I’ve been thinking of changing my name lately. Oh not so much because I’ve never liked my name in the first place, but because I have the unfortunate luck of having the same name as another “Wendy Thomas” who also happens to have a strong connect to chickens. And that’s the space, in which I’m hoping to get published.
Doubt me? Go ahead and Google “Wendy Thomas chicken.” See what I mean? When an article of mine gets published, I *always* get asked if I’m that “Wendy Thomas.” Never quite sure how I’m supposed to reply to that one – do I say “no, but I’m this Wendy Thomas.”
I’ve thought about using my initials, you know like a certain J.K? But that kind of seems a little yesterday.
I’ve thought about taking my father’s middle name which would have been mine had I been a boy. How does Wendy Edgar Thomas – grab you? Yeah, well, I’m not so keen on it either.
The problem seems to lie with that darn first name, Wendy. It’s a nickname, not a real name. A word that has never grown up. There is no co-incidence that it was first used in a story about a little boy who decided to never become an adult.
Perhaps I should change my name to Wendt (silent D) so that people could still call me Wendy, but it wouldn’t look quite so silly on a title page.
For now, I’m going with two middle initials (for the record my legal name is “Wendy Ellen N. Thomas” – and don’t even get me started about the name Ellen) although even on that issue I’m having a problem.
On one blog site I’m listed as Wendy EN Thomas, on another it’s Wendy E.N. Thomas, and on my personal blog it’s just Wendy Thomas – talk about multiple personalities.
No worries, I still have time to figure this out. For now though, I guess in the end what’s really important is – like in that old joke – you can call me anything you like, just don’t call me late for dinner.
How about you? Anyone else have difficulty with your name?
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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.
Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens). (www.simplethrift.wordpress.com)
Perhaps I should just let people call me Sweetheart.
Live to Write - Write to Live 
Personally I think Wendy is a lovely name, very British and I tend to expect the woman who has be bestowed with this name to be well spoken and bright. I expect to like this woman very much. That being said I do understand the frustration of association. So when picking a name my best suggestion is going with what feels authentic. When you look at what you are publishing what do you want to see?
You’re right about it being British (my father was Welsh.) Yup, that’s a big take-away, it’s going to have to feel authentic.
Wendy Ellen Thomas has a great ring to it.
Thanks but I’ve *never* liked the sound of my name. Even as a young girl, I didn’t like it (which I do admit is a little weird.)
Oh my…that’s a predicament isn’t it? Well, go with your gut. I use my birth name on anything I write creatively, and use my hyphenated maiden-married name otherwise. Not that I have anything against my husband’s name, but I want full credit as me. Plus, it’s a tribute to my dad, as I’m his oldest daughter with no sons to carry on the name. (My brother is severely physically challenged.)
Be “you” in whatever way is comfortable. If people are confused, that’s their problem. Once they get to know you, no one will mix you up with anybody else. To be honest, I’ve enjoyed your posts so much I never made the connection between you and that “other” Wendy Thomas!
I’d like to think that if people get confused that’s there problem but there’s this little thing called the internet. If my name isn’t different from the many others (oh and I forgot to include that there is a teacher the next town over whose name is Wendy Thomas) then no one will be able to find me.
Just go with your initials: W.E.N.T.
yes I did I went there…
W.E.N.T is certainly better than my initials before I got married (I took my husband’s last’s names initial as my second middle name) which was W.E.T.
Nope no teasing about that when I was growing up.
Yeah just a slight parental miscue on that one 🙂
Just like I actually went to school with a guy named Michael Hunt…and he never let anyone call him Mike. Ever.
🙂 🙂 🙂
I have a very common first name. My husband has a very common last name. If those two names together were my full legal name, no one would ever find me. Go ahead search Barbara Jackson; the hits are astronomical. Because I recognized this before we got married I chose to hyphenate my last name. (Also my last name was the only connection I had to my father.) So while there are thousands of Barbara Jacksons and a few Barbara Primous’, I am the only Barbara Primous-Jackson that comes up when my name is searched.
