How to come up with your "pen-name"?

Yep, we can do it. AWAI's Michael Masterson is a pen name (real name is Mark Ford).

I personally know of two copywriters who have done it for professional reasons. And no, I will not publicly divulge who they are.

Both of them are strong English speaking copywriters but have birth-given ethnic names. Clients wouldn't hire them... wouldn't even get on the phone with them or look at their portfolios because the clients had strong pre-conceived perceptions that they were ESL copywriters and their paid work would be sub-par.

As soon as they started using a pen name, the number of leads they got went up significantly.

Is it fair to be judged on the basis of your name alone?

Nope. But that's the reality in business.

BTW, it's not just copywriters... actor Kal Penn talks about how using "Kal Penn" early in his acting career instead of his birth name caused his audition callbacks to increase by 50%. (See Wikipedia)

Sometimes it's done to make it more memorable... musician Sting's real name is Gordon Sumter.

Sometimes it's done to make it easier to spell... musician Daryl Hall (of 80's rock band Hall and Oates) legally changed the spelling of his last name Hohl to Hall for professional reasons. He knew people would have trouble remembering the correct spelling his birth last name. I know this one because my mother went to high school with Daryl and was in school & church choir with him.

To the OP... some tips.

First, pick an American first name that is common for someone of your age. You can use this database from the U.S. social security adminstration to see what the most common birth first names were in a given year. I don't know how old you are but Joe (short for Joseph) is a pretty common American first name.

Another option is to use a similar sounding first name. Your given first name is *****, so you could use Jordan instead.

Popular Baby Names

Second, you opt to use a different last name... the same last name... or just shorten it for professional pen name reasons.

For example, your given name is ***** **********.

I don't know your exact age but something like Joe Falkenburg, Jordan Falkenburg or Jordan Falk are all possible pen names IMHO.

Hope that helps,

Mike

P.S. Sometimes a pen name makes sense for going into a new niche or business venture. Copywriter Chris Haddad has created a string of very successful ClickBank info-products in the relationship niche. He uses a pen name of Michael Fiore (Fiore is his mother's maiden name) to keep his two different businesses (copywriting and info-products) separate and to build two different name brands at the same time.