Feb 18; mentioned on Nov 1 [serious scribes]

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay): birthnamed, I presume, in honour on "Cash" Clay: born Jan 17; conviction overturned on June 28; first pro fight Oct 29 [responses to bullying]

Woody Allen (Allen Stuart Konigsberg): hired as a token Jew on March 6; hired as a klutz on July 3; completely bananas on his birthdate, Dec 1 [the world as stage]

Peter Altenberg: born Richard Engländer; the nom de plume came from a small town on the Danube; allegedly he chose the "Peter" to honour a young girl whom he remembered as an unrequited love (it had been her nickname); on Feb 21 and among the lighter writers

Yehuda Amichai (Ludwig Pfeuffer): Aug 3 and among The Poets

Maya Angelou (Marguerite Ann Johnson): born April 4 [serious scribes]

Anonymous (real name/names unknown): Dec 11 and others

Lucie Aubrac: Lucie Bernard when she was born, Lucie Samuel when she married; but the memorials all honour her by her nom-de-guerre: l'une des Femmes de la Resistance on Jan 26 [responses to bullying]

"Reine Audu": born Louise-Renée Leduc (date of birth unknown, date of death sometime in 1793): leading The Women's March on Versailles on Oct 5; mentions on March 18 and Aug 10 [responses to bullying]

Honorius Augustodunensis, though he is usually remembered as mere Honorius of Autun, with Augustodunensis regarded as an error; more on that here and here: compiled the "Imago mundi" on March 8 [reverend writers]

The Báb (Sayyid ʿAlí Muḥammad): announced himself on May 23 [reverend writers]

Bahá'u'lláh (Mírzá Husayn 'Alí): died May 29

James Baldwin: James Arthur Jones really; Baldwin was his stepfather's name: published "The Fire Next Time" while living in Paris; will be on Aug 4 but not yet live; [Africa page, and among the serious scribes]

Brigitte Bardot (Camille Javal): born Sept 28 [the world as stage]

Bell (used by all three Brontë sisters): Charlotte (Currer Bell) born on April 21, Emily Jane (Ellis Bell) on July 30; Anne isn’t listed but she was published as Acton Bell); “Jane Eyre” published on Oct 6; they are also mentioned on April 2 [lighter writers]

Sarah Bernhardt (Henriette Rosine Bernard): died March 26, born Oct 22 [the world as stage]

Chuck Berry (Charles Edward Anderson): born Oct 18 [musical maestros]

John Berryman (John Allyn Smith Jr), though actually he did a much fuller name-change, deed-polling as John Allyn McAlpin Berryman: died on Jan 7 [The Poets]

Cilla Black (Priscilla Maria Veronica White): Cloakroom attendant at The Cavern Club on Jan 16 [musical maestros]

Charles Blondin (Jean-François Gravelet): taking a pedestrian wander across the Niagara Falls on June 30 [the world as stage]

Mr Bojangles (Luther Bill Robinson): born May 25 [the world as stage]

David Bowie, who was still called Davy (David Robert) Jones when I heard him do the warm-up for P.J. Proby at the Marquee Club (still at 90 Wardour Street back then), even before he did his Ziggy Stardust act there; Oct 3 [musical maestros]

Boz, which was "the nickname of a pet child, a younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honour of Goldsmith’s 'Vicar of Wakefield', which, being pronounced Bozes, got shortened into Boz"; Charles John Huffam Dickens if you didn't know: born Feb 7; his friendship with Ada Lovelace on June 5; Bill Sykes on Feb 8; “The Old Curiosity Shop” on March 15; “Martin Chuzzlewit” on June 22; “David Copperfield” on Aug 17. Mentioned en passant on Jan 1 and April 2 [serious scribes]

Willy Brandt (Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm by birth): his false passport when he fled to Norway, and then to Sweden, during WW2, to fight as a journalist against the Nazis, named him as Willy Brandt; he formally adopted the name in 1948; Dec 18 and responses to bullying

Lenny Bruce (Leonard Alfred Schneider): died on Aug 3; first arrest on Oct 4; also mentioned on Aug 4 [the world as stage]

Giordano Bruno (really Filippo, but he changed it to Giordano in honour of his metaphysics teacher Giordano Crispo); and for his publications Latinised it as Lordanus Brunus Nolanus: died on Feb 16; among the victims on March 29, May 4, July 24 and Oct 13 (but see also Jan 8 and Dec 6); Hebdoed on Jan 14 [E,M&C2, though technically he belongs among the reverend writers (they kicked him out)]

“By A Lady” (Jane Austen): among the pseudonyms on Feb 8; "Sense and Sensibility" published on Oct 30 (with Fanny Burney on June 13, and as Elizabeth Bennet on June 22) [serious scribes]

Giovanni Domenico Campanella when he was baptised, not clear why he became Tommaso, but maybe it was because he had doubts about becoming a friar at all, and took that name for that reason when he finally oblated: imagined a rather more habitable “City of the Sun” than did Le Corbusier on Oct 6 [reverend writers]

Robert Capa: Endre Ernő Friedmann was a risky name for a Jew to have in wartime Europe, especially if he was planning photo-journalism as a career. Robert Capa - Capa means "shark" in his native Hungarian - became his pseudonym. His German girlfriend Gerta Pohorylle did much the same, taking Gerda Taro as her pseudonym; she was the first female photojournalist to be killed on the frontline: he can be found photographing French resistance heroines on Jan 26; she can be found among the War-Reporteresses on Feb 22

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson): pops out of the mirror on March 15, through the rabbit-hole on July 4 and Nov 26; among the pseudonyms on Feb 8, and a mention on the Merely Mentioneds page, under Forshaw & Coles [serious scribes]

Danielle Casanova: Danielle was her nom de guerre, plus Casanova which was her married name, but born as Vincentella Périni: heroine of the French Resistance on May 9; really belongs on Jan 26; among the committed Marxists on June 28, and fully encountered as such by Max Sebald in this interview, as well as in his novel “Vertigo”; and he did so on June 27, so it made it into my own “A Journey In Time” [responses to bullying and political ideologues]

Isabelle de Charrière, or sometimes Belle van Zuylen, though her birth certificate says Isabella Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken: poems, plays, novels and philosophical essays on Oct 20, the Napoleonic Era page of Woman-Blindness, and among the serious scribes

Pol de Comène, or sometimes Paul de Comène, for his own writings, but André Salmon, his birthname, for his essays on other people's art: dinner chez Matisse, with Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, as a result of which Cubism was mis-shaped into existence, on Aug 19 [illustrious illustrators]

Quentin Crisp (Denis Charles Pratt): portrayed by John Hurt on Jan 22 [the world as stage]

Ruben Dario (Félix Rubén García Sarmiento): compared with Cervantes on Jan 18 [The Poets]