I actually like hyphenated names and considered them for our kids but we decided instead to give each of our children my last name as their middle name and then their dad’s last name.
With 6 kids all having the same middle name, for a while there, I had them all convinced that *everyone’s* middle name was “Thomas”
We hyphenated the girls names and gave the boys just my husband’s last name. So there is some confusion at school functions but hey life would be boring without some confusion.
That’s an interesting approach. And yeah, I get the last name confusion thing with my kids all the time. I kept my last name the kids have my husbands.
Not only is everyone not sure I’m the mom (girlfriend, maybe?) they don’t know what to call me. I’m not Mrs. anything. I’m Wendy and that’s how I usually just introduce myself.
All my creative work has been signed Tracie Eastman or TE. Basically because I was use to it, being creative before my marriage & never really expecting to get married (or now divorced). And it’s better than my married initials TP, didn’t i hear jokes about that? I wasn’t defined by my marriage, but respected him & the institution enough to take his name, traditionally speaking. After over 10 years of being divorced I’m finally back to my maiden name. People ask if I feel different, no, basically I’ve always been me, just with a different name.
I was almost named Wendy, from what my mom said, by the way.
TP – see my note above about my initials being WET. *sigh* kids can be so cruel.
Glad to meet another Wendy, even if you are an “almost Wendy” 🙂
I actually write under a name that is totally different from my name in real life. I had a similar issue as you and now my problem is solved! Plus I got to pick a name I love 🙂 Kat
I’ve toyed with using an entirely different name. Having a different last name from my kids has allowed me to be a little more free with my writing. Not too many people connect me to them (unless you saw them, some of them look like mini-mes) If I had a completely different name I could be even more removed from my personal me. Kind of like inception for writers.
I feel (some of ) your pain, Wendy. People tell me that “Dan Stone” sounds like the name of a secret agent or a rock (or porn) star. Trouble is there are apparently a zillion of us and anytime I get someplace, another Dan Stone seems to have gotten there first (i.e., domain names, etc.). My parents didn’t even help me out by naming me ‘Daniel’, which I like much better.
Seriously Dan and not Daniel? And yes, Dan Stone is the perfect cop/detective name. Please tell me that your parents gifted you with a strong middle initial.
Alas, Wendy, my middle initial is “A”. Dan-a Stone. Dana Stone? Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the gift of androgyny. At least Daniela sounds somewhat exotic . . .
Dan – listen pal, no offense but I think your parents might have been on drugs the night they came up with your name. An “A” – really? 🙂
I like the use of initials in a professional name. In print I think it looks very professional and when spoken, it sounds distinguished. Yours is catchy and sets you apart from “that” Wendy because of using two middle initials.
My maiden name is Fail. Try going through school or launching a writing career with that one!
I’m definitely leaning toward the two initials.
Now, let’s talk about the name “Fail” all I really say about it, is forget the initials “TP” and “WET” you win.
Hands down.
So do you have a middle initial you could use? Or, if you don’t like that, how about making the most of your name: on your book cover, beneath the title, write
~ by the other Wendy Thomas or
~ by Wendy Thomas (not that one, but the other one who really understands chickens)
I like your thinking! Your last suggestion is the one that made me laugh the loudest. Definite possibilities.
Wendy Ellen Thomas would make a lovely published name. You could also always use your mother’s maiden name or another family name.
