First thoughts on initials

From WB Yeats to JK Rowling, a look at how and why we choose to hide our names as writers

Detail from The Souvenir by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) at the Wallace Collection. Photo by the author.

If you happened to bump into me in Oxford in the early 1980s, you wouldn’t have met Jeffrey Streeter. You would have met a young student wearing a light grey trench coat, a ludicrous sartorial nod in the direction of a “flâneur.” In my post last year on changing names, I mentioned how, as a student in the 1980s, I used to style myself “JP Streeter” when I was inflicting gauche attempts at poetry on long-suffering magazine editors at the Literary Review or London Magazine. I was rightly mocked by friends for this use of initials because, in my case, it was an affectation, just as much as the trench coat.

One of my readers (and fellow writer) on Substack,

Victoria Olsen

, recently suggested that I might do a piece on initials and names¹. VC Olsen, if I might call her that on this occasion, also suggested that some initials “lend themselves to authorship,” and that got me wondering, What makes a good set of initials? 

First, a little background on the practice. It seems there was a major trend in the English-speaking literary world to use initials in the 20th century. And from WB Yeats to AS Byatt, PG Wodehouse to JK Rowling, it’s a very familiar usage to us. As the last example tells us, it’s very much still in use. Indeed, among the writers I follow on Substack are the excellent

Good Humor by CK Steefel

,

M. E. Rothwell

, and

S.E. Reid

.

One reason for using initials, as I hinted at earlier, is that it simply became fashionable to do so; in my case, certainly, I was just trying to imitate my betters. Another reason for the practice was to cover up a name that didn’t fit with one’s style, as in the case of HD (Hilda Doolittle²). An even better motive was to remove gender from the equation when it comes to judging writers by their names (see example below).

But going back to that earlier question, are there initials that just sound better than others? 

If you permit another slight detour, the world of cricket gave me early exposure to the power of initials. I’ve long since lost all interest in professional sport, but as a young boy growing up in England in the 1970s, I used to play and follow cricket keenly. It has a long tradition of detailed record-keeping, and each match would have an official scorecard. There, the batsmen³ were listed in order of batting, and initials were always used. 

Cricket scorecards from 1973, full of initials.

In those days, I found a certain elegance and poetry in the way certain names flowed from their initials, like a river from its graceful headwaters. Thus, Smith somehow became more impressive as part of “MJK Smith.” But it didn’t always work. APE were the initials of one famous English player, Alan Knott, and they garnered more of a smirk than a nod of respect. 

The number of letters seemed important. Two initials were standard and worked well. The single initial never had much of a ring to it. But three could lend real distinction. 

My favourite initials at that time were those of Viv Richards, one of the sport’s all-time greats. He came to England from Antigua to play for my local team, Somerset, and for an admiring schoolboy fan, his imposing initials, IVA, seemed to add a further aura of nobility to this prince of sportsmen. 

An autograph sheet from 1976 (not mine), with IVA Richards listed

**

But back to the writers. What part of Tolkien’s success came from the use of JRR rather than plain old John Tolkien? And could the same be said of CS Lewis, otherwise known as Clive⁴? Whereas for SE Hinton, author of The Outsiders, was it more of a ploy by her publisher, who apparently “didn’t want reviewers to skew one way or another based on Hinton’s sex"? 

I also wonder whether mystery isn’t added to ETA Hoffmann’s name (and his creepy tales), whose cascade of initials seems to suggest some awful secret, rather than simply the names Ernst, Theodor, and Amadeus. And talking of Amadeus, the use of initials existed among composers too—not just WA Mozart but JS Bach and all the other Bachs—with the letters almost like musician notations illustrating their skill. 

I well remember AJP Taylor, a popular historian when I was growing up, whose initials seemed to have more academic cachet than just “Alan”. And there was WEB Du Bois, whose initials strike me as more memorable than plain William. And, of course, there’s the politician who is frequently just known by his initials, JFK. 

I confess I’ve always enjoyed the initials of VS Naipaul, UA Fanthorpe (an English poet), and AE Housman (or Stallings). I’d be love to hear which writer’s initials you admire in the comments. 

Now, as I look back, poor JP Streeter, the student poet manqué, seemed doomed from the outset. It was all very well, at the age of 18, to think that using JP made me sound more like a poet. But my initials were never going to be the letters that would make me a writer.

1. Recently,

KateMotleyStories

wrote a really engaging and typically well-researched piece on names and she kindly provided a link to my post on names from last year that gave Victoria a chance to read it. I am returning the compliment to Kate here by suggesting everyone should read her post. At the same time, Victoria has also just published an excellent essay on names.

2. Apparently, Doolittle felt her name was old-fashioned and "quaint," and it was Ezra Pound, at one time her fiancé, who suggested the use of her initials.  

3. This was before women’s cricket became widely followed—now "batters” is the widely-used term.

4. According to

Victoria K. Walker

’s excellent recent piece on Lewis, he disliked his first name.