31661: reduced to that mere camp number in Auschwitz: Charlotte Delbo on her birth certificate, and listed here under that name, to restore her to the fullest humanity available to her; Charlotte Dudach when she married; l'une des Femmes de la Résistance on Jan 26

Élisabeth Demetrieff was her nom de guerre; Elizaveta Lukinichna Kusheleva her birthname: organising the Paris Commune on March 18

Isak Dinesen, a masculinisation of her birthname, Karen Christence Dinesen; her married name was Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke but she continued to use the nom de plume throughout her writing life): born April 17 [serious scribes]

Lucius Cassius Dio: which is actually a name reversal for his birth-name, Dio Cassius (circa 165-circa 235): heard the continuing eruption of Mount Vesuvius on Aug 24 [historians]

Marguerite Duras (Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu): born April 4 [serious scribes]

Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman):  born on May 24; mentioned or a song referenced on Feb 6, Feb 18, April 18, May 19, May 26, June 20, July 10, Nov 8, Nov 23, Dec 15; Dylan the painter on July 22; with MLK on Aug 28, wth Woody Guthrie on Oct 3; quoted on June 9 [musical maestros, illustrious illustrators and responses to bullying]

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): Casaubon on Feb 8 and Nov 28; three Georges on July 1; Zionism on August 29; “Silas Marner” on Oct 28; a possible source of her nom de plume on Oct 30; quoted on Nov 5; born on Nov 22; died on Dec 22 [serious scribes]

Johannes Fabricius (Johann Goldsmid): telescoping sunspots on Jan 8; “Fabricius” means “maker” or possibly “inventor” in Latin [E,M&C2]

Gracie Fields (Grace Stansfield): corny in Capri on August 24 [the world as stage]

Eaten Fish (Ali Dorani): cartooning on Sept 27 [illustrious illustrators]

Margot Fonteyn (Margaret Hookman); born May 18 [the world as stage]

Ford Madox Ford (Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer): born Dec 17 [serious scribes]

Anatole France (François-Anatole Thibault): quoted on July 12 [The Poets]

Rudy, or sometimes Baštík Franěk (Rudolf Freudenfeld): the latter his German birth-name, the former his Czech nom de rebirth, the one he used on his survivor’s statement after the war; smuggled the piano reduction of the opera Brundibár into the camp at Terezin on April 1, and took chare of preparing the children for its first performance; bio here [musical maestros]

Benjamin Franklin was his real name, and the one we remember him, by; I have listed him because he also used several now-forgotten pseudonyms, including Silence Dogood, Polly Baker, Richard Saunders, Anthony Afterwit and Alice Addertongue: Feb 8 and the political ideologues

Bedřich Fritta (Fritz Taussig): born 1906; deported to Terezin on December 4 1941; died in Oswiecim November 1944); on the blog on April 1 [illustrious illustrators]

Christopher Fry (Christopher Harris): born Dec 18 [the world as stage]

Greta Garbo (Greta Lovisa Gustaffson): born Sept 18 [the world as stage]

Bartolomeo della Gatta (Pietro di Antonio Dei): a minor contribution to the Sistine Chapel on Nov 1 [illustrious illustrators]

Clara Gazul – or Prosper Mérimée, or Antoine Prosper Mérimée, or Prosper-Marie Mérimée, depending on which source you go to: born Sept 28; July 1 with George Sand; on this page, and under this name, because, apparently, he ascribed his plays to one Clara Gazul, and foreworded them under the alias Joseph Létrange, even while publishing his poetry under his own name: click here [serious scribes]

Frank Gehry (Frank Owen Goldberg): born Feb 28 [illustrious illustrators]

Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov): among the memoirs of Victor Serge on Aug 20 [serious scribes]

Juan Gris on his paintings (José Victoriano González-Pérez): chez Gertrude Stein on Feb 3

“The Grock”: Karl (anglicised to Charles) Adrien Wettach (born January 10 1880; died July 14 1959): turns  out to have been Jewish, as well as Swiss: among the clowns on Dec 18 [the world as stage]

Vicente Guedes, as well as Bernardo Soares, on Nov 30, are both, and definitely, pseudonyms for Fernando Pessoa; Richard Zenith, Iain Watson, Alfred MacAdam and Margaret Jull Costa, on the same page, sound disquietingly like pseudonyms, so I am assuming that they too are heteronyms of Pessoa, and I am therefore listing them all together here [The Poets]

Demi Gene Guynes (Demi Moore): lounge-singing on June 24

Diane Hall (Keaton): no relation to Buster on Oct 4; but definitely related to Woody Allen, above [the world as stage]

Knut Hamsun (Knud Pedersen): born Aug 4 [serious scribes]

Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle by birth, MacLeod by marriage): executed as a spy on Oct 15

Julian Assange: Assange was his step-father's name; he was born Julian Paul Hawkins  and started his career under the pseudonym "Mendax": being very annoying by doing what journalists are supposed to do, on Feb 22 and 23 as well as Aug 12; released from Northern Mariana for Canberra on June 27 2024 [responses to bullying]

Hérisson: the nom de guerre of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade; it means "hedgehog"; she signed her notes to Q as POZ 55; l'une des Femmes de la Résistance on Jan 26

Billie Holiday: Elinore Harris on her birth certificate, Eleanora Fagan in her childhood, Eleanora Fagan Gough during her brief first marriage: discovered by John Henry Hammond Jr on Dec 15 but her “Lady Day” is on April 7 [musical maestros]

Homer (in English; Hómēros in Greek), but properly Melesigenes of Smyrna:  June 11 and Aug 15. The name means “security” and is used for someone taken hostage, though Melesigenes probably intended its third meaning, which is a “pledge”: he took the name when he went blind with an eye disease, and “devoted” himself to creating and narrating the epic poems; why the name on Feb 8; fully clothed on March 13; major part on June 11 and Aug 15; mentions on April 9, June 16, June 24 and Nov 3 [The Poets]

My next is locked inescapably in your memory as Harry Houdini, though he was born Erik Weisz, or probably Ehrich Weiss in Romanian, and Chaim ben Maier at his Bar Mitzvah: failed to escape from this blog on Aug 23 [the world as stage]

Belle Jangles: definitely not related to Mr Bojangles (though we have to assume she translated the French pronunciation of his first syllable into the feminine to make her nom de pole), nor to the horse that later bore her name (click here), though all three had their ways of dancing; on March 13, and try here [the world as stage] [do we even know her real name?]