I always wanted to use my mother’s maiden name (Vaughan) as a pen name since I think my last name, Gerstle, is not particularly pretty. However, there are pages of Christina Vaughans on Google but only a handful of Christi/Christina Gerstles. Whatever name you choose will be the right one. 🙂
You know I had forgotten about my mother’s maiden name. A few years ago, I had thought to include it in my name. Her name is “Burr” (yup, our relative killed Alexander Hamilton. Maybe because of Gore Vidal’s book (prominently displayed in our house with just about every other book ever written on Burr) but I’ve always thought the name “Burr” was a great one (although I was never able to convince my husband of that when naming the boys 😦
My maiden name was unique, and I knew for a fact I was the only person with m y name. When I got married, my last name became Scott, which has a nice ring to it, but now I no longer have a unique name! I like the option of using your middle name too.
I’m quite certain, you *never* hear any “Great Scott” jokes, right?
Welcome to the teasing name/initial club. 🙂
How about Dee Thomas? I think that sounds like a writer’s name!
Thanks for the suggestion but Dee doesn’t fit well at all. Just to help you along, the kinds of names I love are like the ones we used for my two daughters, Addison (Addy) and Emerson (Emma)
See what I mean? That’s what “Wendy” is missing. A more grown up counterpart.
Oh how I wish I could have been a Guinevere.
Wendelyn! 🙂
Actually I meant to write Gwendelyn (not Guinevere) but I think you just may be onto something with the Wendelyn.
Wendy, I feel your pain. Lisa Hall is the name I was born with. There’s a Lisa Hall that writes cook books. I write paranormal/sci-fi. There’s a Candadian male LR Hall that writes sci-fi.That’s only the ones I have found. I have considered using a pen name. I have one picked out, a tribute to my maternal grandmother. What I’m really wishing is that I’d gone with that before I spent two years on twitter, goodreads, facebook, and the website. *sigh*
Your name isn’t ‘common’. It’s ‘popular’. Also significant to literature – J M Barrie coined ‘wendy’ for Peter Pan, a diminutive of Gwendolyn.
Apropos being ‘popularly named’ – I have the same problem. Here in New Zealand, I gather there are 42 other Matthew Wrights on the electoral roll. One of them writes poetry and posts it on a blog. Not me. Another writes books on railways, which is unfortunate because I do too. And I’ve been mistaken for him. Sigh.
My maiden name was the same as a crazy person so when I got married and moved home for a bit I changed it to my married name. Now everyone I meet ask me if I’m Portuguese which I am not. Ha.
How about W.E. Thomas?
Comments I got growing up: ‘Were you named after Lisa Marie Presley?’ No, I came first. Teacher: ‘What kind of nationality is your last name?’ Other kids yelling ‘It’s horse of course!’ (maiden name ‘Nay’. I always wanted something dramatic. Personally I like Wendy. Though I somehow end up pronouncing it Windy and starting to sing that song…who’s walking down the streets of the city…I like Matthew Wright’s comment. Gwendolyn is a great name, tool
I sort of like the “Wendy En Thomas” variation 🙂 It sounds like a wonderful place one could go to for an adventure.
Fantastic read. Very funny. I went with J. Lenni Dorner (obviously) for my pen-name. Lenni is the Native American tribe of which I am an ancestor. Silly me, I assumed people would call me “J” (perhaps because I have a friend named Jay, which sounds exactly like J, and no one finds it odd to call him a name which sounds like a letter), when in reality, several people have started to call me Lenni. Now I am faced with the extraordinarily old conundrum of being called what I am rather than who I am. (Just ask Miller, Smith, and Baker about it! Time travel back a bit first.) (Though I suppose you could also ask Johnson about it, since obviously way back when the greatest thing that person did was be born with a well known father named John. I wonder if that person ever sat around drinking with a best friend named Jacobson?)
Darlin’ to me (out in Africa) you are “the” (one-and-only) Wendy Thomas – so bask in that! I wrote a post with the same name and didn’t get one single comment and probably zippo “likes” (don’t recall). So LOL and count your blessings! 😉
I have a similar case of multiple personalities…I go by Steph but my legal name is Stephanie and some people insist on calling me Stephanie. I have published bylines with both Steph and Stephanie (not my choice!), I have no idea which to put on my résumé…etc!