Sometimes an artist who is known for a particular area of expertise gets tired of the same old thing and wants to try something new. Most of the time, these creative people sign their own work, satisfied to ride their own coat-tails. Other times, the artist feels that they need to hide their actual identity behind a new name.
There are several reasons for this. Sometimes, it's just that the artist wants to succeed or fail on the merits of the new work and wants to avoid the impression that they are simply riding their previous fame to new glory. Sometimes the new area is questionable or not seen as "up to standard". And other times they just want to avoid squicking their own fanbase.
This is a Sub-Trope of Pen Name, where the person in question is already known, and successful, by another identity. For example, Marshall Mathers issuing records as Eminem is still the same old rap music; but if Eminem used the name "Bohunk Anthrax" to publish a country album, it would count as Same Face Different Name.
For books in particular, once the secret comes out they will probably be republished as by "Well-Known Name writing as Different Name", with the well-known name in much bigger letters.
Compare with Moustache de Plume. Sounds similar to, but isn't, Only Six Faces, where many characters have the same faces and different names. If it's a case of Different Face, Same Name, then you're looking for Collective Identity.
Examples
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Comics
- Stan Lee is the pseudonym of Stanley (creative, eh) Martin Lieber. His original plan was to use Stan Lee for comics, and Lieber for more serious stuff. Some sixty years later, he was still Stan the Man. He eventually officially changed his name to Stan Lee.
- Mike Esposito did inking work for Marvel Comics under the name Mike Demeo because he was under contract at DC at the time.
- This was quite common in the 1960's, with freelancers working for DC Comics taking up assignments for the (at the time) less established Marvel and not wanting to potentially burn their bridge to DC. Among them, George Roussos inked early issues of Fantastic Four as "George Bell", and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel wrote a couple of issues as "Joe Carter"
- Jean Giraud first worked under the name Gir, becoming best known for Lieutenant Blueberry. Later he did more esoteric stuff as Mœbius.
- Jazz clarinettist Wally Fawkes had a second career as a satirical cartoonist and artist of the British newspaper strip Flook under the pen(cil) name Trog.
- John Wagner and Alan Grant wrote several stories for 2000 AD under a variety of pseudonyms. Particularly notably was Wagner's alias of Keef Ripley, which was used to cover up The Reveal at the end of The Dead Man.
- Ian Gibson also did 2000 AD art credited as 'Emberton'.
- Todd McFarlane returned to write his creator-owned Spawn with #185, and wrote it until #200, after which another writer named "Will Carlton" took over the writing for the next 19 issues. Then McFarlane revealed that it was actually himself, and from #220 onward he was once more using his real name.
- Dark Horse Comics editor Randy Stradley has written many Star Wars Expanded Universe comics: sometimes as himself, and sometimes as either "Mick Harrison" or "Welles Hartley". The three personas would on occasion co-operate to work on the same title and even take over ongoing series from one another. Apparently, his comics would generate more fan-mail when not written by the main editor of the entire publishing line. Stradley eventually came out after too many people became aware of the secret and it was about to be leaked on the Internet anyway.
Fan Works
- It has been confirmed that two of the regular contributing writers to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction archive Twisting the Hellmouth
are well-known, Hugo Award-winning science fiction authors who use pseudonyms because neither of them want the "rabid fanboy" effect to hit the site. The admins of the site know which writers are the big name pro's, and know who they really are, but they aren't telling.
Film
- Takeshi Kitano uses his real name when directing, but uses the stage name Beat Takeshi for his onscreen appearances. The name is derived from his early days as one half of a Boke and Tsukkomi Routine.
- Gypsy Rose Lee made a few minor film appearances under her real name, Louise Hovick, since film studios in the early years of The Hays Code didn't want to be associated with striptease.
- Steven Soderbergh uses the pseudonyms Peter Andrews when he serves as cinematographer on his films, and Mary Ann Bernard for editing credits; the pseudonyms are based on his parents' names.
"My policy is to have my name on a movie only once. Having your name once increases the impact of that credit because I think every time you put your name up there, you're actually diluting it."
- The Coen Brothers use Roderick Jaynes for their editing credit on their films. "Jaynes" received an Oscar nomination for Fargo.