Elton John (Reginald Kenneth Dwight): played the Cavern Club on Jan 16 [musical maestros]

Lev Borisovich Kamenev on his Communist papers, but born Lev Borisovich Rozenfeld in Moscow on July 18 1883; died on August 24 1936, and surprisingly still in Moscow, not Siberia: 1st head of state when it was still the SFSR and not yet the USSR; purged on Aug 20: he was removed from his positions in 1926, and expelled from the party in 1927, before submitting to Stalin's increasing power and rejoining the party the next year. He and Zinoviev were again expelled from the party in 1932, as a result of the Ryutin affair, and were re-re-admitted in 1933. [political ideologues and reponses to bullying]

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta (Kamau wa Muiga): President of independent Kenya on June 1 (Independence on Dec 12 and see the Africa list); with George Padmore on June 28; “Mzee” is apparently a Swahili term of respect and affection meaning "the old man", and it is now applied by most of his admirers (click here for example)

The multiple pseudonyms of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard can be found on Feb 8; he is also quoted on Jan 14 (sadly, Pope Francis granted himself a Nihil Obstat on the subject as well); born on May 5; listed with Schopenhauer on April 22 [political ideologues]

Carole King (Carol Joan Klein): jazzing up the clichés on June 20 [musical maestros]

Ben Kingsley (Krishna Bhanji): born Dec 31; in the actors hall of fame on Aug 8 [the world as stage]

Ricardo Klement (the alias in Argentina of Otto Adolf Eichmann): May 11 and the GER page

Lillie Langtry (Emilie Charlotte Le Breton): Lucy Lockett on March 15; born Oct 13

Pierre Launay, and Sieur de Launay (Pierre Boaistuau was his birthname): originated two genres, the "histoires tragiques" ("tragic tales"), and the "histoires prodigieuses" ("weird tales"), on Jan 30 [the world as stage]

Virginie Lebeau: Érik Alfred Leslie Satie's pen-name for his writings: born May 17 [musical maestros]

Mitch Leigh on his scores, Irwin Stanley Michnick on his passport: aiming for the inaccessible star with Joe Darion on Nov 22; Darion wrote the lyrics, Leigh set them to music: click here; Jacques Brel’s take on the story, “L'Homme de La Mancha”, premièred in Brussels in October 1968 – click here [the world as stage]

André Léo was her nom de plume, taken from those of her twin sons, André and Léo; Victoire Léodile Béra on her birth certificate, then Champseix, then Malon; fighting for the rights of women on June 17 [W-B]

Lenin (the alias of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov): probably sourced in the River Lena, which runs through Siberia: born April 22; shared a coffee bar in Zurich with James Joyce on Bloomsday (June 16); shared a political dream with Trotsky, and especially Victor Serge, on Aug 20; survived an assassination attempt on Aug 30; given to Castro as a prize on Nov 13 [political ideologues and responses to bullying]

Jack London (John Griffith Chaney): rushing for gold on Aug 16; "The Call of the Wild" banned on Dec 6 [serious scribes]

Victoria Lucas: the pseudonym used by Sylvia Plath when she published "The Bell Jar": discovered that the gas-jet was also poetry on Feb 11; with Ted Hughes on Aug 17; peeling onions on Sept 20; born Oct 27; with Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell on Nov 9 and 17; with me but also David Hockney on July 9 [The Poets]

Paco di Lucia (Francisco Sánchez Gómez): Flamenco, but mostly Jazz Fusion, on June 12 [musical maestros]

Ralph May (Ralph McTell): doing the revised version on Oct 3 - the original “Streets” were in Paris, as you can [Mc]tell by the man with his war ribbons and the baglady: not London images at all in that epoch, but totemically Parisian: click here [musical maestros]

Paule Mink, or sometimes Minck, for her nom de révolution (Adèle Paulina Mekarska): leading the Paris Commune on March 18

Nicole Minet (the nom de guerre of Simone Segouin): encore une des Femmes de la Resistance on Jan 26

Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka): committed seppuku on Nov 25 [serious scribes]

Karl Mohr: Charles Morice’s nom de self-concealment when he wrote about Verlaine on Feb 8 [The Poets]

Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin): born Jan 15, mentioned on Jan 8 and 18, also Sept 23 [the world as stage]

Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson/Baker/Miller): found dead on Aug 5; photographed on Dec 6 [the world as stage]

Yves Montand (Ivo Livi): born Oct 13 [the world as stage]

Jacques Mornard, the Belgian who killed Trotsky on Aug 20, was really a Spaniard named Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (1913-1978), and Mornard his nom de guerre in the Communist Party, though he also used Frank Jacson, Ramón Ivánovich López, Leon Jacome and Leon Haikys: the full tale here [political ideologues]

Léon David Morven le Gaëlique was the name he used to sign his books [The Poets]; Max Jacob was his nom de brosse [illustrious illustrators] and the one most people knew him by, though actually he was born Max Alexandre; the full tale on Aug 19, but also dinner chez Matisse on Dec 12

Elijah Muhammad, the nom de religion of Elijah Robert Poole: suspended Malcolm X on Dec 4 [reverend writers]

Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon): the photographer whose studio hosted the 1874 Impressionist exhibition at 35 Boulevard des Capucines on Feb 5 (excellent page here); dating Jeanne Duval on April 9 [illustrious illustrators]

Martina Navratilova (Šubertová by birth; she changed it to Navratilova in honour of her step-dad/coach when she sought asylum in the USA): Sept 6

Lucy Negro: the Dark Lady of the Sonnets on June 29, but was it a stage-name or a working name or pure fiction? [the world as stage]  

Helmut Newton (Helmut Neustädter): among the great photographers on Feb 20 [illustrious illustrators]

Pablo Neruda (Ricardo Neftalí Reyes Basoalto): born on July 12, kicked out by coup on September 11; photographed on Feb 8 [The Poets]

Annie Oakley (Phoebe Ann Moses): shot down by disease on Nov 2

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair): pseudonymed on Feb 8, born June 25 [serious scribes]

Joe (John Kingsley) Orton: born Jan 1 [the world as stage] included on this list because Joe isn't usually a variant for John

Amos Oz (Amos Klausner was his birth-name): Oz means “strength” and “courage” in Hebrew, and can best be understood from Psalms 28:7/8 and 29 (and no, I have no idea if L Frank Baum was aware of this when he created his Wizard); touching the water and the wind on Aug 3 [serious scribes]

George Padmore (Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse): born June 28, mentioned on Aug 17 [political ideologues and responses to bullying]

I.X. Peck (the name used by Thomas Mason in his humorous columns): the very first human voice recorded on a machine of any kind, ever, on my page for Nov 20 because I couldn’t find the actual date; but now click here (and isn’t that surname an error: I.X.Peckt would be much more precise)

Perugino was his nom de brosse; chosen because he came from Perugia; real name Pietro Vanucci; contributing to the Sistine Chapel on Nov 1 [illustrious illustrators]

Joaquin Phoenix, or sometimes Leaf Phoenix, stage-names for Joaquín Rafael Bottom, one of the Lee Strasberg acolytes on Nov 17 [the world as stage]

Mary Pollock: Enid Mary Blyton when she didn't want to use her own name; seven hundred and sixty-two books in total, but only a passing mention on March 15 [lighter writers]

