Ask HN: Experience with pen names or aliases? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Experience with pen names or aliases?

16 pointsolliequeen7 comments

I've just been discharged from a government job, however my problem is within the terms of the contract I am not allowed to have any online presence using my real name for the next five years (I was working in digital intelligence, it's complicated). So I am now online using a pen name of sorts and am looking to start my own company, my only issue is I don't want a split identity I don't want to have to be one person offline and one person online. I want to start the company now as I need to sustain an income. Does anyone have any experience trading under a pen name, how do you introduce yourself etc and what do you do when it comes to invoicing etc.

I realise this is a bit of an odd question but you guys seem to be one of the more rational sources on the internet that could help me out with this predicament.

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IANAL.

I think we'll actually see more and more pen names and aliases as people try to brand themselves.

Basically, just pick a name and go with it. I have mrnoahc.com and noahc.net. I want to brand my self as one of those two. I think mrnoahc is better, because it's almost always available as compared to noahc.

Either way, buy the domain ending in .com that you want and you'll probably end up towards the top of search results. It shouldn't be too hard to get the top result for mrnoahc or technologysteve.com or something of that effect.

Not sure what 'online presence' means, but once you brand your self as something just run with it and introduce your self as Noah of MrNoahC fame if you want people to know your first name before a speech or something. I would suggest staying away from names like floppyRabbitLover and HairyLemonBalls for branding purposes, but depending on your purposes it might work.

It's an aside, but I hope they were paying you a huge amount of money to restrict your activities so severely, for such a long time.

I am not allowed to have any online presence using my real name for the next five years (I was working in digital intelligence, it's complicated).

This confuses and intrigues me. What does an "online presence" mean? Can you have a personal website? A Facebook account? An e-mail address? Did you accept these terms when you started or were you given the restriction when leaving? Are the consequences of breaking the contract civil or criminal? If you legally change your name, can you use that new name online before the 5 years are up?

It doesn't make any sense. How do they expect to recruit talented people with such a restriction? The mind boggles.

Ask a lawyer (if you haven't). Perhaps these restrictions aren't actually binding/enforceable. Definitely worth double checking.

I have a friend who had the same name as his boss, so he would have to use an alias whenever he spoke with customers, so customers wouldn't get mixed up with who they are talking to.

Its probably easier than you think to get used to an alias, but I don't know how it would work in terms of the legal name to use on your corp. papers.

Would incorporating - or alternately getting a DBA - satisfy those terms?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doing_business_as

I've heard there are issues with regard to copyright (I seem to recall advice to register a pen name with the U.S. Copyright Office,with respect to the more traditional "ink on bound paper" environment), but I don't know the details.

Would any of our more legal minded folks have a comment on this?

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