Tag: the history of names and pseudonyms is so interesting

Apparently the author of the Tale of Genji (basically a Heian celebrity writer) wasn’t actually named Murasaki Shikibu. Murasaki was the name of the main character in her book, Shikibu was the name of her dad’s job, and at some point people just started calling her that. At this point historians aren’t sure what her original name was. How wild. Imagine if we all decided to refer to JK Rowling exclusively as Harry Rolls-Royce and then she wrote a biography using that name.