"Ma" Rainey” (Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett): died Dec 22 [musical maestros]

Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum): alluded to on Nov 27, named outright on Aug 10 [political ideologues]

Robert Rauschenberg was his nom de brosse; his birthname was Milton Rauschenberg: born Oct 22 [illustrious illustrators]

Mary Renault (Eileen Mary Challans): born Sept 4 [historians]

Jean Rhys (Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, Ella Lenglet): born Aug 24 [serious scribes]

Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer (Eric Rohmer): riding the Nouvelle Vague on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

Adam Romes was the pen-name for Uriel da Costa, though actually Uriel was a sort of pseudonym as well, because his birthname was Gabriel [philosophers]

Thomas Chatterton on some of his books, Decimus on others; Thomas Rowley on his birth certificate: born Nov 20 – and where does this even belong, given that he passed the poems off as genuine, not his own by pseudonym? Was he a forger or a counterfeiter? Were these pseudonyms, or simply aliases? [The Poets]

Red Rose: or Claire-Rose Lacombe, one of the leading Révolutionnaires Républicaines on Aug 10; getting Lafayette ousted on Sept 18 [political ideologues, and listed on the Napoleonic Era page of “Woman-Blindness”]

Saki (Hector Hugh Munro): born Dec 18 [lighter writers]

Masuccio Salernitano (Tommaso dei Guardati was his real name): the original-original for Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” on Jan 30 [the world as stage]

Felix Salten (Siegmund Salzmann): name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21 [lighter writers]

George Sand (Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Franceuil Dudevant): Dupin de Franceuil was her maiden name, Dudevant her married name, George Sand her nom de plume: Feb 8 in full; by most of her proper name (she never used the "de Franceuil" part when she returned to her maiden name after her divorce) and with Chopin and de Musset on July 1, her birthday; in correspondence with Flaubert on June 29; her death on June 8 [serious scribes]

Victor Serge (Victor Lvovich Kibalchich, or В.Л. Кибальчич in Russian): with Trotsky in Mexico on Aug 20; referenced on Jan 15 and Nov 22 [political ideologues and responses to bullying] and I believe it is pronounced with a French accent, soft “g”, and as a single syllable, and not two-syllabled and with a hard “g”, as it would be in Russian.

Vlady Serge, Victor’s son who was an artist, on Aug 20; but that can’t be his correct name! surely? Vladimir Victorovich Kibalchich possibly, Victor being his dad’s birthname and Kibalchich dad's family name before he nom de guerred himself as Serge? And yes, but also no: Vlady Kibalchich Russakov (born June 15 1920 in Saint Petersburg; died July 21 2005 in Mexico): bio and pics here [illustrious illustrators]

John Sinjohn: John Galsworthy's pen-name for his first few books, then he abandoned it: born Aug 14 [serious scribes]

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (Dusty Springfield to you and me): singing of the preacherman's son on Sept 5

Stanislavski was the stage-name of Konstantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev: preceding Lee Strasberg on Jan 17; referenced on Jan 22, May 22, Aug 8, Nov 17 [the world as stage]

Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr): making the drums sound like the wheels of Thomas’ tank engine, at The Cavern Club on Jan 16 [musical maestros, though in his case this may be stretching the term somewhat]

Stendhal was the nom de plume of Marie Henri Beyle: born Jan 23; confused with Pierre Bayle on Nov 18 [serious scribes]

Daniel Stern to her readers, Marie Catherine Sophie de Flavigny to her parents, Marie Comtesse d'Agoult to her friends, (born December 31 1805, died March 5 1876): mothering Cosima Wagner with Franz Liszt, and falling out with George Sand, on Dec 24 [serious scribes]

Cat Stevens (Stephen Demetri Georgiou), or Yusuf Islam today: born July 21; in Bunjie’s on Oct 3 [musical maestros]

Italo Svevo (Aron Hector - “Ettore” - Schmitz): pseudonymed on Feb 8; born on Dec 19; mentioned on Feb 2 and March 15 [serious scribes]

Leyzer Talminovitski (Leon Talmy was his real name, and he sometimes used it; but he also sometimes published with the pseudonym): another of the thirteen in the “Yiddish Writers Plot” on Feb 13

Viktor Josef Ullmann, but sometimes Josef von Tannfels for his scores: among the fellow-prisoners at Terezin (see April 1 ) where he composed, inter alia, the one-act opera "Der Kaiser von Atlantis"; he died at Auschwitz in October 1944 [musical maestros]

Gerda Taro her pseudonym, Gerta Pohorylle her actual name: the first female photojournalist to be killed on the frontline of WW2 (she will be found among the War-Reporteresses on Feb 22 when I finish and publish that piece); her boyfriend and fellow photojournalist Robert Capa can be found photographing French resistance heroines on Jan 26

William Makepeace Thackeray has multiple pseudonyms on Feb 8; born on July 18 [serious scribes]

Leon Trotsky was the nom de guerre of Lev ben David Bronstein; he claimed it was the name of a jailer at the Odessa prison where he had been held: expelled on Jan 31; with Victor Serge on Feb 21; murdered on Aug 20: quoted on Sept 1; mentioned on June 15, Aug 26, Sept 13 and Oct 15 [political ideologues and responses to bullying]

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens): among the pseudonyms on Feb 8; published “Huckleberry Finn” on Feb 18 (banned on Dec 6); an innocent abroad on March 11; working by typewriter on June 23; quoted on Aug 29; born Nov 30 [serious scribes]

Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci; sometimes spelled Vannucci; Perugino was his nome d'arte, chosen because he came from Perugia: (1446-1523): contributing to the Sistine Chapel on Nov 1 [illustrious illustrators]

Francisco “Pancho” Villa: the “alias” of José Doroteo Arango Arámbula: born June 5

François Villon in his poetry, François de Montcorbier, or sometimes François des Loges, on other documents, but nobody has a clue which of the three, if any, was his real name: my stolen version of his tale on Jan 5 [The Poets]

Gene Vincent: I think that should be Jean Vinsant on Sept 14; actually, no, because it was his nom de microphone, not his birthname: Vincent Eugene Craddock - doesn’t really work for a pop star, does it! [musical maestros]

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet): quoted on April 27, Oct 2 and Nov 18; with Sophie de Grouchy on May 5; Nov 1 and Dec 5 for earthquakes; mentioned on Jan 18 and Feb 26; died May 30 [philosophers and responses to bullying]

Karel Vranek: Gideon Klein's attempt to hide his Jewish identity when the Nazis came to power: performed on April 1 [musical maestros]

Rebecca West (Cicely Isabel Fairfield): born Dec 21 [serious scribes]

Edith Wharton (Edith Newbold Jones): born Jan 24 [serious scribes]

Stevie Wonder: Stevland Hardaway Judkins, but changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris after his mother moved him to Detroit and changed her own name; blaming it on the sun on June 20 [musical maestros]

