I need to generate many neutral pseudonyms.

May 17, 2007 7:00 PM

Renaming myself in grey. I need to come up with an ongoing supply of carefully neutral yet non-random (and non-lame) pseudonyms, for judging processes that require anonymous entry.

Many competitions & opportunities in my field use anonymous entry (the work samples are marked not with your name but with a pseudonym; your name goes only on the application form or in a sealed envelope).

It's harder than it might sound to come up with an ongoing supply of really usable pseudonyms (and clearly it's not ideal to re-use them across multiple competitions).

The goal in each case is a pseudonym that doesn't detract or distract from my work in any way, and doesn't imply I'm part of any category against which the judges might have a conscious or unconscious bias. In other words, it should be ALL of these things:
• gender-neutral
• ethnicity-neutral and geography-neutral
• age-neutral (not strongly implying I'm part of any given generation)
• not cutesy, self-referential or otherwise "clever" (since clever for one person is annoying/lame for another)
• not anything that seems to be a cipher or puzzle, or otherwise divert attention by inspiring an instinct to figure it out (so I think this precludes totally random character strings).

Thanks for any ideas re. pseudonym-generating strategies or conventions!

This question is about coming up with usable pseudoyms -- not about whether competitions should be run this way / whether competitions are useful / etc.

posted by allterrainbrain to Society & Culture (33 answers total)

I don't think I understand the question. Are these writing competitions? In that case, you'd want to get credited for your work, no? And I think that gender-etc-neutral is an interesting idea, but why do you need to have a different name for each one?
posted by loiseau at 7:06 PM on May 17, 2007

A., B., C., etc.
posted by klangklangston at 7:06 PM on May 17, 2007

Oh, and there are a few pseudonym generators online. Just google pseudonym generator.
posted by loiseau at 7:09 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Can you provide us with one example of the sort of pseudonym you're looking for? I didn't think so. Gender-neutral and ethnicity-neutral? How in the world are you going to find an ethnicity-neutral name? What sorts of names do other people use?
posted by jdroth at 7:14 PM on May 17, 2007

Use the last name "Lee". Could be Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, or Anglo. That's the first "ethnically neutral" surname that comes to mind.

Initials only for the first and (optional) middle names.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:14 PM on May 17, 2007

Does this pseudonym have to be akin to an actual name? mr_roboto's suggestion is a good one -- could you extend that simply by using "Lee1", "Lee2" etc.? Or would those be too similar to each other?
posted by nomis at 7:22 PM on May 17, 2007

Response by poster: The pseudonym can be anything at all -- a single word, a character string, etc.

For anybody who doesn't understand the question: the work samples (in this case, written scores for pieces of music) are marked only with pseudonyms. The application form -- kept by a secretary or admin, never seen by the judges -- has the real name, the pseudonym and the piece's title. So when the judges come to the decision, "Okay, we're giving the commission to the person who wrote the score marked XYZ," the secretary looks up which real name matches XYZ. This system is used to avoid judges knowing the composers' identities, so they can judge with a cleaner slate.

(Ironically, it's such a small world that even this doesn't always work; in the two cases when I've been on the judging panel for an anonymous-entry competition, I unfortunately recognized a few people because I'd already heard the pieces...)
posted by allterrainbrain at 7:30 PM on May 17, 2007

Are names like Pat Pending, Rick Shaw and Justin Case too cutesy?
posted by Oriole Adams at 7:39 PM on May 17, 2007

Why are the pseudonyms used at all? Why not just number the entries, and identify them based on that?
posted by Caper's Ghost at 7:39 PM on May 17, 2007

It would seem to me that developing any system - like the A, B, C, or Lee1, Lee2 - would make you the only person who's doing anything beyond just coming up with something on the spot, right? Since it will stand out to the judges, and as soon as the real name is called, they'll say, ah, Lee1 was allterrainbrain. And when they next encounter Lee2, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to figure it out. Or are judges so rarely repeated that this isn't an issue?

