Why I Have Two Names

Annamaria on Monday

Many people know that Annamaria Alfieri is not my real name.  Legally, I am Patricia King.  So why did I take another name and put it on the covers of my novels?  And how did I choose what that name would be?

Well, first of all Patricia King is very common name.  There are 2950 of us in the USA, according to the 2010 census.  I have been confused with other women by the name and they have been confused with me--quite annoyingly years ago when one was booked on the same flight as I and she changed her ticket.

After Never Work for a Jerk landed me on the Oprah Winfrey show, another Patricia King wrote me to say that her college classmates had tuned in, thinking the Patricia King in question was going to be her.  She had a trip planned to New York and invited me to have breakfast with her at the University Club, where she would be staying.  I showed put at the appointed time and told the man at reception that I was there to meet Patricia King.  He checked his guest registry and nodded.  "Whom may I say is calling?"

"Patricia King," I answered, and immediately realized what would ensue.

"No," he said.  "What is your name?"  At which point he turned into Bud Abbot and I into Lou Costello.

These days, the most prominent author named Patricia King is a televangelist.  In fact her website says in huge letters, "Patricia King, TELEVANGELIST/ENTREPRENEUR."  If you Google "Patricia King," you get 97,600,000 hits in .51 seconds.  The first 16,000 or so pages are mostly her, not me.  I didn't like the odds against anyone ever finding me in that tsunami.  And did I want the author of my novels to be confused with the star of "Everlasting Love: God Has a Spouse for You" on GODTV?  Not really.

I needed a distinctive name.  One that could have its own url.  It would also be nice to sport one that had some romance to it.

And choosing what to call myself gave me a chance to honor my female forebears: bright women who never had my opportunities for education or outlets for their considerable talents.  So I chose “Annamaria Alfieri”—my mother’s first name and her mother’s maiden name.  My pseudonym also brings me back to my Italian heritage.

Here they are: those women whose names I took.  Above, Sabina Maria Alfieri Pisacane, (left in white, with a cousin of hers).  She was called Marietta and was NOT the quintessential Italian grandmother.  There was a lot of tiger in that mother of eight children.

And here is Annamaria Pisacane Puglise on the day of her wedding to my father, Sam.

A couple of years after my first novel was published, I was rummaging in a file of family information and mementoes, looking for my father’s birth certificate when I came across memory cards for my great grandparents.  What a lovely surprise to realize that my maternal great grandmother, who was just “Nonna” in the family, was named—guess what?  Anna Maria Alfieri.  This makes sense, since there is a strong Southern Italian tradition of naming children after their grandparents.  My mother must have been named after her.  

Here she is, the original Anna Maria Alfieri with her husband, Francesco Alfieri.  She and her oldest daughter, Sabina, were both illiterate, as was Sam’s mother.  How amazing that I, the granddaughter of illiterate women, got to be an author.  And what a satisfaction to be able to honor them in the process.

When  Italian friends heard of my name choice, they assumed I was pilfering the name of the greatest Italian writer of the 18th Century:  Vittorio Alfieri.

Here is his portrait, which hangs in the Uffizi.

Count Vittorio Alfieri (16 January 1749 – 8 October 1803) was a playwright and is considered the founder of modern Italian drama.

Alfieri was born in the beautiful small city of Asti in Piedmont. His father died when he was very young, and after his mother’s remarriage, he was sent away to the Academy of Turin. His greatest interests were literature, especially ancient Greek plays, and horses. His enthusiasm for equestrian exercise lasted the rest of his life.

After a year in boarding school he went to live with an uncle, who took charge of his education, but who also died within a few years. At age fourteen, having inherited great wealth from his father and uncle, he was free to focus on his third great pursuit: travel – he wandered all over continental Europe and England, looking for an ideal place to live and falling in love with married women. His peccadilloes caused at least one aristocratic divorce. His greatest love was Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gerdern, the wife of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Their love affair began in Rome in 1778 and continued there and in Florence for the rest of his life. He had a Byronic persona, which shows in this portrait painted by David’s pupil François-Xavier Fabre in Florence in 1793. Fabre also painted this portrait of Louise, also known as the Countess of Albany.

Once Alfieri’s first play “Cleopatra” was performed, in Turin in 1775, he was hooked on writing for the theater and continued to produce his verse plays until he died. In the process he transformed Italian drama from stilted set pieces to naturalistic, gripping portrayals of life.

He is buried in Florence’s magnificent Church of Santa Croce, resting place of some of the greatest Italian intellectual lights including Galileo, Ghiberti, Machiavelli, and Rossini. I took this picture of his tomb. On either side of him on the south wall of the church are the tombs of Michelangelo and Machiavelli.  The tomb of Princess Louise is also nearby!