Frank Lloyd Wright (Frank Lincoln Wright): born June 8; Taliesen burned down on Aug 15; his Guggenheim helter-skelter can be found on Oct 21; mentioned on Feb 28 [illustrious illustrators]

Malcolm X, though he also used el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm Little): born on May 19; destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover on Aug 17; suspended by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad on Dec 4 [responses to bullying]

Ze’ev on his cartoons, Yaakov Farkash on his immigration documents: mentioned on Sept 27, his portrait of Golda Meir is on May 3, though there are other uses of him or references to him elsewhere in the blog [illustrious illustrators]

Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (on his Communist papers), Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky on his birth certificate; Lenin’s closest confidante on Aug 20

Perlone Zipoli (Lorenzo Lippi): inspiring Robert Browning on May 5

Zunar on his cartoons, Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque on his arrest warrant; found guilty of the crime of satire on Sept 27 [illustrious illustrators]

 

*

2. Nicknames

Names here are listed alphabetically by those nicknames (real name afterwards)

“Adolphe” (Antoine Joseph) Sax: born Nov 6 [musical maestros]

“Betsy Ross” (Elizabeth Griscom, though she also remarried as Betsy Ashburn and Betsy Claypoole): born Jan 1, flying on March 3

“Billy the Kid” (William Henry McCarty Jr), though wanted posters also named him as William H Bonney Jr and as Henry Antrim: his death in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14; his tale on Nov 23

“Bing” (Harry Lillis) Crosby: maybe, on Sept 17 [musical  maestros]

“Bosie” (Lord Alfred Douglas): “aiding and abetting a pederast” on April 5; apparently “Bosie” was his mother’s pet-name, west country pronunciation of “boysie”, for “little boy”, long before Oscar used it [serious scribes]

“Botticelli” (Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi). A botticelli is a “small wine cask”; his dad was a tanner who made the leather casing that kept the wine at the right temperature for fermenting: born May 17; provides the picture on March 17; mentioned on Nov 1 [illustrious illustrators]

“Buster” (Joseph Francis) Keaton: born on Oct 4; comparisoned on April 11 [the world as stage]

“Cash” (Cassius Clay): the other one, not Muhammad Ali, mentioned on Jan 17, born Oct 19 [responses to bullying]

“Chad” (William Chadbourne ) Mitchell: [musical maestros]

”Charlie” (Charles Christopher Parker Jr), who in his time was nicknamed “Bird”, or sometimes “Ladybird”, though today he tends to be remembered as ”Charlie”; born Aug 29; cited by Joni on Jan 5 [musical maestros]

“Che” Guevara (Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna): killed on Oct 9; mentioned on June 15 [political ideologues]

“Chick” (Armando Anthony) Corea: born June 12 [musical maestros]

“Le Corbusier” (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret): Oct 6 [illustrious illustrators]

“Count” (William James) Basie: one of John Henry Hammond Jr’s discoveries on Dec 15;  [musical maestros]

“Country Joe” (Joseph Allen) McDonald: summing up Richard Nixon on Aug 8

“Dizzy” (John Birks) Gillespie: born Oct 21 [musical maestros]

“Le Douanier” (Henri Julien Félix Rousseau), born May 21; mentioned on April 15 [illustrious illustrators]

“Duke” (Edward Kennedy) Ellington: gets his trumpet blown by Joni Mitchell on Jan 5 [musical maestros]

“Fats” Domino (Antoine Dominique Caliste Domino Jr): rattling them keyboards on Jan 5 [musical maestros]

“Fritz” (Friedrich Christian Anton) Lang: born Dec 5 [the world as stage]

“Ghirlandaio” (Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi): called Ghirlandaio because his goldsmith father specialised in creating gold and silver garlands (ghirlande): contributing to the Sistine Chapel on Nov 1 [illustrious illustrators]

“Grandma” Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses): died Dec 13 [illustrious illustrators]

“Groucho” (Julius Henry) Marx: born Oct 2 [the world as stage]

“Hank” (Hiram King) Williams: born Sept 17 [musical maestros]

“Jack” (Abel Joseph) Diamond: simultaneously building Toronto’s Opera House and refurbishing my school on Feb 28 [illustrious illustrators]

“Jack” or “JBS” (John Burdon Sanderson) Haldane: brother of historical novelist Naomi Mitchison: merely mentioned on May 2, but interesting enough to pay a visit to his listing among the scientists [E,M&C2]

“Jack” (Jean-Louis Lebris de) Kerouac: died Oct 21 [serious scribes]

“Jack” (John Dennis) Profumo: resigned on June 5

“Jesse” (James Cleveland) Owens: born Sept 12

“Jimi” Hendrix (boringly Johnny Allen Hendrix at birth, and later James Marshall Hendrix, with “Jimi” the diminutive): died Sept 18 [musical maestros]

“Kim” (Harold Adrian Russell) Philby: “defected” on Jan 23

Claude Lorrain, who was really Claude Gellée, and who is remembered simply as Claude in England, but as “Le Lorrain” in France: the last of the Classical painters, with Nicolas Poussin, on April 15 [illustrious illustrators]

“Lili” (Marie-Juliette Olga) Boulanger: born Aug 21 [musical maestros]

“Mahatma” (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi; in Sanskrit “mahātman” means ”great-souled”: born Oct 2; assassinated on Jan 30; did a Rosa Parks, or was it a Claudette Colvin, on June 7; referenced on May 2 and mentioned on May 16 and Dec 4 [responses to bullying]

“Max” (Winfried Georg) Sebald: the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan on Jan 11; attempted the dramatic monologue on April 6; mentioned with Magris on April 10 [serious scribes]

“Nannerl”: Mozart is in the translations and the reductions list: his sister “Nannerl” (Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart) can be given birthday presents on July 30 and is also mentioned re Mary Astell on Nov 12 [musical maestros]

“Pele” (Edson Arantes de Nascimento): born Oct 23

“Pericles”, “The Olympian”: the name, which should be written Peri-Kles; it means “surrounded by glory”, so clearly it was a sobriquet, or perhaps a title: so what was his real name? No one seems to know; merely mentioned on Jan 18

“La Pérouse” (Jean François de Galaup), “Mr Top Quality” might make a good English equivalent: travelled to Alaska on Aug 23

“Plato”, which means “flat-head”; he was really Aristocles: born on May 21; died on April 5; the poetikos explained on June 25; banning Bloom’s Taxonomy from the Republic on Sept 13; fell out with Aristotle on Oct 2 [GER list]

“Pocahontas” (Amonute Matoaka); the name means “playful” in her native language: married John Rolfe on April 5 [pre-Columban Americas]

“Rainer” Maria Rilke (René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke); “Rainer” was Lou Andreas-Salomé’s love-name for him, or possibly a piece of disguised wisdom: Rainer in Olde German conveys the idea of untapped potential that you need to unlock or it will never achieve fulfillment: born Dec 4; mentioned on July 3 [The Poets]

