If earlier pseudonyms were the lot of bohemia, writers or artists, then with the advent of the Web, almost everyone has a nickname. What is our choice connected with and how does it change our worldview?
My mother-in-law, Margarita Vasilyevna, introduced herself as Tatyana Vasilyevna all her life. And her husband Zinovy Iosifovich was called Dima in the family. I know a gray-haired character, known on the Web under the nickname Fighter, and a writer who changed the first letters in the “metro map” to add up her literary name – Marta Ketro.
Why do we need a spare name? To answer this question, it would be good to understand why we need a name as such.
Sign of fate
This is only at first glance the answer on the surface – “to distinguish Vasya from Petya.” Thinkers treat this differently: the philosopher Alexei Losev believed that a unique energy is sealed in the name, ready to explode when it is pronounced. And the theologian Pavel Florensky was convinced that fate was encoded in the name: as they say, by name and life.
Tribal peoples placed the names of newborns in an ideal picture of the world. At the mother’s breast lay the Pink Morning Star, the Ringing Mountain Stream, Sharp Claw, and Hawkeye.
The Christian Middle Ages took names seriously: after all, they provided patron saints for their owners. But well-aimed nicknames accompanied even crowned persons: Harold I Hare’s Paw, Richard I Yes-and-No, Pepin III Short, Vasily Kosoy and Vasily the Dark, not to mention Ivan the Terrible.
At the same time, and up to the XNUMXth century, Plokhs, Zhadins, Balamuts, Nesmeyany, Fierce walked around Russia – names that later migrated to surnames. True, they do not predict fate, rather they state it. We know many famous personalities only by nicknames: Hercules (glorious), Homer (blind), Plato (wide).
But the opinions of others are enshrined in the nicknames. A pseudonym is our choice. What is behind it?
“The name is part of our image,” emphasizes psychologist Alexei Sivov. – At the first meeting, we perceive a person by name. The associations that form in our minds with Martha will be completely different than with Asya. By disguising ourselves in a different name, we influence the perception, both our own and others’.
Passing and crossing borders
The pseudonym also serves as a kind of marker that helps to identify different areas of our interests. Many readers know the modern prose writer Alexander Snegirev, but not everyone knows that Alexei Kondrashov is hiding under this name.
“When you start writing, you just need to get a new name, because you are immersed in a different reality,” he is sure. “You’re not really you anymore.”
The poet Nadia Delaland and the philologist Nadezhda Chernykh are one person. This duality is not an attempt to deceive anyone, but “the result of feeling my own poems as an event outside my life, passing through me and therefore not entitled to my real name,” according to her.
The case may not be limited to a single alias. The Japanese scholar Grigory Chkhartishvili, who is also two writers: Boris Akunin and Anatoly Brusnikin, and Anna Borisova, the author of women’s prose, approaches his texts with particular scrupulousness. Each genre has its own creator.
Literary transgenders shock the public for more than a century. Male pseudonyms were used by sisters Charlotte and Emilia Bronte, Aurora Dupin, known to the world as George Sand, writer and poetess Zinaida Gippius, whose numerous pseudonyms were entirely male (Anton Krainy, Nikita Vecher).
And if in Europe of the XNUMXth century a male pseudonym was necessary as a pass to the world of art occupied by men, then for the bohemians of the early XNUMXth century, literary masks and hoaxes, including gender ones, became a fashionable experience.
“Analyst Carl Gustav Jung argued that in the psyche of a man there is a female part of the Anima, and in the female – a male, Animus,” says Alexey Sivov. “By putting on the guise of a different gender, we give voice to this part of our unconscious, getting the opportunity to get to know it better.”
Sometimes other ways of reincarnation are added to the pseudonym. So, Zinaida Gippius often put on a man’s suit, which is captured in her famous portrait, made by Lev Bakst.
Be a brand
Not only literature is a field for experiments with a name. The political struggle, connected with conspiracy theories and a kind of artistry, showed us Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler, Che Guevara – pseudonyms that became tragic symbols of their time.
A harmonious and short pseudonym easily tames the ear and is better remembered. You can look at this as a marketing ploy, even if this “market” does not involve income.
Now it is difficult to say whether the glory of the modest Norma Jean Baker and Sofia Villani Shicolone would have dawned on them if they had not turned into Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. The name crowning talent becomes a brand. And it doesn’t matter if the word “talent” is replaced by the word “project”, the very principle of “naming” is important. It is the same as when promoting any product – to package in order to sell. Elena Vaenga is more spectacular than Khruleva, Dima Bilan is more glamorous than Viktor Belan… It is easier for Anfisa Chekhova and Prokhor Chaliapin to move forward, leaning against, so to speak, already promoted brands.
“It is interesting that almost all the stars of Russian rock are known to us by their real names, and the current hip-hopers are all nicknames,” says marketing and communications specialist Elizaveta Panfilova. – Probably one of the reasons is that rockers did not think about the commercialization of their projects, the greed did not fit well with their leftist beliefs, while many rappers quickly become rich at a young age. Another reason: hip-hop originated from a criminal subculture, where nicknames are an indispensable attribute.
Space for imagination
Today, pseudonyms are a tool not only for creative individuals. Almost every Internet user has acquired a nickname. There are entire catalogs of nicknames for every taste and character. Everything depends on intentions.
We can count on indulgence and tenderness, becoming a Hare, Katyushka, Sunshine. For support and compassion – under the nickname I want to die, Insomnia Sadness. You can defy convention by introducing yourself as Crazy Piglet or Nervous and Crazy, or remain an invulnerable observer by ciphering as TG320.
There is room for imagination here, but there is also a danger of merging with the chosen mask, because for many virtual reality has become an alternative habitat. The role of a nickname for a member of an online community is not just to represent him, but also to attract attention.
“However, outrageous nicknames signal the internal dissatisfaction of the wearer,” Aleksey Sivov warns. A pseudonym is another tool of self-expression. Some we use only once, others will stay with us for a long time. Why not try?
Caution required
A pseudonym can not only open up new opportunities for us, but actually change fate. An example of this is the life of the writer Romain Gary.
When he was born in 1914 in Vilna to a Russian Jewish family, his name was Roman Katsev. But as a teenager, he signed manuscripts with fictitious names. Having moved to France, he first changed his first name, and then his last name, so Romain Gary appeared. Under this pseudonym, he received France’s most prestigious literary Prix Goncourt for his novel The Roots of Heaven in 1956. But this is where the intrigue begins.
In 1974, Katsev-Gary creates an alter ego: now he is a 34-year-old Algerian student Emile Azhar with a dramatic biography. Through reliable dummy correspondents, Emile Azhar presents to the public the novel Darling, the success of which is overshadowed only by the next one – All Life Ahead. In 1975, this book was awarded the same Prix Goncourt, which, according to the rules, is awarded to one writer only once in a lifetime. The deception was exposed, but its elegance was overshadowed by the indignation of the literary establishment. Interestingly, the French surnames Gary and Azhar are consonant with the Russian words “burn” and “fire”.
“This is an example of how to write a life scenario for yourself with the help of a name,” says Alexei Sivov. – The imperative mood of the verb “to burn” has become a powerful creative driver for the writer. But the drama inherent in this association did not bypass the hero: having “burned out”, Romain Gary committed suicide. So the game with the name is not as harmless as it might seem at first. The ideal pseudonym is one that adds color to our personality, but does not dictate behavior, leaves freedom of choice.