- This was the basic idea for Disney's Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures labels. After attempting to release more mature fare in the late seventies to mixed results, Disney created the former a few years later to attract more audiences who were iffy on the Disney brand's appeal; the latter, launched in 1990, was meant for genre films, and to avoid over-saturating Touchstone's presence in the market. Hollywood would eventually become dormant, and Touchstone would remain in use until the mid-2010s. Outside of distributing films for DreamWorks SKG, it was essentially reduced to an Alan Smithee-esque name for animated films Disney basically wished to disown, like Gnomeo & Juliet and Strange Magicnote . With DreamWorks jumping ship in 2016 and Disney buying 20th Century Fox a couple years later, the fate of Touchstone was sealed.
- This strategy has become Disney's method for all their banners beyond themselves and Pixar (Marvel, Lucasfilm, and now Fox). The only indicator that Avengers: Endgame and The Rise of Skywalker are Disney movies is the card at the end of the credits saying that the films were "distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures".
- This also applies to their Star (Disney+) streaming hub since it serves as the closest counterpart to a worldwide version of Hulu with the reason being that the Hulu brand isn't marketable outside the United States along with lacking the third-party content. Also doubles as a Market-Based Title.
- Coco Martin made his directorial debut under his real name Rodel Nacianceno in the 2017 reboot of the Fernando Poe, Jr. classic Ang Panday, but is otherwise better known by his stage name for his onscreen appearances.
- Gates McFadden is credited as "Cheryl McFadden" whenever she's doing choreography work, rather than acting.
Literature
- In a desire to leave show business behind and since people at the time still associated her with her "Baby" persona, Peggy Montgomery adopted the name Diana Ayres, and later Diana Serra Cary following her divorce with Gordon Ayres, conversion to Catholicism and marriage to artist Bob Cary, during which she enjoyed a career as an author and film historian.
- Older Than Radio: Mathematician Charles Dodgson published many books under his own name, all dealing with various mathematical subjects. But when it came time for him to write fantasy novels, he used the name "Lewis Carroll", the name by which he is far better known today.
- Ellis Peters is probably best known for the detective stories she wrote under that name, but her real name was Edith Pargeter and she wrote many other books under her real name.
- Gore Vidal claimed he was blackballed following publication of his gay novel, The City of the Pillar; or, at the very least, he had offended so many people in the New York circle that it was impossible to get a good review. So, while writing a series of murder mysteries, he changed his name to Edgar Box. (Named for Poe.) As proof of this, he later re-released the books in a box set under his real name; the critics who previously gave them all rave reviews suddenly changed their minds and wrote bad ones.
- Stephen King published five books as "Richard Bachman", because he wanted to see whether his success "was due to talent or luck". Some years later, he revived the Bachman name for The Regulators, an Alternate Continuity version of sorts to his simultaneously released Desperation. One famous review of Thinner said that "This is the kind of book Stephen King would write if he could write."
- Anne Rice writes her "dark romance" vampire novels under her own name, and wrote non-supernatural adult fiction under the name Anne Rampling. In addition, she originally published the S&M themed "Sleeping Beauty" series under the name A.N. Roquelaure.
- Novelists Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee both had successful careers writing "serious" fiction in their own careers. When they collaborated to write detective stories, they did so as "Ellery Queen".
- Nora Roberts writes detective fiction as "J.D. Robb".
- Dr. Seuss wrote a number of books for older children under the name "Theo Lesieg". His real name was Theodore Geisel, making this a Sdrawkcab Alias.
- Geraldine Halls wrote non-genre fiction as "Geraldine Halls" and mystery/suspense novels as "Charlotte Jay".
- Ruth Rendell wrote as Barbara Vine when intending to write fiction that was darker, more psychological, and less procedural. Unlike many of the other writers on this page, there was no intent to conceal her identity. The 'Barbara Vine' novels are a distinct genre in the Ruth Rendell oeuvre; they are generally narrated from a first person perspective, take place over a longer period of time than her regular novels and chart the adventures of a number of characters, and are much more languidly paced than the 'Rendell' novels. Putting 'writing as Barbara Vine' on a novel is essentially the same as putting 'An Inspector Wexford Novel' on them; it tells the reader exactly what to expect.
- Agatha Christie wrote several romantic novels under the name Mary Westmacott.
- The writer born Salvatore Lombino wrote his "serious" novels and screenplays as Evan Hunter (which he legally changed his name to) and crime fiction as Ed McBain. He co-wrote the 2000 novel Candyland with himself. The Other Wiki lists at least five other pseudonyms he used from time to time.
- Daniel Handler has written some rather explicit novels under his own name, and A Series of Unfortunate Events as Lemony Snicket— although the latter also involves an elaborate Direct Line to the Author played out to some degree both in the books and in Real Life (with Handler presented as Snicket's representative).
- Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares published several books of crime fiction under the name of H. Bustos Domecq.
- Scottish author Iain Banks writes literary fiction and non-fiction as "Iain Banks". His science fiction is written as "Iain M. Banks", in order to make it easier to differentiate his works for marketing purposes.
- L. Frank Baum wrote the Oz books and other whimsical children's books under his own name, and many books in other genres under pseudonyms, including sentimental novels under a female name.
- Mystery writer Paul Doherty (mostly historical) has written many series, and some standalone novels, under many different names (the most different from his own may be Ann Duthkas).
- Gardner Fox, the creator of The Flash, the Justice Society of America, and the Justice League of America, wrote romance novels under the name Lynna Cooper.
- Peter O'Donnell, the creator of Modesty Blaise, wrote romance novels as Madeleine Brent.
- Michael Hardcastle wrote books about football for boys. He also wrote books for girls about horses, but under a woman's name so they wouldn't think the books were aimed at boys.
- The young children's author Martin Waddell wrote his earlier YA books, which often have female protagonists, under the name Catherine Sefton. He now writes YA under his own name as well.
- John Wyndham used his first two names (rather than his surname, Harris) for most of his (generally apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic) work, but when he wrote The Outward Urge, a space exploration story, he used "John Wyndham & Lucas Parkes", Lucas and Parkes being two of his other given names. He had five — he also used the fifth (as "John Beynon") for some early work.
- Similarly, engineer Nevil S. Norway published his works, including On the Beach, under his first two names, Nevil Shute.
- Heroic Fantasy writer David Gemmell wrote one crime thriller as Ross Harding because he was trying something different and didn't want his readers to mistakenly think it would be the same genre.
- J. K. Rowling once stated that she considered publishing future works under a different name, mainly to separate the new work from Harry Potter, but knew the press would figure it out in seconds. She did write the detective novel The Cuckoo's Calling under the name "Robert Galbraith" and the book received critical praise, but her prophecy came true when it was leaked that Rowling was the author. Sales ultimately went through the roof after the announcement.
- Madeleine L'Engle once tried to publish a book under a different name to see if, since A Wrinkle in Time, it was her name selling the books. No publisher would pick it up.
- Science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith was a noted foreign policy expert, under his real name, Paul M.A. Linebarger.
- Inverted with Charles Dickens. He published his first works as "Boz." Years later, he went back to using his real name.
- Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden wrote her early work as Megan Lindholm and later work as Robin Hobb, recognizing that she was "working in a different slice of the genre." New short stories by Lindholm still occasionaly see print, and an upcoming collection features stories written under both names.
- Hungarian novelist Jenő Rejtő wrote most of his humorous adventure novels under the pen name P. Howard. His more serious western novels were written under the pen name Gibson Lavery.
- French author Roman Gary's books got lower reviews as time went on, and people thought he was losing his touch. His response was to start publishing them under the name of Emil Ajar, who later won awards for his books.
- Joyce Carol Oates has published some thrillers under the names "Rosamond Smith" and "Lauren Kelly."
- Harry Turtledove has written works under several pseudonyms: some of his earliest works were published as Eric Gnote . Iverson, and purely historical novels as H. N. Turtletaub. The Scepter of Mercy trilogy were published as Dan Chernenko, then repackaged after The Reveal as "Harry Turtledove writing as Dan Chernenko."
- German sociologist Horst Bosetzky became a very successful author of crime novels writing under the pseudonym -ky.
- German writer Erich Kästner was blacklisted by the Nazis and forbidden to write, but was granted special permission to write the screenplay of the movie Münchhausen (1943), where he was credited as Berthold Bürger, a Shout-Out to Gottfried August Bürger (1747-1794), writer of the original book of the baron's adventures.
- Edward Gorey frequently used anagrams or translations of his name (Ogdred Weary, Dogear Wryde, Mrs. Regera Dowdy, Eduard Blutig) as pseudonyms, though given his distinctive artistic style these were probably more for Gorey's amusement than actual disguise.
- Seanan McGuire writes Fantasy under her real name, and horror under the name Mira Grant.
- Dave Wolverton writes sf under his own name and fantasy as David Farland.
- Fantasy writer Michael Scott writes romance novels under the name Anna Dillon.
- Neal Stephenson wrote two near-future books (Interface and The Cobweb) with his uncle George Jewsbury; they were originally published as by "Stephen Bury".
