2012職稱英語考試《綜合類》完形填空訓(xùn)練題(5)

　　Why People Use Pseudonyms

　　You can't choose the name you are given at birth，but in many countries you can change it legally when you reach adulthood. Of course, most people never change their names even if they feel unhappy about them. However, some people do take this course of action—particularly artists! What makes an artist want to change their name? Sometimes it's for purely personal reasons, such as the Nobel Prize winning poet from Chile, Neflali Reyes. He didn't want his father to know he was writing poetry, so he changed his name to Pablo Neruda when he was a young man.At other times the reason may appear eccentric; take the case of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, who wrote under 75 different names. The reason ?” When I use a different name, I always write in a different way," he explained. In most cases，however ,the reason is for social, historical, political, or cultural reasons. Here are some of most common :

　　The person's real name is just too long and difficult to remember. Let's be honest, Madonna Louise Ciccone is not as easy to remember as just plain "Madonna". And short names are much easier to remember：William Bradley became Brad Pitt and Edson Arantes do Nascimento became Pele.

　　Sometimes names are changed for marketing purposes.For example，if a name sounds too "foreign", it may be changed to something that is more recognizable in a market . So in the film world, Ramon Estsvez adopted the name Martin Sheen. Or maybe the artist's doesn't sound very attractive -- Chad Everett does sound a lot better than Raymond Cramto.

　　Artists sometimes choose the name of someone they admire. Robert Zimmerman changed his name to Boo Dylan because of his admiration for the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.

　　Another reason may be practicality: in the past, women found it very difficult to get published.To avoid this situation they's situation they sometimes gave themselves men's names, so the English author Mary Ann Evans became George Eliot, and she did get her books published!