“Rasputin” (Grigory Yefimovich Novykh) the nickname means “debauched one”: finally succumbed on Dec 29

“Ravi” (Rabindra) Shankar Chowdhury: born April 7 [musical maestros]; it isn't actually a nickname, just a diminutive, but as we in the west are not used to this name I thought I would include it anyway

Andrea “del Sarto” (Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco di Luca); “del Sarto” means “tailor’s son”: born July 14; mentioned on June 24 [illustrious illustrators]

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was really called Namgyal Wangdi. Sherpa was the name of his tribe (click here), so the equivalent for that part would be to refer to Edmund Percival Hillary as “Brit Hillary”; Tenzing Norgay is a Buddhist title, and means something like "enriched by having the good fortune to be a follower of the teachings of the Buddha". Wangdi, not Hillary, was actually the first to the summit of Everest on May 29, but being a mere porter-cum-guide he doesn’t count for history; which generates the concept of “Tenzings”: I have created a special list for those like him, which you can find among the “Themes” on the home-page, plus an explanation on July 24

“Stevie” (Florence Margaret) Smith: peeled onions on Sept 20; mentioned on Nov 17 [The Poets]

“Teddy” (Theodore) Roosevelt: mis-Invictused on June 24; Oscar Straus as his Secretary of Commerce and Labour on Dec 23

“Tennessee” (Thomas Lanier) Williams: born March 26; “Streetcar” premièred on Dec 3; expurgated on Dec 6; mentioned on Jan 1 and July 18 [the world as stage]

“Tiger” (Eldrick Tont) Woods is on Dec 12 (and a passing mention on March 15); but honestly, what chance can anyone have in life if their parents name them Eldrick Tont!

“Titus” (Lawrence Edward Grace) Oates: with Shackleton on Jan 5, and part of the Scott expedition on Jan 15, though he isn’t actually mentioned on that latter; went outside on March 17; also mentioned on Dec 14 (the Amundsen expedition)

“The Venerable” Bede, or probably Baeda: mentioned on May 19, July 22 and Dec 25 [reverend writers]

*

3. Translations

Names here are listed, alphabetically, by the one we know, then the original that got translated


Publius Terentius Afer: usually remembered as Terence Afer: writing poems, and mostly plays, on the Africa page; more about him on the world as stage

Moses, who should be listed as Moshe ben Amram (though "Moses, son of a great people" is a most unlikely name!), and that Hebrew patronym should be enough to alert us to his true identity; as an Egyptian, Mousa [adopted?] [grand?]son of ibn Ra-Mousa, or in English Rameses!: all this, and he gets no more than a passing mention on Jan 3. However, there are also April 1st 1375 BCE, the date on which he left Egypt for Mount Sinai, though this is on the June 22 page and even more questionable than his Hebrew name; he can also be found conducting a census on April 29, and crossing the Nefud desert on Aug 15; compared to the Buddha on May 29 [reverend writers]

Guillaume Apollinaire started out life as Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki: “Zone” on March 11; chez Matisse on Aug 19; born Aug 26 [The Poets]

Isaac Asimov (Isaak Yudovick Ozimov ): born Jan 2 [serious scribes]

Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Sīnā, Avicenna in English: born in Uzbekistan on a date unknown; died in Persia on June 22 1037 and buried in the tomb that bears his name as Abū-ʿAlī Sīnā: way ahead of European medicine on Nov 14 [E,M&C2]

Bilba Labingi (Bilbo Baggins is a Middle Aenglisch translation from the original Hobbitish): returned to his home at Bag End "today" in 1342 (Shire Reckoning), “today” being calculated on the blog as June 22 (J.R.R Tolkien mentioned) [serious pipe-smokers scribes]

Isaiah Berlin (Berlyn in his native Latvian): commenting on “Dr Zhivago” on Oct 23 [philosophers]

Leonard (Louis) Bernstein: studying with Nadia Boulanger on Aug 21, born Aug 25 [musical maestros]

Constantin Brîncuși on his Romanian birth certificate, though he is now known there as Constantin Brancuch; Constantin Brâncuși to the rest of us: born Feb 19 [illustrious illustrators]

Dieterich Buxtehude (Diderich Hansen Buxtehude on his Danish birth certificate): counted among the masters on Nov 19 [musical maestros]

Hayyim ben Joseph Vital in Hebrew, Chaim Vital Calabrese elsewhere (born in Zefat circa 1543, died in Damasek on April 23 1620): a disciple of Isaac Luria on Aug 5 [reverend writers]

John Calvin (Jehan Cauvin on his birth certificate) – see my notes on the GER page

Marc (Moishe) Chagall: born on July 7, Hadassahed on Feb 13, provides the illustration on Feb 18, mentioned on Aug 19 [illustrious illustrators]

Frédéric François (Fryderyk Franciszek) Chopin: with George Sand on July 1 [musical maestros]

Thomas James (“Tom”) Clarke, or Tomás Séamus Ó Cléirigh in Éirish (born March 11 1858; died May 3 1916): Cabinet member in the first free Éirish “provisional” government, and one of the fourteen executed by the British for being so, on April 24 and the Éireland page

Carolus Clusius, a sixteenth-century botanist from the Southern Netherlands who the French knew as Charles de l’Ecluse: gave the Pope Europe’s first potato on July 28; he was also, apparently, responsible for bringing the tulip to Europe [E,M&C2)

Michael Collins (Mícheál Ó Coileáin): unnamed but among the Easter rebels on April 24; assassinated on Aug 22 [Éireland]

James Connolly, or Séamas Ó Conghaile in Éirish (born June 5 1868; died May 12 1916): formed the first free Éirish “provisional” government on April 24 and the Éireland page

Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski): born on Dec 3; also on Feb 8 [serious scribes]

Aaron Copland (Kaplan): the name was changed when the family reached Ellis Island as immigrants: born Nov 14; another of Nadia Boulanger’s students on Aug 21 [musical maestros]

Philippe Mathé-Curtz, but known by his latinised name as Philippe Curtius: anatomy in wax on March 30

Michael Davitt, in English; Mícheál Mac Dáibhéid in Éirish: established the “Éirish Land League” on April 24 and the Éireland page

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Eizenshtein): born Jan 23, mentioned on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

Meyer (but known as Michael) Elkins: "Forged In Fury" on Aug 3 [historians]

Levi Shkolnik in Kiev, Levi Eshkol in Israel: Israel’s third Prime Minister on May 3

Max Factor (Maksymilian Faktorowicz) and his half-brother John “Jake the Barber” Factor (Yakov Faktorowicz, same father, different mothers): Aug 18, but see under Oct 17; also a mention on July 1

