If you look in Amazon books for Colin Taylor, you will find over a dozen of us with the same name. There are even more with middle initials and yet more with complete middle names. Taylor is incredibly common.
My parents had long names and decided that my two brothers and I would have short names with no middle name. I have toyed with the idea of adding a middle name to make myself stand out. I’d thought of a few: Colin Algernon Taylor and Colin Ralph Taylor, but discarded them. Colin Algernon Taylor’s initials spell CAT and I didn’t want to be associated with the feline world; I’m highly allergic to cats.
Our family has a possible, faint connection to Scotland, and I thought Colin McTavish Taylor might be good. Yet when I told people, I received laughs and giggles. I abandoned that idea.
I talked about it with my reflexologist when I had an appointment. She is also a published author. She suggested a complete name change and consulted ChatGPT. The bot came up with lots of names. Some were very silly, some outlandish and there were lots I just didn’t like. Then Gabriel Langley turned up. We looked at each other and both said, “That’s the one.” We checked to see if there was another writer with that name and so far, there is only one Gabriel Langley.
That’s why I now have a pen name.
I’ve changed nearly all my published books to Gabriel Langley. The only exception is Charlotte and the Painted Pixies. Charlotte is my granddaughter and the family thought it might be better to keep it as Colin Taylor.
Do you like your name? Would you change it if you had the chance?