Catherine Ryan Hyde: Hi, my name is Catherine Ryan Hyde. And nobody ever mispronounces my name. They always say it correctly, but they almost never spell it correctly.

The Catherine is spelled, C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. So if I'm reading out my name while someone else is writing it down, I'll say, "Catherine with a C," as fast as I can. But by the time I get to the, "with a C, part," they're already scratching out the K.

The name Hyde was added. I originally added that to my name as a pen name. It was my mother's maiden name. And when I was young, she published two books under the name Hyde. I knew that the name Catherine Ryan by itself, wasn't a distinctive enough name for an author.

When I searched that name on the internet, too many of us turned up. So for a while my pen name was Catherine Ryan Hyde and my legal name was Catherine Ryan. But then suddenly it was post-911 and I was traveling. The plane tickets said, Catherine Ryan Hyde and my ID said Catherine Ryan, and it was time to legally change it.

Now there's one more hidden reason. I'm just enough of a feminist to have a little bit of a problem with the fact that we're all given our father's name as if our mother had nothing to do with us. But I would guess it would be fair to call that another rant for another day.

So now, that's my legal name. Catherine Ryan Hyde.