- Jenny Colgan, known for writing romantic comedy, wrote a series of books about a boarding school as Jane Beaton, and her Doctor Who Expanded Universe New Series Adventures novel under the name J.T. Colgan (although her subsequent Doctor Who work has been as either Jenny Colgan or Jenny T. Colgan).
- Reginald Brettnor was mostly known for deep, serious stories; so when he wrote lighter stuff (most notably the Ferdinand Feghoot series), he did so as Grendel Briarton.
- Arthur C. Clarke used the pseudonym "Charlie Willis" for some early stories, including some Tales from the White Hart stories. The White Hart tales mention a few well-known British SF authors of the time, but "Charlie Willis" was the only one to draw some (light) flak from the others.
- Isaac Asimov wrote The Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr in The '50s under the pseudonym Paul French. He wrote six volumes of targeting a juvenile audience and hoped to turn them into a television series. He adopted the pen name to make it easier to dissociate himself with the work if the tv series flopped. In The '70s, he republished them with the tagline "Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French".
- Stephen R. Donaldson, best known for his SF novels, had this imposed on him by the original publisher when he ventured into detective fiction with The Man Who Killed His Brother and sequels, which were attributed to "Reed Stephens". He has said that if it had been his choice he'd have put them out under his own name, and for subsequent editions he did.
- Tom Holt writes comic fantasy (and historical fiction) under his own name and more dramatic works of low fantasy as K. J. Parker.
- Eleanor Hibbert used a variety of pseudonyms, including Victoria Holt for romance novels, Jean Plaidy for historical fiction, and Philippa Carr.
- Crime and romance novelist Gwendoline Butler also wrote as Jennie Melville. Quite why is unclear, as she never made any secret of it and her style was distinctive enough for any regular reader to recognise.
- Barbara Mertz wrote non-fiction works on antiquities under her own name, and fiction with both mystery and romance genre elements. The works that tilted more to the romance genre side were published as by Barbara Michaels and those that had a bigger mystery element as by Elizabeth Peters.
- Darlene Ryan is a Canadian writer of nonfiction and young adult books. She also writes a pair of Cozy Mystery series, Magical Cats Mysteries under the name Sofie Kelly and Second Chance Cat Mysteries under the name Sofie Ryan.
Live Action TV
- Rob Grant and Doug Naylor use their own names when writing their television shows, most notably Red Dwarf. When they collaboratively ventured into novel writing, they did so as the "gestalt entity" Grant Naylor, which also came to serve as the name of their TV production company.
- They were also credited as Grant Naylor when 'he' directed about half of the episodes of Red Dwarf Series V. Funnily enough, in those same episodes their writing credits remained separate.
- There are quite a few examples of this on Doctor Who. Sometimes it was because the script had been rewritten to the extent that the original writer used a pseudonym. 'The Daemons' was credited to "Guy Leopold", when it was co-written by Robert Sloman and Barry Letts: it's often assumed this is because Letts was the producer (The BBC's rules forbade staff from taking a second credit on a show, e.g. for writing), although Sloman once claimed it was because he had another writing partner at the time and didn't want people to think they'd fallen out.
- "David Agnew" was twice used for 1970s Doctor Who scripts co-written by the producer and script editor. The pen name was originated by writer Anthony Read on a couple of drama anthology series such as Play for Today, then carried over when Read became script editor on Who, using it for a serial ('The Invasion of Time') he cobbled together along with producer Graham Williams. Williams then borrowed it for his rewrite on 'City of Death' with script editor Douglas Adams of an original idea by David Fisher. The name was also used in at least one other BBC series, and in 2000 resurfaced as an 'author' in a Doctor Who short story collection. It was further played with on the DVD release of 'The Invasion of Time', where "Agnew" was the subject of a mockumentary, The Elusive David Agnew — directed by one "Alan Smithee"...
- In the 1960s Ronnie Barker (later one of The Two Ronnies) wanted to have a go at writing for David Frost's satirical sketch show The Frost Report, which he was appearing in. In order that his writing would be considered on its own merits, he sent in a sketch under the name of "Gerald Wiley". 'Wiley' later became a very successful writer on The Two Ronnies, but 'he' remained entirely enigmatic (Barker once turned down his own work to maintain his cover), building a huge mystery among others working on the show as to his true identity – jokey speculation ranged from Frank Muir to Tom Stoppard. When Barker finally outed himself they initially refused to believe him, assuming he was just joining in with the joking. He continued to do all his writing under a number of different pseudonyms.