I would just take a list of gender-neutral names, pick a bunch of last names, and make a spreadsheet of both. Whenever you need a name, take one of each and take them off the list if you want to avoid repetition.
posted by mikeyk at 7:39 PM on May 17, 2007

I can literally think of no conceivable way whatsoever this can work with both a first name and a last name - especially since first names and last names don't work the same way in all cultures!

If the judges know that this is how the system is working, why not identify each score with a letter from a foreign alphabet, or with a type of mineral?

What if everyone gets an Etruscan name? Even if your judges are prejudiced for or against Etruscan, there will be no difference in the prejudices amongst the entries.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:41 PM on May 17, 2007

Oh... How about something simple like colors? This list of Crayola crayon names gives you a nice nonrandom set to choose from, and you can just prune the weird ones (Razzle Dazzle Red, etc.) and of course, black, white, and brown. Alternately, names of trees: elm, oak, chestnut, maple, etc.

People used to name Unix computer clusters this way... find a long set of related nouns, give one as a name to each computer. There was often an emphasis on the clever or literary, though.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:45 PM on May 17, 2007

On second thought, why do you want them to be nonrandom? If you use some pattern or convention, it could compromise your anonymity.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:46 PM on May 17, 2007

Also:

• not anything that seems to be a cipher or puzzle, or otherwise divert attention by inspiring an instinct to figure it out (so I think this precludes totally random character strings).

If the judges know these strings are random, then there is literally nothing to figure out. If you believe a judge is going to puzzle out "kyzdf812," even subconsciously, and let it taint their perception of the piece, then I suggest you abandon human judges altogether, as almost anything could run through their mind or dash past their windows as they are judging music.

I'm not trying to be contradictory - I just think the answer is even simpler than you may think.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:47 PM on May 17, 2007

Vivian Purcell

Carmen Montenegro

Boris Borealis

Alberto Veeofive

John Smith

Jane Portofiero

Misty Dawn

Merysol

Bambi Notnuts

Mark Badfisher

Sloane Archimedes

Purvis Hatfield

Borbor

Tickles Almandirez

Wanda Perez

Altima Lexus

Lindsey Woolsey

J. Howard Fishhawk

Selma Alabama

Nancy Brennan

Morticia Clooney

Malo

Bonita Collection Of Unicorns

Kelly
posted by longsleeves at 7:47 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I like the idea of doing names of minerals; this could be extended to chemicals, colors, latin names of plants; etc. You could find a lot of things that won't call too much attention to themselves but still be sort of interesting - such as "Antimony Black" or "Blue Copperas." Of course, eventually, people might start to notice that one entry is always the name of something in a particular category, so you'd have to change it around again.
posted by frobozz at 7:47 PM on May 17, 2007

I don't understand why this is on you. Why not have the secretary you mentioned take up all of the entries and assign them numbers or something arbitrarily? I know this doesn't answer your question, but maybe you could suggest this?
posted by thebrokedown at 7:47 PM on May 17, 2007

Are names like Pat Pending, Rick Shaw and Justin Case too cutesy?
posted by Oriole Adams

Seymour Butz? I. P. Freely? Mike Hunt? Heywood Jabuzov?

OK, I looked at the pseudonym generators posted by loiseau, and those look pretty cool! I think you could just refresh a new list of 30 a few times and have numerous decent choices.
posted by The Deej at 7:50 PM on May 17, 2007

Um, can I take back my answer? I somehow got the idea that this would be with the same judging panel each time, not various competetions with new judges. Oops.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:51 PM on May 17, 2007

Use the old stick-a-finger-in-the-phonebook method, and devote your mental energy instead to your work to be judged. You are over-thinking this.
posted by Snerd at 8:00 PM on May 17, 2007

Just use famous fictitious names such as Forrest Gump. Everyone will know they are not real and they do not reveal much about you.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:03 PM on May 17, 2007

So, I re-read the question and now I see that I wasn't being very helpful. I had thought you yourself were running a competition yourself. Instead, you are entering in them. Sorry.

