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#1: Josephine M. Bettany vs Mrs Dr Maynard Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:34 pm
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Joey started publishing before her marriage so she kept her maiden name as it was for publishing purposes. In every other walk of life she is Mrs Dr Maynard. Lots of the Swiss books have a new girl who encouters Mrs Maynard, not knowing she is JMB, and they are delighted when Joey 'reveals' herself.

I wonder did this switching between names have any mental effect on Joey. For example, did keeping her maiden name make her feel more youthful and have something to do with her writing books for children? Did she have any hassle with tax/ cheques made out to her from her publishers (who would they have been addressed to?)/ public appearances (although I don't recall any except the short story where she goes on TV)? I wonder what name she felt more affinity with, or if she herself felt that J.M. Bettany and Mrs Maynard were two different people at times.

I suppose it was a common issue with authors - even EBD wasn't christened EBD; she went from May Dyer to Elinor M. Brent-Dyer via some other twists. I wonder what it says about their self-identification etc.

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:17 pm
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I don't know how common it was then for women to keep their maiden names in their professional life but take their husband's surname in their private life: obviously a lot of people do it now - Cherie Booth/Blair is one well-known example who springs to mind, along with a lot of people in sport and entertainment - but I don't know about the 1940s/50s. Apart from showbiz people.

From a practical point of view, she'd had several books published before her marriage so she was already known to her readers by the name Bettany, which is perhaps the main reason why she didn't call herself Maynard in her professional life. Her publishers etc presumably made cheques payable to Mrs Maynard - and from a British tax viewpoint her income would've been treated as Maynard family income rather than her private income.

I've read interviews with actresses in which they say that they quite like having a different name in working life than in their persona life, because it enables them to keep real life and their films/soap operas/whatever separate. Maybe Joey felt like that too - although she wasn't on show in the way that an actress/singer is, she got fan mail and that sort of thing, which must've felt quite removed from her other role as a wife and mother.

#3: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:35 pm
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I can think of several well known authors from the 1920s-1960s who had professional and private names - Georgette Heyer (Mrs Rougier), Dorothy L Sayers (can't remember her married name) Agatha Christie (Mrs Mallowan - of course Christie was her first husband's name, not her maiden name), Enid Blyton (Mrs. something, then Mrs Waters) Like Joey, they'd all established themselves as writers before they married. Can't think offhand of anyone who began a writing career after marriage and used her maiden name, but I expect there are some.

#4: Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:59 pm
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And some people just used a pseudonym anyway..for various reasons from they want privacy to their real surname is too far down the alphabet!

#5: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:23 pm
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I remember in one of the later Swiss books Joey dresssed up for the Sale in 'full regalia' to quote her daughters, in her 'real' role as wife of the Head of the San. No irony at all, to her that was a more important role than being an author.

#6: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:44 pm
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I first encountered the idea of professional vs. private names in some of my mother's childhood favorites, so never found it odd. For example, in this passage from Beverly Gray, Freshman (1934), Bev writes her mother:

Quote:

"Guess who I have for English class! Professor Martin (Mrs. Theodore Brown, in private life), another old chum of yours. I find it very hard to call her Professor Martin. Every time I have seen her heretofore it has always been just 'Emma.' I'm afraid 'Emma' will slip out some day in class, and then - fireworks!"

What struck me as unusual at the time was her calling Mrs. Gray's friend "Emma" instead of "Miss Emma" or "Aunt Emma." However, I reasoned that Beverly must be Very Grown Up herself, going to college [university] and all.

#7: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 6:31 pm
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I think it was sensible to keep her maiden name for writing, as that was how she was known, as possibly as it was bound up with her schoolgirl identity. Publishers and so on must have been used to people using pen names, even then.

I wonder what Jack felt about it? I don't remember him ever commenting one way or the other.