Farinace, though I think it should be spelled Farinacci, as in Prospero Farinacci, or Farinaccius in the Latin pen-name on his “Praxis et Theorica Criminalis” of 1616”, the work that made him famous. He goes with Beccaria on Oct 18 [political ideologues]

Giovanni Florio (John Florio when he moved to England): translator of Montaigne and hugely signficant to Shakespeare on Jan 30 [historians]

Sigmund (Sigismund Schlomo) Freud: his Jewishness on Feb 3; failed to invent the Super-Id on May 3; born on May 6; deluded about Carl Jung on July 26; referenced re Montaigne on Feb 28 and Maimonides on March 30; mentions on Feb 21, April 1 and July 5. Offspring Anna (the psychiatrist) and Lucian (the painter) can be found on Dec 3 and on the MM list [philosophers]

Jack Freitag (John Fry) (1922-1994): honoured at Guy’s Hospital on Feb 23 [E,M&C2]

Galenus: Aelius Galenus to his Greek family, Claudius Galenus to his Roman bosses: reported the continuing eruption of Mount Vesuvius on Aug 24

David Garrick (de la Garrique); but it was his gradparents who made the change when they came to England: born Feb 19; part of the Fanny Burney crowd on June 13; amongst the actors on Aug 8; in Pepys’ diary with his wife Eva on Oct 2 [the world as stage]

Geronimo was his Spanish name. Goyaałé, pronounced "Goyathlay", in his own language, and meaning "one who yawns", though Apache websites say his name was really Goyakhla, and "Goyaałé" just an affectionate nickname; born June 16 [pre-Columban Americas]

George Gershwin (Jacob Gershvin): born Sept 26 [musical maestros]

John of Ghent, rendered as Gaunt in English, as Gon in his native Flemish; the second son of Edward III, himself a Plantagenet, his descendants were the three Lancastrian Henries, IV, V and VI; supporting John Wycliffe on May 4; ransacked by revolting peasants on June 15; also mentioned on Jan 13

Arthur Joseph Griffith in Aenglisch, Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha in Éirish: Easter Uprising on Sept 1, founded Sinn Féin on April 24 [the Éireland page]

David ben Gurion (David Grün): born Oct 16, mentioned Feb 21 [political ideologues]

Heinrich (Harry) Heine (later forced to rename himself Christian Johann Heinrich Heine): burned to a cinder on May 10 (see also Aug 27 and Dec 6); born Dec 13 [The Poets]

Theodor (Benjamin Ze’ev) Herzl: born on May 2; 1st Zionist Congress on Aug 29; mentioned on Jan 7; referenced on Feb 3 and July 14 [political ideologues and responses to bullying]

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus): born Dec 8 [The Poets]

Menasseh ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro): the return of the Jews to England under Oliver Cromwell on Sept 30 [reverend writers]

Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake): surrendered July 20; killed by his own people Dec 15 [pre-Columban Americas]

Louis (Yehuda Leib) Jacobs: reforming orthodoxy on Feb 21, converted to Masorti on Oct 10 [reverend writers]

Inigo (Ynyr) Jones: born July 15 [illustrious illustrators]

Titus Flavius Josephus when he died, circa 100CE, in Rome, but Yosef ben Matityahu when he was born in Yerushalayim 37CE; : recording history as propaganda on March 10  [historians]

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta (Kamau wa Muiga): President of independent Kenya on June 1 (Independence on Dec 12 and see the Africa list); with George Padmore on June 28

Arthur Koestler (Artú Kösztler): born Sept 5 [serious scribes]

Nicolas Copernicus in its Latnised form; Mikolaj Kopernik in Polish, but generally rendered as Nicolaus Koppernigk: born on Feb 19; a full essay about him can be found on March 21; plus an illustration on March 29; and a passing mention on Jan 2 [scientific achievements/Jan 1 and E,M&C2]

Franz (Ferenc) Liszt:  central to the life and work of Erno Dohnányi on July 27; born Oct 22 [musical maestros]

Jean Baptiste Lully (Giovanni Battista Lulli): born Nov 28 [musical maestros]

Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláech): Aug 15; mentioned on June 24 [Scots and Cymru list]

Norman Kingsley (Nachem Malech) Mailer: at war with Susan Sontag on March 15; an “old pile of bones” according to Tom Wolfe on July 11; among the Pseudonyms as well as the serious scribes

Red Cloud (Mahpiua-Luta) chief of the Oglala Sioux: with Sitting Bull on July 20; banned at Wounded Knee on Dec 6; died Dec 10 [pre-Columban Americas]

Red Tomahawk (Tacankpe Luta): assassinated Chief Sitting Bull on Dec 15 [pre-Columban Americas]

Seán MacDermott in English, Seán Mac Diarmada in Éirish (born January 27 1883; executed May 12 1916): one of the five who led the Easter Uprising and formed the first provisional government [Éireland]

Eóin MacNeill (born May 15 1867; died October 15 1945): leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Bráithreachas Phoblacht na hÉireann) on April 24 and the Éireland page

Maimonides is a Latinisation of Moshe ben Maimon, though he also gets acronymed as the "Rambam": influenced Spinoza on Feb 21; born March 30; in Jerusalem on Oct 12 and Nov 14; referenced on Oct 10 [reverend writers]

Peter Zvi Malkin (Cywka Małchin): kidnapped Ricardo Klement on May 11 [responses to bullying]

Jackie Mason (Yacov Moshe Maza): born June 9 [the world as stage]

Golda Meir (Goldie Mabovitch by birth, Goldie Myerson by marriage): born May 3; Yom Kippur war on Nov 3 [political ideologues]

Mordechaj (Markus) ben Samuel Meisl (Miška Marek Majzel in Czech): building most of the major buildings in Old Prague on March 11

Moses Mendelssohn (Moses ben Menachem): died on Jan 4 [reverend writers]

Jean de Morel (Morella I. Morelli Ebredunaei): honoured in a poem by his daughter on Sept 18

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart ("Amadeus" is a Latin translation of Theophilus and was not his name, but simply Mozart amusing himself): his "Adagio" performed by Gideon Klein on April 1; his G major piano concerto, K. 453, played by Ernő Dohnányi on July 27; died in poverty on Dec 5; mentioned on Feb 25, March 19 and April 16 [musical maestros] [pseudonyms]

Zhong Ni his birthname, but he was given the title Kǒng Fūzǐ (孔夫子, "Master Kong"), which is then Latinised as Confucius: either Aug 27 or Sept 28 for his birthdate; mentioned on Jan 3 [philosophers and the China page]

Mike Nichols (Michael Igor Peschkowsky): born Nov 8 [the world as stage]

Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame): predicting Napolloron on Feb 3; died July 2

Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais on his birth certificate; Patrick Henry Pearse on his warrant (born November 10 1879; executed at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin on May 3 1916): fighting to liberate his homeland on April 24 [Éireland and among The Poets]

