Safety, privacy, marketing, different niche, etc.

There are many reasons to use pen names.

Lot's of people write under pen names for a variety of reasons. I write under 2 dozen pen names myself.

Stephen King writes horror-fiction. So when he writes in a different niche, he uses a pen name. One of his pen names is Richard Bachman.

If he published his Richard Bachman stories under Stephen King, people would start getting irritated with Stephen King for not writing in his normal niche. Richard Bachman is simply smart marketing.

Not sure what 'top super affiliates' you're talking about. I know a lot of marketers use pen names though. Take Eben Pagan for example, he uses the pen name David DeAngelo in the dating niche. He went with that name for marketing purposes. I don't remember why exactly but I think he said it's because it sounds strong and masculine and Eben sounds nerdy.

I've heard of others using it for privacy reasons, not wanting their friends and family finding out what they're doing online.

I used to use a couple pen names when I worked for a penny auction company. I didn't want my name associated with that industry. I once had a potential client tell me they wouldn't work for me because I worked with a penny auction company, so after that I started using pen names.

As mentioned above I think it depends on many factors.

The Eben Pagan example is great!! However, I don't know whether I would want to put my face on a dating product? Ha.

My name is very generic, so I'm not too concerned about privacy. But if I had a very specific first and last name, I might be concerned.

Well as long as there is a real person behind the name, all is good mate

I can't confirm or deny "gurus" use fake names. Although I plead the 5th.

Using your real names can be dangerous. Try to use pen names to be safe! Just be consistent in your niche.

I know from my meet-ups with a lot of the top marketers that some of them have multiple "personas" (not to mention personalities!), it helps them reach different niches without diluting their separate brands. Pretty cool idea really.

No - typically they're using real pen-names for their brand, not fake ones.

For many of the reasons listed above, and/or others.

I'm in exactly the same position as Shay, above: at the moment I have 8 different pen-names for the 8 different niches in which I'm an affiliate, but ironically enough Alexa Smith - my real name - is the only one on which I'm ever challenged or questioned at all.

I don't know about their reasons: in my case, it's mostly because I don't want my prospective customers knowing that the person to whose list they've subscribed in the cauliflower soup recipes niche is the same person who has also has niche websites and lists in the desalination technology, jewelry design and aviation licensing niches, because some of them would mistakenly imagine that that detracts from my credibility in any individual niche.