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Those who regularly roam the reference shelves, especially if hunting for information about personal or place names, will have encountered books by Adrian Room. Based in Stamford, UK, Room is one of the most prolific reference authors of the last 30 years, with a string of over 50 books to his name. His prodigious output has frequently featured in these columns, recent examples including Alternate Names of Places (Room, 2009) (RR 2010/136) and African Place Names (Room, 2008) (RR 2009/144). Dictionary of Pseudonyms, the subject of this review, is one of Room's most high‐profile and long‐running titles. First appearing as Naming Names: Stories of Pseudonyms and Name Changes… in 1981, it was followed by a second edition in 1989 under the title Dictionary of Pseudonyms and Their Origins. The current title was adopted with the third edition of 1998 (RR 1998/324) when US‐based McFarland took over publication. This edition contained 8,000 entries and was succeeded just six years later by a fourth with nearly 11,000 entries (RR 2005/54). Now, after a further interval of six years, we have a fifth edition, this time offering 13,000 entries.
Unlike some reference sources covering pseudonyms, Dictionary of Pseudonyms is not confined to the literary world. In addition to writers it covers actors, musicians, dancers, entertainers, sports personalities, etc; in fact, “(a)nyone known to have adopted a new name, even by the alteration of a single letter, is included” (Preface, p....