Pelagius: no one knows for sure, but it is thought that he was a Welshman named Morgan and took this as his Latin name when he went to live in Rome; the greatest (but virtually unkown) philosopher Britain has yet produced, on Jan 11 [philosophers]

Shimon Peres (Szymon Perski): Prime Minister of Israel, born Aug 16

Joseph Mary Plunkett in English, Seosamh Máire Pluincéid in Éirish (born November 21 1887; executed May 4 1916): a poet and journalist, and a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising on April 24, he was one of the seven signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic [Éireland and the page of The Poets]

Joseph (József) Pulitzer: born April 10; first prize on June 4; “Gone With The Wind” on Dec 6; Eugene O'Neill, who won it four times, is on Oct 16; Sinclair Lewis was awarded the prize but turned it down on Jan 1 [serious scribes]

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky, but it wasn’t originally a pseudonym; his family changed their name in 1912; he was known as Manny, which he then reduced to Man as a nom de camera): among the great Photographers on Feb 20 [illustrious illustrators]

Paul Revere (Rivoire - it was his dad who changed it): riding on April 18; mentioned on April 21

Jacob Leon Rubenstein (Jack Ruby): yet another criminal-Jewish connection with the Kennedys on Nov 24 (John Wilkes Booth is on April 14; Jake the Barber on Oct 17)

Saladin (Salāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb): captured al-Quds on Oct 2 [purple cloaks]

Sanctorius (the Latinisation of Santorio Santori): born March 29, died Feb 22 (this page gets mentioned on Sept 13, and the March 29 page gets mentioned on March 30, but Feb 22 is the one that matters) [scientific achievements/Jan 1 and E,M&C2]

Gerhard Scholem, when he was born in Berlin on December 5 1897; but Gershom Scholem, adopted it as his name, not just his pseudonym, when he arrived in Palestine in 1923: the name means "sojourner"; merely mentioned on Aug 5; became, and this really was his official title, Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University [reverend writers]

William Shakespeare (Gulielmus Shakspere): see the Index for his multiple listings

Natan Sharansky (Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky): born Jan 20 [responses to bullying]

Chiang Kai-Shek (in English anyway;  蔣中正, which is Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng, in Chinese; though he is also known as  蔣介石 - Jiǎng Jièshí' - but by his birthname he ought to be 蔣瑞元 - Jiǎng Ruìyuán: became Chinese President Sept 13; born Oct 31; fled to Formosa on Dec 7 [China]

Jean (Johan Julius Christian) Sibelius: born Dec 8; mentioned on June 9 [musical maestros]

Isaac Bashevis Singer (Izaak Zynger): born July 14; mentioned Oct 27 [serious scribes]

Georg Solti (György Stern): taught by Erno Dohnányi on July 27; born Oct 21 [musical maestros]

Benedict Spinoza (Bento or Baruch de Spinoza): analysed by Montesquieu on Jan 18, and by Pierre Bayle on Nov 18; died Feb 21; used as an exemplar on June 3 and Sept 13; excommunicated on July 27 1656, though my account of it is actually on Feb 1; David Nieto on Sept 30; mentioned on Oct 10 [philosophers]

Itzhak (Isaac) Stern: born July 21 [musical maestros]

Tom Stoppard (Tomás Straüssler - not actually a translation; this was the name of the family who adopted him): born July 3, “Rosencrantz and Guildernstern” on Sept 2; mentioned on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

Lee Strasberg (Israel Strassberg): picked up Stanislavski’s method on Jan 17; used it on Aug 8; born Nov 17; mentioned May 22 [the world as stage]

William Tell (Wilhelm or Guillaume Tell, depending on whether you are using Schweize Deutsch or Franco-Suisse): died Nov 18

Beatrijs van Nazareth in the Dutch Hochland, but Beatrice van Tienen in the Flemish Flanderland (1200-1268): suggesting seven manners of love on Fev 24 [the reverend writers and the Beguines]

Lazarus in the Latin version of the gospels, where the father's name is not given, but definitely his should be El-Azar, and in all probability it was El-Azar ben Shimon in full; it was at Shimon's house that El-Azar and his sisters Mary and Martha were living, and where the party was hosted that Jesus attended; Christian scholars question his paternity, but probably they just don't like the fact that Shimon had leprosy (which he didn't anyway; that was a different Shimon; this one was more likely Shimon the Pharisee (click here)! Sept 21 and Dec 17

Rabindranath Tagore, which is an anglicisation of Thakur, his Bengali name; Bhanusimha - "Sun Lion" - was his pseudonym: born May 6 [The Poets]

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio): born circa 1490; died August 27 1576): just one more painting on April 16 [illustrious illustrators]

Luis de Torres when he accepted conversion; Yosef ben Ha Levi Ha Ivri before that): thought Cuba was in Asia, probably because his brain was fuddled by smoking tobacco, on Feb 1 and Nov 2 [pre-Columban Americas]

Benjamin MiTudelo, which should have its Mi separate from its Tudelo, but this is how he tends to get written in the Jewish annals. Benjamin of Tudela in the English ones. Bin Yamin ben Yonah ha-Tudelati in the Hebrew [serious scribes]

George de Valero when he was born; Edward de Valera by 1901; he only became Éamon de Valera when Éireland achieved its liberation: The Easter Rising on April 24; Roger Casement on Sept 1; born Oct 14 [Éirish page]

Andreas Vesalius (Andries van Wezel): fully anatomical on June 1 [illustrious illustrators]

Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil or Virgil): his “Georgics” translated by Voß on Feb 8; Feb 28 debates his spelling; born Oct 15; mentioned on March 30 and Aug 25 [The Poets]

Nathanael West (Nathan von Wallenstein and Nathan Weinstein are both reckoned to have come first): born Oct 17 [serious scribes]

Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Eliezer Perelman): revived Hebrew on Jan 7; mentioned on Jan 11 [the librarians of Babel]

Yesha-Yah ben Yoseph, known by his Latin pronunciation as Jesus, rather than by his Greek pronunciation as Isaiah; born either December 21 1BCE or January 6 1CE, on the threshing-floor of the corn-god Tammuz in Beit Lechem Ephratah; on June 22 as it happens in this blog, though for some reason it is usually listed on modern Christian calendars as December 25; died Erev Pesach 34 CE. Also mentioned on Jan 5, and on April 29 where Yoseph his father, Mor-Yah his mother, and Herod the king, also get included, alongside quotes from Luke and Matthew.

Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (Elijah ben Solomon in English), aka “the Vilna Ga'on”: died on Oct 10 [reverend writers]

Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (Ludoviko Lazaro in Esperanto): born Dec 15 [the librarians of Babel]

 

Click here for Pseudonyms 2 and the next set of sub-categories:

4. I prefer to use other (or fewer) parts of my name(s)

5. Does it have to be spelled that way?

6. Stick to the initials

7. Word-games and other oddities

 

 

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