Adopting A Nom de Plume In Adulthood

Nom de plume:  A friend of mine I’d not spoken to in decades recently asked about my last name. I think he was concerned that my husband’s name might be “Lloyd Lloyd.” I told him it was a long story. Here it is….

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I have a confession to make:  Delia Lloyd is not my real name.

I felt like I needed to come clean because I joined Facebook yesterday. (Yes, I’m one of those octogenarians driving up the average user’s age.)

And because for me, Facebook is primarily a personal social networking tool (at least for now), I decided to join under my legal name, which is….drum roll please…Delia Boylan. So just in case you cyber-stalked me in the last 24 hours and noticed the same head shot, same bio, same appallingly bad taste in music:  Yes, it’s me.

The whole process of coming to that decision made me think, again, about my name.

I’ve always hated my given name. For starters, it makes me sound like an Irish scullery maid. And then there’s the small problem that no one—in the U.S. at least—can seem to remember it. I’ve grown accustomed to answering to pretty much anything that begins with a D, including “Dee.”

When I was a kid, I disliked my name so much that once—during a high school production of Dames At Sea—I was given the chance to make up my own name for my part in the chorus. While the other girls selected things like “Tiffany” and “Sparkle,” I chose—wait for it—Ann. That’s right. Ann. I was dying to have a normal name.

Later on, when I got married and had made my peace with Delia, I still had the (easy) opportunity to change my last name. And while loads of my friends weighed in on the politics of whether or not to take my husband’s name, that was an easy one for me. I didn’t like his surname either. So I stuck with Delia Boylan.

But then, round about 2001, I changed careers and decided that as part of the psychological move out of academia and into journalism, I would take on an entirely new persona. And whether because of an inspired moment or because I simply lacked much imagination, I chose my husband’s first name, Lloyd, to use as my last name professionally. (I like to tell people that it’s post-post-feminist…no one knows what to do with that).

My old boss once asked me how it felt to use the name Delia Lloyd, to which I responded: “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.” She looked a bit puzzled. So I sheepishly added: “I mean, next to having my two kids and marrying my lovely husband and all that.”

But it’s true. Whereas once I felt a little pang every time I had to utter my real name, once I started using “Delia Lloyd” on a regular basis, I found that I loved it. (And as a producer for a daily talk show on radio I spent eight hours a day on the phone, so I quickly got a lot of practice…)

There aren’t all that many things you can change about yourself once you grow up. You’re pretty much stuck with your hair, eye color, stature, etc..  But adopting a new name, even if it’s a nom de plume, can be really liberating. It’s like changing careers. You get to reinvent yourself and that very fact introduces a little frisson into your life.

As for me, right now I’m really loving the opportunity to move between the two faces of Eve Delia. Its just one more variant on portfolio careers!

Image:  Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash