What's in a name?

Names matter.  If you do a creative professional job it’s common to have a stage name or pen name.

When I was teaching pole dance, for a bit of fun the class came up with exotic stage names. One method used is to combine the name of a pet with a street name where you live(d) and hopefully the result would be something like Sheba Silver or Candy Queen. You get the idea.  

This meant that my names were Hammy Foxden or Biffa Langhorne.  Which made me sound more like a spitfire pilot than a pole dancer!

When it came to my erotica pen name, I decided to use Elizabeth, one of my birth names.  Although I wasn't fond of the name as a child, as an adult I grew to appreciate it and I now feel that it is rather  magnificent.  It’s also amazingly flexible and can be shortened in so many ways, all of which conjure up different characters.  For example, Eliza, Liza, Eli, Liz, Bet, Beth, Betty and Lisabeth. 

What a wonderful array of personalities Elizabeth can be!

If you write or perform, how did you decide on your professional name?