It's a good idea to check pen names out in Google. It would be a pity to choose one that's the same as a famous or prominent person, as it could cause confusion (and perhaps make the prominent person cross). And if you choose a name that turns out to be quite common, mentions of you and your work will get lost among all the other John Smiths, or whatever. I think the ideal is to find one that comes up as "no results".

this is all very interesting, since I have picked a pen name to use when subbing womag short stories. I chose a name that relates to two other members of my extended family and because I love the names and the image of the person they conjure up!

Just googled and found there is another author with the same name, but she's only got one book on Amazon and she's an American Broadway star or something and the book is far removed from anything I might be writing.

Talking of names, there is a little girl at my children's school who has the most marvellous name that should appear as a character in a book - but what are the ethics of using the name of someone you know, even if the character is completely unrelated to them?

I don't know, but that reminds me that a friend from university gave her daughter the same name as another friend from university. It's quite a rare and culturally specific name (Welsh), and it felt a bit odd to see it crop up like that. I vaguely wonder how she felt about it.

Thanks, folks - I think I've still got some work to do there! My wider family names aren't very useful(boring surnames and era-appropriate first names - don't wanna be Mabel).

Eye-height letters sounds like a good plan, but apart from "A", is it possible to know what is going to end up at eye-height on the shelf? Had considered variations on Aardvark etc. - maybe I should go back to that.

That's a good point about googling. I've been checking my characters' names on there and have been surprised how often what I thought was an invented name turns out to be the name of someone semi-well-known that I'd forgotten.

Nixie Knox - bummer that's taken.

Why not write under your own name or shorten it, change the forename, surname so it is easy to remember and rolls off the tongue.
Joe public always remember easy to commit names. Then again don't get too hung up on that bit of the publishing, remember the old line from Bailey about photographers, 'it's not how expensive/size the camera is, it's the person taking the picture'
So you as the writer need to be memorable.

Hi Patyogi - alas, I was serious when I said I can't pronounce my surname - just made yet another restaurant booking on the phone that involved me eventually just agreeing to what they thought I'd said my name was. Really don't like my first name - just want to ditch the whole thing and both names are already so short I'd just be left with meaningless syllables if I chopped them.

That's good advice about not getting too hung up on the whole thing, though! Just would love to have a name that's not pants.

I was serious when I said I can't pronounce my surname - just made yet another restaurant booking on the phone that involved me eventually just agreeing to what they thought I'd said my name was.

Sympathies - my ex-husband (and therefore my children IYSWIM) have a surname which is made up of two extremely ordinary English syllables, but happens to be in itself very, very rare (much rarer than mine, which is hardly common) and it's a pain. The family collect all the different ways that it gets heard and written down.

And then we went and gave our daughter my grandmother's name which is an unusually spelled version of a very common name. She reckons she's doubly-cursed.