So, using a mineral name is out of the question, because then people would start picking up that you were Mineral Person.

My suggestion now is to go for names in dead languages, or to use once each a phrase from some category: a mineral for the next competition, an animal for the next, a plant for the next, a Sumerian for the next, and so forth.

I'm amazed that the assistants at these competitions don't randomize the scores themselves, but I'm clearly not part of that world.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:07 PM on May 17, 2007

I do like the pseudonym generator idea, but if you're set on strictly ethnically/geographically neutral proper nouns, might I suggest this approach?
posted by ormondsacker at 8:11 PM on May 17, 2007

Any system -- always using a word from a dead language, always using a mineral, always using characters from certain films, etc. -- is going to give you away eventually, if you're getting the same judges time after time. (E.g., a judge could see your work and go "oh, man, not mineral guy/gal again -- I hated mineral guy!"). So you need something totally random, not a system.

I think it's probably going to be best to eliminate names from a potential pool of candidates, than it is to generate them. So go to one of those random-pseudonym generators, have it pop out a few, then run down them and toss out the ones that are too {male|female|whatever} until you have a suitably generic one left.

Each time, repeat the process.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:19 PM on May 17, 2007

1. Go to the phone book. Select 25 first names and 25 last names that meet your criteria.

2. Sort each list in random order.

3. Combine first name #1 with last name #2. Repeat for names 2 through 25.

Both you and many of the previous respondents are making this way too hard.
posted by ottereroticist at 8:21 PM on May 17, 2007

Response by poster: I should've called it "designating" rather than "naming" -- proper names are not what I'm thinking (as pointed out above, it's impossible to keep them neutral). I'm thinking random, neutral, real-world, maybe interesting-sounding nouns or adjectives that have no strong connotations of gender/race/etc.

frobozz's suggestion of mineral names is right on; I've used some simple mineral/botanical/cloud/etc. names in the past (avoiding long-term patterns, as several people have mentioned... I know not to be "cloud girl," convenient as it would be).

I like ormondsacker's suggestion of just sitting down with a full list of terms (in many different categories) so I can pick out simple ones that have few connotations. Very efficient.

(And, again, I can't change this practice; it's a convention across hundreds of competitions worldwide. It may not be the most logical way to go, but I'm just grateful there's still some arts funding out there regardless of how it's awarded. :))
posted by allterrainbrain at 8:29 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Use colors, patterns, fabrics, names of trees, etc.
posted by Argyle at 8:48 PM on May 17, 2007

get a big stack of paint chips. they always have weird, random names that, out of context, wouldn't be instantly identifiable as paint colors (seashell, cape cod, dust, sunlight, fog, palomino, apple, wedgewood, grizzly, tango, etc etc.)
posted by thinkingwoman at 9:27 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you'd consider relaxing the requirement for genuine words, I've often been impressed with the plausibility of the pseudo-words that Google uses for captchas. Have a look at the bottom of the Gmail signup page, for example.
posted by flabdablet at 10:07 PM on May 17, 2007

Best answer: sitting down with a full list of terms (in many different categories) so I can pick out simple ones that have few connotations.

Yeah, exactly, and wikipedia's category listings specifically are a good one-stop source. Category: Astronomical objects, Category: Mathematical theorems, Category: Twentieth-century military campaigns, etc., etc. Best of luck!
posted by ormondsacker at 10:17 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Or get a book of lists.
posted by clh at 11:12 PM on May 17, 2007

Why not something like Google Sets?
posted by aberrant at 8:05 AM on May 18, 2007

oops, hit post too soon. Here's how you might do it: enter two (mostly) unrelated words: I used "tree" and "bear". These are your keys. Then select "large set". You get the following list of seemingly-random items, including "Debug" and "abstract".
posted by aberrant at 8:07 AM on May 18, 2007