I recently got into a conversation about my name – which is a pen name. (You know who you are – Caron Eastgate Dann, I’m looking at you!) So here’s the true story of Caron Allan.

Firstly, to explain the title. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says that famous line, ‘A Rose by any other name, would still smell as sweet,’ (my paraphrase). So whatever I’m called, I’m still me, right? Erm… well, let’s leave that on one side for now. The Rat bit is a sideways smirk at Umberto Eco who wrote a brilliant book about the perils and pitfalls of translation. It’s called Mouse Or Rat, because, he says, in a lot of languages it’s the same word, though in English it’s obviously not. Plus in English, along with the different word, you have a completely different connotation: mice can be cute and teeny with droopy little whiskers and dainty little paws whereas rats are gigantic, plague-ridden rodent-devils.

And so my problem.

Six years ago, when I decided to opt for self-publishing, or being an Indie author, as we now, more politely call it, I wondered what to call myself. I didn’t want to use my real name for a couple of reasons. One, people might find out where I lived and come round and throw my books through my window whilst screaming and waving pitchforks. Two, people might attack me at work – I had a real job back then. Three, I’ve always hated my real first name – Carolyn – (there, I’ve said it, massive sigh of relief as onerous burden of guilt at my deception is lifted), so I welcomed any chance to ditch it. And four, I felt that my first name was old-fashioned, and conjured up all too clearly the image of a fat old woman (which I am), which would be incongruous (or so I thought) with the readership I wanted to reach.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I now know that: most of my readers are probably my age or older, and that there’s no such thing as a secret identity. Especially if you can’t keep your own mouth shut. To start with I often post something on my author FB page then respond to comments from other people on my personal page – thus letting the cat out of the bag. In addition to my first name, my surname is also a horrid one. We just don’t think ahead, do we, and realise when we begin walking out with a handsome young gentleman, that his surname will someday become ours, and lead to a lifetime of explanations and misery and ridicule. So that had to go too.

So what to call myself? I’ve agonised for years over the possibilities of what to call myself if I changed my name. And I’d never really narrowed it down to one final choice. I thought about taking my children’s middle names and creating a name out of that. To be on the safe side, I searched on Amazon to see if there were already authors with that name. There were! Eek! Good thing I checked, though.

So bearing in mind the adjunct to authors to avoid using adverbs, I took the LY out of the middle of my name, and closed up the gap. Ta-da! Caron. Then I took my hubby’s first name, gave it an extra L. And Behold – Caron Allan appeared! (Cue applause!)

Thank you very much. I love you all. I’d like to thank my agent – Oh wait, no, they all turned me down! 🙂

By the way, completely off topic, I had my third post-cancer check-up at the hospital this week, and I’ve been discharged with a clean bill of health. Wow!!!! Eighteen months ago, I thought I was going to die. Now I know I will get to live first. One day I might write about that, but not just yet. Real people, behind the pen-names on your book covers.

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