Help! Help!

Okay. I am going to throw myself at your mercy.
Here is the thing:
People panic and go all weird on me when they hear my last name. Especially if they are required to spell it.
I don't particularly want to tell you what it is, but it's neither rude, nor is it hard to spell or pronounce -- once you know how. And that's the problem. People get scared at names with something like tz or cz in it.

Ergo - I would like a surname which is:
A: Spellable
B: Pronouncable
C: Has rhythm with my first name (Silke)
D: Flows right with my first name

I looked at the Di (Italian) names, like DiMarco, etc and sort of like them because the rhythm is right but I haven't found one that says "YES! This is it!"
DiAngelo is out, as is anything alluding to angels or demons, since that is kind of the subject matter of my stories. Therefore I want to avoid those.

The name is pronounced Silk-eh, but most English speakers pronounce it Silky.

Short names, S names seem to give me trouble when it comes to the 'rhythm' thing. I'm particularly un-keen on ending up with the initials SS. I'm German by birth, I think you can understand why I stay away from that.

Middle initials are out too. If I ever make it big, everyone is going to ask what the initial stands for... Let's just not go there lol.

Anyway...

Any suggestions?

Since I have some exerpience having to search for writers lastnames, I can tell you people have big issues with easy to spell names too.
Broun instead of Brown is used (why I am not sure) by people looking for Dan Brown's books..LOL

AND J K Rowling did not have a middle name until she started writing, so you can add a middle name, just choose one and use the letter for it. And I do know not many people could tell you what the K stands for (its Kathleen not Karen, who is one of my friends called Joannes middle name..LOL)

I have always like the lastname
Di Costa
If you name is pronounced correctly I think it would flow nicely

But thats just me :)

My idea of hell is being trapped in a room with no books!

I think it's great that you have a really good idea about what you want and what you don't want.

I don't have name suggestions but maybe you could try looking through a phonebook for the 'Di' somethings.

Definitely let us know what you find!

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 31/66 scenes of scene review #3.
Eve's Vineyard: 3,375/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

Just had a quick look in the white pages (on the internet, put in NZ instead of city name). The first two that came up struck me,

Di Camillo or
Di Leva

or try this site, it also gives you the definition, so you don't end up with a strange last name with some obscure and rude meaning!

Behind the Name - Italian Surnames

"You will never get published if you don't write." Said Kerry Mead (my darling husband!)

WIP - Book III - The Rise of the Chrystias 58326 / 50000 words (First draft)
Total word count - 158543!

My name also has letters in it that strike Americans as difficult to pronounce, even though it is not transliterated Polish, which is what drives most of us crazy. But it could be worse. It could be Welsh. None of us in America can pronounce each others' names correctly, and we've given up trying.

Silke Jones sounds sexy. You don't have to go with an onomatopoetic last name to make your pen name attractive. Silke di Auckland might be a bit much, or it could be fun.

The problem with the pseudo-Italian monicker is that it leads to spelling quandaries. Di closed up or as a separate word? Di capitalized or not? The second part capitalized or not?

So you see, whatever you chose, you're just going to be taking on the baggage of that name.

But please, for the love of god, do not name yourself any version of Sinclair. It is the most overused name of all romance writers for characters and for pseudonyms. Damian St. Clair. Bah, humbug.

I went to a writers workshop recently, and an author spoke saying the same thing, her name was not suitable. As she writes for younger book readers, she chose Ella nice young name (she is about 40) and West, she thought it was short and simple, easy to remember. Ella West, simple and sounds real!

http://gay_belle.livejournal.com

'Southern Scriber.'

Hopefullily I know what you are getting at, and yeah, some are over the top.
I don't want over the top, I just want a nice flowing one. (Di Auckland sounds completely terrible!)
I won't be going for the St. option either, like I said... I got sort of angels and demons playing not so nice in my stuff.
And yeah, sure... Llewellyn is out too! LOL
(I happen to completely disagree with your Jones comment though. Yuck. It has no ryhthm, no flow.)

No, I don't have to go with something foreign, but short of a double barrel name, I don't know what to do, unless I change my first name too.

This is seriously putting a dent into things for me, because I'm struggling hard to come up with something I like.
*sigh*
After all... if I do get published, I better like the darn name!

Why not be like Cher or Madonna or Prince and just use your first name.
Sure the library of congress would hate you for it but it is something you can do..LOL
Or first name, and the Letter of your lastname.
One thing I think people forget is, you use any pen name and sometime in your writing career you will be asked what your real name is. I know a few romance writers with those fancy gagging names and when I look them up in the Library of Congress database it has their real names listes as well.
Just some food for thought.
I think Stephen Kings kid did the right thing by changing his name from Joe King to Joe Hill

My idea of hell is being trapped in a room with no books!

I am going to use my initials and last last name - I have a hyphenated last name, so my writing name will be K A J Mead. I think about C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, T S Eliot, J K Rowling - theres something in the initials, you can remain sexless too, (for a while) which is good if you want your books to sell to a wide range of people.

"You will never get published if you don't write." Said Kerry Mead (my darling husband!)

WIP - Book III - The Rise of the Chrystias 58326 / 50000 words (First draft)
Total word count - 158543!

I'm not worried about someone asking me what my real name is, but I don't necessarily want to inflict it on everyone lol

For J K Rowling - the "K" actually stands for Kathleen, not Karen. Her real name is Joanne Rowling, but when she first tried to get published, they requested she use two initials instead of her first name. So she used the name of paternal grandmother since she did not have a middle name.

Last names can be difficult. It's sort of like looking for the perfect character name. I don't know what to suggest, but here are a couple of sites that may help you in your search: [1], [2] and [3].

My first name is extremely common, so if I ever got published, I wouldn't want to use it. I've been toying with the idea of using my real last name in conjunction with the name everyone calls me on the internet. So my penname would be Chibi Doucet. :)

September Zing Thing -> 0/2,000

Illuminated Words - My writing blog

I'm kind of torn between:

Silke DiMatteo

and

Silke DiMarco

Both have a nice ring to them, flow... but I can't make up my mind!

Which do you like better?

I think I prefer DiMarco, though I can't put my finger on why, maybe it just seems to flow better.
Good work on narrowing it down :-)

WIP: Ayden: 92,043/95,000 (estimated total).
Rough Editing: Lifelines: 104/104 pages.

J.C Hart

Silke, its not so much the spelling this time, but how do you pronounce it. DiMarco is more easily recognised and probably the one least mispronounced... :o)

"You will never get published if you don't write." Said Kerry Mead (my darling husband!)

WIP - Book III - The Rise of the Chrystias 58326 / 50000 words (First draft)
Total word count - 158543!

Good point, Fisherbabe.

I like Di Marco. It just 'sounds' better.

I chose a German pseudonymn when I was published, although I'm British. I just took the first and last names of two guys from one of my favourite German bands, made it feminine and off I went, LOL.

http://glitterburn.livejournal.com/

Heheeh my last name is German, but it's so rare, no one knows how to pronounce or spell it, 99% of the time. Even the Germans have problems getting it right!
I've had so many spelling variations of my last name, it's embarrassing.
And one letter different makes it even more embarrassing, because the meaning of it (It's a very rare form of Tailor - we think) turns it into something like "Soup Bib".
Urgh!
Hence the hunt for a pen name. :)

'Soup bib' sounds like a great name for a character in a children's book!!

So it's a variant of Schneider? I like that surname.

http://glitterburn.livejournal.com/

You would never recognize it lol. Trust me. :)