#8: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:03 pm
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I find it really strange to imagine celebrities - household names with their stage name - being called something else. At least Joey's was just her last name, but quite a few people changed their whole names - Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Charlton Heston. It's so bizarre to imagine Judy Garland being called Frances... or Helen Mirren being called Ilyena Vasilievna Mironova. As she was born, apparently. Shocked

Or even the likes of Sting or Bono being called Gordon or Paul. Laughing

#9: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:51 pm
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Elfrida Vipont who wrote The Elephant and the Bad Baby and a lot of books for older children/teens also wrote as Chales Vipont. The books written under her own name (well it should really be Elfrida Fipont Foulds) are lovely - mostly quite gentle and family orientated. The ones written as Charles Vipont are quite blood and guts and violent by comparison. I believe that she had to write girls stories as a woman and boys stories needed to be written by a man. She was writing from the late 1930s to the 1970s IIRC.

#10: Author: linda, Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:12 pm
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I used to work with a consultant psychiatrist who used her maiden name professionally and frequently complained that she got mixed up when signing cheques as to whether it was her account in her maiden name or the joint account in her married name!! Laughing

#11: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 8:54 am
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My ex-boss did the same - her professional name was Professor Heywood - her private / married name was Mrs Ward.

Have to say, it all seems quite normal to me - especially if you are first published / known under one name and then later marry. If my boyfriend and I ever bothered to get married (14 years and counting - no marriage so far!), then I would still be Dr German at work - and Caroline German for my writing - as that's my professional / published / known by name. I can see that JMB's publishers would be quite against her changing her name, after publishing several of her books under that name - she'd lose all the good will etc. her early books have generated and confuse her fans.

Isn't Helen Mirren actually a Countess or something? And Katie Boyle is (bizarrely) also an eastern European aristo of some description, I think. So Mrs Helston (AKA Princess Elisaveta) is in good company...

#12: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:50 am
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A friend of mine got married for the first time in her early forties. She had quite a high profile job in the county, in which her name was publicly known. I assumed she would keep her maiden name for work for practical reasons, and was quite surprised when she told me she was changing to her married name.

#13: Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 7:58 pm
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Re: Helen Mirren... Her Grandfather was a Russian aristocrat.. I think but when her fater ended up over here after the war, he anglicised his name to fit in with society and post wat there was a good deal of underlying anti-russian feeling about so probably a wise move! It was a common thing to do with eastern european displaced persons. My grandfather, ever the patriot, refused point blank! But chances are she is quite used to being called Ilyena by her family and Helen by everyone else. I get two versions of my name, eastern european and english too.

#14: Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:14 pm
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I was absolutely fascinated that the actress Jessica Stevenson changed her name to Jessica Hynes when she got married. It's so unusual in a profession like acting where your name is so important! I really struggle to remember who it is when people say "Jessica Hynes" Embarassed

#15: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:20 pm
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According to an autobiography I read of Cliff Richard, his whole family adopted that name for him, and nobody calls him by his birth name of Harry Webb at all, not even his Mum.

But it felt a bit odd last night to discover, on Who do you think you are? that Graham Norton was born Graham Walker, but took his mother's maiden name for professional purposes!

Even my daughter, although she has tried to use her married name at work is, I think, finding it easier to use her maiden name, under which she, too, has had a couple of books published! Certainly her e-mail comes from either name, which messed up my spam-trap at work nicely!

#16: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:55 pm
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Mrs Redboots wrote:

But it felt a bit odd last night to discover, on Who do you think you are? that Graham Norton was born Graham Walker, but took his mother's maiden name for professional purposes!

I watched that, too. Really wanted to find out more about the unmarried maternal g-g-grandmother and her bloke Mr Dooey - was he married to someone else, I wondered? Was she one of the Logans who seemed to own every business in that little town, I speculated? Were there any distant relatives our hero - descendents of the other three children - in that town who might have been able to tell us more?

But I digress.

His name change might have been for Equity reasons - Equity has rules about members not having the same name as each other. Hence Paul Martin became Paul Merton, and David Williams became David Walliams. Maybe there was already a Graham Walker registered?

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