As artists, it's a good step to build our name as a "brand". Professionally, it might also be a legal thing. There are benefits to using either real name and pseudonym. Here are a few:

Real name pros - More professional transactions, billing ease, might be easier to market because of friends and acquaintances
Real name cons - compromised privacy, pigeonholing, spelling difficulty can lead to loss of market

Alias pros - Uniqueness, branding ease, control of spelling/catchiness, if you want to try a new style/direction, the alias gives you freedom
Alias cons - legal problems, possibility of stolen artwork, hard to stick to

This is just me, but aliases are always lost on me and I start a new one every time something catches my fancy, so real names would fix that problem. But then, my real name is quite hard to spell/pronounce. I've always had that difficulty since I started school. I also use my real name for my day job so I'm wondering if I should keep my art pursuits and my work separate. What do you think?

Anybody here muling over the same thing? Which do you prefer signing your art in?

[Ambiguity]

Lately I've just been signing my artwork with my initials(in a more stylized way though), but I'd honestly rather just be known by an alias because I really don't like my first name and nobody ever spells or pronounces my last name right. However, since my current alias is also just an English word I think it's probably not very memorable to most people(although I think it's perfect for art), and it would make it hard to search for me in Google.

[virtueone]

Cool topic! I agree with those pros and cons. I use an alias for personal (liberal) work and real name for professional (conservative) work. It helps to avoid conflict, bias, etc.

Also, my full name is quite long, so an alias is just easier.

i dont mind either but i believe my alias would be easier

Keep drawing or you won't even have to worry about it! p.s. I'd use my real name, somethin' for the family

@marvel57, Agreed. In the end, the name matters little compared to your body of work haha. Still an interesting topic to discuss tho

Well my alias is sort've my real middle name so it's kinda both? XD Roger is English for Rogelio which is my middle name.

My alias is so regular, it'd be stupid to use everywhere. But on the other hand, my real name is a bitch. XD But I love it so much.

I just use my initials for my signature, email and web address and then my real name when actually talking to/emailing people. Seems more polite somehow. (But my first name is only four letters long, so maybe I have it easy.)

My nick name irl is spacecookie, so it's what I'm known as. So it's my real name but it's an alias. *starts up James Bond music* Just call me Cookie- Spacecookie.

My name is in my alias. If I spend 16 hours on a drawing, I want the people who like it to know the name of the guy who made it.

@Terek-just don't include your social security number

Some few years ago, I was obsessed with my alias. I used it everywhere, where I possibly could. People new me by it and I was called by it even irl, even by closest of friends.
But now, it's something like I don't really care that much anymore. Real name is fine too, though the alias is easier to type and remember, and it doesn't contain diacritical characters (as opposed to my surname, which contains something like "Å¡").
So, I'm still a bit inclined to my alias, but both are fine for me.

I use my real name professionally, and this alias for all the things I do on the side for fun.

But now after 10+ years I'm in a position where I am trying to shift my professional time away from my real name into the alias! lol

So far most of the successful freelancers I know all just use their real names. Marketing my alias will be sort of an experiment

hoeppner pronounced hep-ner... Nothing like explaining that it was orginally humpner(u with umlaut thing) meaning the names been bastardized more than a few times.

whatever annoys them the most

Name for professional use such as portfolio, signing, etc, alias for online profiles and the likes

Definitely my alias, nobody would be able to spell my real name anyway. :)

I was was using an alias I couldn't use this one.. There's already a Norwegian Ambient music guy using it. I'd get a guilty conscience for stealing it
Other aliases I've come up with in my teens, and whenever I look back I think "ugh, really? what was I thinking" So I don't know if an alias is really a good idea.

The one thing I agree with is that an alias provides anonymity that's very very liberating and perhaps a tad safer. You never know if you'll be the victim of a stalker!

I think I'd go with my real name though if I ever planned on selling anything I've made. I don't think it would be worth the hassle to be some kind of art-batman.

I am no good at coming up with names so I just use my real name. I do have an alias I use online for commenting on YouTube videos and other non serious stuff, but that one is still just a normal name.

Even though my alias is pretty bad, I'd rather be known under an alias because my name is pretty boring. It's easy to forget my name lol. I like that I can connect a mascot to an alias by association while I can't do that with my own name. It'd be a bit weird.

Non-professionally, Alias definitely . There's no reason to get your true identity compromised with strangers if your not working inside a professional manner. Having an alias gives you some anonymity, which does provide a layer of security to your actual name. So if you some how manage to screw up your alias' reputation, ideally you can scrap it and start anew with another alias. Privacy is also becoming a problem with new advancements in technology.

However, professionally I think your real name is preferable unless it's hard to pronounce. As it kind of sounds more personal. For example, Norman Rockwell vs NyanKat, J. C. Leyendecker Vs CaptainUnderPants31, or Sycra Yasin Vs Chuck Norris... Well Chuck would probably win that one. But you get the idea.

Agreed on cons of real name here, but I could still only go with my real name because I never really put on an alias, I wouldn't be able to identify with it :/ well I had one in my deviantart days, but it always felt wrong. x)

I suppose an alias? It's more of a nickname than anything
I go by Jay a lot, and my real name is Jackie. Something that just kinda happened with friends, and I ended up using regularly

My name can be used as an alias, I feel it would market well.