- Singer/songwriter Carole King once made a very unobtrusive acting appearance in a The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode, billed under her married name of 'Carole Larkey'.
Music
- Prince: AKA "The Artist", AKA an unpronounceable symbol, AKA...well, "Prince" again.
- Look up any electronic dance music artist. Chances are, they've released material different from their regular style under a different name. Some prominent examples:
- Moby released some of his ambient music under the name Voodoo Child.
- Early on, Aphex Twin supplemented his ambient and breakcore albums with techno releases under the name AFX. Years later, he returned to producing acid techno under the AFX name.
- Scooter used to produce remixes as "The Loop!". They also had side projects named "Guess Who", "3AM", and most famously "Ratty!". In the latter case, it was felt the different name would help them get club airplay amongst DJs who regarded Scooter as uncool. It didn't exactly work.
- Joey Youngman started using the name Wolfgang Gartner to separate his newfound love for electro house from his tech house. Inverted in that the Gartner name was the one that he got famous with.
- Famed drum and bass artist Spor (Jon Gooch) releases electro house and Dubstep under the name of Feed Me.
- Like Wolfgang Gartner above, this is inverted as his material as Feed Me has become far more popular than his Spor stuff. He also previously did more experimental stuff under the name Seventh Stitch before focusing most of his attention of Feed Me.
- Quentin Cook has performed as Norman Cook, Beats International, Freak Power, Pizzaman, Mighty Dub Katz, Cheeky Boy, DJ Quentox, Sensataria, and (by far most famously) Fatboy Slim.
- Lapfox Trax is made up of 20-odd artists, all of which are actually founder Renard Queenston under different names.
- Eric Prydz has also had success with this tactic, creating less mainstream material under the label Pryda and techno under the label Cirez D.
- An interesting example is Chris Comstock, whose early hard edm and trap work were released under the name Dotcom, before shifting to a more upbeat synthpop- and futurebass-leaning sound, and the emergence of a mysterious masked DJ by the name of Marshmello.
- Porter Robinson used several different aliases during his early years as a producer (including Ekowraith and Bloodsphere) before using his given name for the bulk of the house, dubstep and synthpop work that would propel him to prominence. Later on he started the side projects Virtual Self and Air to Earth as means to explore other genres (Bemani-esque Eurobeat and neotrance for the former and “sample driven prog house and airy disco” for the latter, with Air to Earth limited to live shows only).
- deadmau5 has also used several other names over the years, with his best known side project being his techno-focused work as Testpilot.
- Country singer Garth Brooks released an album of pop/rock music under the name "Chris Gaines". Brooks created an entire life history for "Gaines", including fake girlfriends, life tragedy and a record of "previous album releases".
- Which would have culminated in a movie called The Lamb, had the Gaines album not bombed.
- In a 1999 episode of Saturday Night Live, the host was Garth Brooks, and the musical guest was...Chris Gaines.
- Classic Tin Pan Alley songwriter Vernon Duke wrote classical music under his real name, Vladimir Dukelsky.
- Naoki Maeda, best known for writing a lot of the music in DanceDanceRevolution, has dozens of aliases that he uses for different styles and genres of music.
- Another Bemani artist, Takayuki Ishikawa, better known as dj TAKA, also uses different aliases for different styles, such as Lion MUSASHI for house music, D.J. Setup for psychedelic music, and D.J. Amuro for classical music.
- Eurobeat producer Jessa Stebbins has released music under various names, including Ken Blast, Mortimer, Odyssey, Eurobeat Brony, DNA Team, and TJS. Justified in that this is apparently a common practice among Eurobeat musicians.
- Tony Bennett paints under his birth last name of Benedetto.
- Subverted with Megumi Hayashibara who writes song lyrics under the name..."MEGUMI".
- Peter Schickele, blamed for writing parodies of classical music under the assumed identity of P.D.Q. Bach, also has written more serious works under his own name. However, the pieces credited to Peter Schickele on P.D.Q. Bach albums tend to be even sillier and Reference Overdosed.
- Jefferson Airplane started as a psychedelic band in the 1960s, which morphed into the 1970s Progressive Rock band Jefferson Starship, which later regrouped in the 1980s as the Arena Rock/New Wave group Starship.
- Sonic Youth recorded The Whitey Album as Ciccone Youth.
- Actor Donald Glover also raps under the name Childish Gambino. Like the above Garth Brooks example, a 2018 Saturday Night Live episode had Glover hosting and Gambino as the musical guest.
