What's in a necronym?

I’ve read several biographies of the Duke of Wellington that begin by listing certain superficial commonalities he shared with his great adversary, Napoleon. Both were born in 1769. Both were the product of island dependencies of the nations they’re most associated with--Napoleon of course was Corsican, while Wellington was Anglo-Irish. I’ve never seen a biography that mentioned the fact both men were christened with sibling necronyms, however.

In other words, both were given the same name as a dead brother.

As a woman of the 21st century, I can’t imagine doing such a thing. If, God forbid, anything happened to Miss Fraser, it would feel like the height of cruelty to both daughters to give another baby the same name--as if my second daughter wasn’t her own unique person but a replacement for her lost sister, and as if my first child could ever be replaced.

Obviously the Earl and Countess of Mornington and Carlo and Letizia Buonaparte didn’t feel the same way when they were naming their new sons back in the summer of 1769. I don’t think that’s because the higher infant mortality of the 18th century had inured them to grief at the loss of the first Arthur and Napoleone. Parents of the era before vaccinations and antibiotics were undoubtedly less shocked to lose a child than we would be today, but letters and journals of the era show the deep sorrow of fathers and mothers at the loss of babies and young children. Instead I think 18th century parents thought of names differently than we do today.

When Mr. Fraser and I named our daughter, we thought primarily of her future and our aspirations for her to be a happy, successful individual. We picked a name we believed sounded both beautiful and dignified. We tested its dignity by plugging it into the presidential oath of office and imagining how it would sound in the sentence, “And the Nobel Prize for medicine goes to...” (Or to put it another way, to me a good girl’s name is one that would sound better on a POTUS than on the pole.) We kept the nod to tradition and family heritage in her middle name, which is a feminine form of her paternal grandfather’s name.

But in the past, names were more about family connections than expressing your dreams for your unique Special Snowflake of a baby. Wellington was named for his maternal grandfather. Knowing that, it makes much more sense that his parents reused the name. If you name your second son Arthur to show him, his grandfather, and all the world that the connection matters to you and you want the name to live on in the family, of course if that boy dies, you’ll give the name to the next son born, hoping he’ll be more fortunate and live to pass the name on to sons and grandsons of his own, keeping the great chain of connections and heritage alive.

Why a pen name?

Susanna Fraser is not my real name. Some of my friends have asked why I chose to write under a pen name, and I thought, "Hey, perfect blog topic!"

1) I like naming things. Character naming is one of my favorite parts of a new story, and while I never wanted a large family, part of me envies the Duggars getting to name 19 children. So, how could I pass up the chance to rename myself?

(Incidentally, Susanna is the name I've always wished my parents had given me, and Fraser is from my family tree.)

2) It doesn't matter while I'm published in ebooks only, but if/when I'm in print, Fraser will get me better bookstore shelf placement than my real last name.

3) I write more than one genre, and my fantasy and alternative history is different enough in tone and likely readership from my romance that I'll probably need to publish it under a different name, if/when it sells. So I decided to use pen names for both, to make it clear that I'm proud of all my work. I figured if I wrote romance under a pen name and fantasy under my real name or vice versa, it might look like I was favoring whichever genre got the real name.

4) It makes me feel all Clark Kent/Superman, and I'm geek enough to get a kick out of having a secret identity of sorts.

5) There's something to be said for separate identities, even if I'm not trying to hide the fact that I write books as Susanna Fraser. To wit:

a) If any of my friends and family think my books are too sexy or too violent or too whatever, they can just pretend that Susanna Fraser woman has nothing to do with anyone they know. ;-)

b) I can be politically active and opinionated under my real name, and whatever portion of my readership disagrees with my views won't know about it unless they do some digging.

c) While I don't plan to hide my writing from, well, anybody, there's something to be said for being able to control when and how I tell people. Say, for example, I'm interviewing for a new day job. The general public tends to think authors make a lot more money than those of us not named King, Rowling, or Grisham actually do, so I don't want the burden of having to explain that yes, I really do need a job because most authors aren't remotely rich.

So. That's my pen name story. Maybe some day if I'm short on blog topics, or if there's interest, I'll post about what I would've named 19 children in some alternative reality where I have that many, or, more on-topic, how I go about naming characters.

Writers: Do you use a pen name? Why or why not?

Readers: Does it change your opinion of an author if you know s/he uses a pen name?