The other week, Casey pondered the importance of book covers. I thought I’d ponder the importance of book titles and author’s names.

Would J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye have been the classic it is if it were called Shortstop in the Oats? I’m guessing no.

How about Joseph Heller’s Catch-22? It was originally called Catch-18. Really.

The Great Gatsby? The High Bouncing Lover.

War and Peace? War, What Is It Good For. No, that was a joke in a Seinfeld episode. Actually Tolstoy originally called it All’s Well That Ends Well.

Treasure Island? The Sea Cook.

Main Street? The Village Virus.

The Sound and the Fury? Twilight.

Of Mice and Men? Something That Happened.

All true.

(Of my six published novels, I’ve changed two of the original titles: Going to Chicago was first called Uncontrollable Urges. The new one, the Unraveling of Violeta Bell, was originally The Queens of Never Dull. And my sleuth Maddy Sprowls was first named Maddy Dalrymple. But I decided to go with something a little more sour-sounding, thus Sprowls.)

Now, what about an author’s name? Does that make a difference? Before they started writing, the names of famous writers were as goofy as anybody else’s. William Shakespeare. Ernest Hemingway. Agatha Christie. James Fenimore Copper. Charles Dickens. J.R.R. Tolkein. Mark Twain. Now they seem just right.

Speaking of Mark Twain, did any of you know his real name was Samuel Clemens? Don’t feel bad. I just found out yesterday myself.

And just think how important the right name is in life. Would Matt Drudge be the famous muckraker he is today if his name had been Matt Smiley? Not likely. The Drudge Report is absolutely perfect.

And how about Walt Disney and his fantasy empire? What if his last name had been Drudge? Drudgeland? I don’t think so. Incidentally, when Disney first drew Mickey Mouse he called him Mortimer Mouse.

And what if someone was running for president whose name was Barack Obama? What chance would that guy have? Of course we did elect somebody named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Look at my own name. C.R. Corwin. What a great name for an author! Of course if I didn’t reduce my first and middle names to just initials, I might have had trouble getting published. Morgue Mama by Cecil Raul Corwin. See what I mean.

I did have a pen name all picked out: Robert Clyde Levandoski. Thank God my publisher talked me out of that. “What if I just shorten it to Rob Levandoski?” I pleaded.

“Cecil,” growled the publisher, “get a grip.”

I’m not the only one at The Little Blog of Murder who has tinkered with their name. Judy Clemens (who claims she is related to Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens, by the way) toyed with the pen name of Judy Smucker, but it just didn’t jell. Don wisely shortened his cumbersome handle to Bruns. It’s really Brunslojoweiczski. Jeffery Marks’ real first name is Groucho or Gummo or Karl or something. Zorro’s real name is Pepé.

And Casey? Well, even she doesn’t remember what her real name is any more.