- Tony Carey recorded more straightforward pop-rock music under his own name, but his prog-leaning concept albums appeared under the name Planet P Project.
- In the early '70s, years before the release of Oxygène, Jean-Michel Jarre already had something of a reputation. He had been the youngest artist to ever compose music for and perform at the Opéra de Paris, but also the first to play electronic music there, he made music for commercials and eventually the movie Les Granges Brûlées, and he was working as a songwriter and sometimes even producer for various French singers, actually even penning the occasional major hit. Nonetheless, he wanted to do a few things that he didn't necessarily want to be associated with. So he created four new "identities":
- The Pop Corn Orchestra which only ever released two songs back in 1972, the Gershon Kingsley or rather Hot Butter cover "Pop Corn" and the original "Black Bird".
- Jamie Jefferson who had composed "Black Bird" and who was the only member of the Pop Corn Orchestra. Whoever had Jarre's debut album Deserted Palace knew at this point that Jarre was both Jamie Jefferson and the Pop Corn Orchestra because "Black Bird" was a reworked "Bridge Of Promises" from that album.
- Also in 1972, the Foggy Joe Band as an accompaniment for the singer Samuel Hobo who went under the name of Foggy Joe for only one song, "Zig-Zag Dance" which Jarre credited with himself as the composer. "Zig-Zag Dance" also came out as an instrumental which became its own A-side in 1973 with "Black Bird" as the B-side, now allegedly performed by the Foggy Joe Band. This made it even more obvious that Jarre was actually behind all this except for Hobo's input.
- Finally, 1906, a name he assumed for the 1974 single "Cartolina"/"Heiza", both tracks with Jarre credited for composition and production.
- Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton provided guest vocals in the 2018 Christina Aguilera song "Pipe" under the pseudonym "XNDA". While he had been dabbling into the music industry for the past decade or so, he stated in an Instagram post that insecurities and shyness over whether he would be just as well-received as a musician as he is as a racing driver forced him to perform under an assumed name.
Theatre
- In the 1930s, Guy Bolton wrote several comedies for the London stage as Stephen Powys, a pseudonym officially registered to his wife for tax reasons. The adapted script of Don't Listen, Ladies! (1948) was credited to both Bolton and Powys; in this case, Bolton's frequent collaborator P. G. Wodehouse was borrowing the pseudonym.
Video Games
- During the heydays of the NES, Nintendo imposed a policy on third-party publishers that limited the number of games they could publish in North America and Europe to only five games a year. Konami created the Ultra Games division in America in order to get around this limit and localize more games than they were allowed to publish. In Europe, Konami formed Palcom Software label for the same reasons, although they also published the European versions of certain Parodius and Twinbee games which were never released in America.
- Acclaim used the LJN, Flying Edge and Arena brands for much the same reason, though LJN was originally a different company that Acclaim acquired in 1990.
- Sammy published Sega Genesis games under the Treco label, possibly for the same reason.
- Adam Cadre entered his seminal Interactive Fiction work Photopia into the 1998 IF-Contest under the pseduonym "Opal O'Donnel", out of worry that his earlier sex-comedy IF-Work I-0 might color the expectations of players.
- Many Japanese Video Game Companies publish eroge under a different label. Among these companies (and their eroge labels):
- Atari, in its early years, set up a second company called Kee Games in order to persuade more regional distributors to sign exclusive contracts, though Kee's output consisted largely of Atari games under alternate names. Atari also released Shark Jaws under the one-time brand of Horror Games, perhaps to shield the company's good name from an amazingly shameless attempt to cash in on the box-office success of Jaws. Much later, when Atari split into two companies, Atari Games was forced to adopt the Tengen name for console and computer games because it was only allowed to use the Atari trademark for Arcade Games.
- The Light, a team of three allegedly ex-IBM programmers who developed Rex for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, was in fact the Creative Reality team hiding behind pseudonyms because sales and critical reception had been poor for The Fury, their last game for the same publisher.
Web Original
- Doug Walker originally went by "Douglas Darian" for his work on Channel Awesome, since he was also working as an illustrator and worried that being associated with such raunchy material would hurt his ability to get work, as so much of the job consisted of material for children. After his online work completely eclipsed any other image he might try, he went by his real name everywhere.
Western Animation
- Douglas Lawrence Osowski, for his work on Rocko's Modern Life, was credited as Doug Lawrence for the episodes he wrote, and as "Mr. Lawrence" for voicing Filburt. For the rest of his career, Mr. Lawrence would be his sole credit.
