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Many mathematicians know that Lewis Carroll was quite a good mathematician, who wrote about logic (paradoxes) and determinants. He found an expansion formula, which bears his real name (Charles Lutwidge) Dodgson. Needless to say, L. Carroll was his pseudonym, used in literature.

Another (alive) mathematician writes under his real name and under a pseudonym (John B. Goode). (That person, by the way, is Bruno Poizat: it's no secret, even MathSciNet knows it.)

What other mathematicians (say dead ones) had a pseudonym, either within their mathematical activity, or in a parallel career ?

Of course, don't count people who changed name at some moment of their life because of marriage, persecution, conversion, and so on.

Edit. The answers and comments suggest that there are at least four categories of pseudonyms, which don't exhaust all situations.

  • Professional mathematicians, who did something outside of mathematics under a pseudonym (F. Hausdorff - Paul Mongré, E. Temple Bell - John Taine),
  • People doing mathematics under a pseudonym, and something else under their real name (Sophie Germain - M. Le Blanc, W. S. Gosset - Student)),
  • Professional mathematicians writing mathematics under both their real name and a pseudonym (B. Poizat - John B. Goode),
  • Collaborative pseudonyms (Bourbaki, Blanche Descartes)
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    $\begingroup$ Does Nicolas Bourbaki qualify? $\endgroup$
    – Andrey Rekalo
    Commented Nov 7, 2010 at 18:00
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    $\begingroup$ I think you will find some answers at mathoverflow.net/users . $\endgroup$
    – darij grinberg
    Commented Nov 7, 2010 at 20:46
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    $\begingroup$ @darij: Indeed! I never knew Bugs Bunny had such a fondness for algebra and geometry. $\endgroup$
    – Thierry Zell
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 1:41
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    $\begingroup$ Along the lines of Bourbaki, there's also Jet Nestruev. $\endgroup$
    – bhwang
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 5:39
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    $\begingroup$ Donald Knuth used the pseudonym Ursula N. Owens when submitting a paper to get more honest reviews. (As described by Wilf on page 3 of math.upenn.edu/~wilf/website/dek.pdf) $\endgroup$
    – Moshe Schwartz
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 7:56

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The review by E Reich of I J Good and K Caj Doog, A paradox concerning rate of information, MR 19, 1245h, informs us that "The name of the second author is understood to be a pseudonym."

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    $\begingroup$ From Jack Good, Good Thinking (1983, pp. 321, 281, 35, 24): “Good’s alter ego”, “introduced as a joint author to justify the use of “we” in a publication.” “Doog is the guy who spells everything backwards.” “In the spoken version of this paper I named my position after “the Tibetan Lama K. Caj Doog,” and I called my position “Doogian” (...) “Bayesian” is misleading, and “Goodian” or “Good” is absurd.” $\endgroup$
    – Francois Ziegler
    Commented Sep 19, 2019 at 20:36
  • $\begingroup$ Clickable link: MR 19, 1245h. $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 15:28
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Another find on MathSciNet. Dominique Descotes, Genese des corollaires 1 et 2 de la lettre à Carcavy de Blaise Pascal, MR 99g:01016, review by Craig Fraser: In December of 1658 Blaise Pascal began to publish under the pseudonym A Dettonville the mathematical work Lettres de A Dettonville.... According to C B Boyer, "the name Amos Dettonville was an anagram of Louis de Montalte, the pseudonym used [by Pascal] in the Lettres provinciales."

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Although some think of Pythagoras as one person, it is now thought that his name is used for geometric and number theoretical discoveries made by anonymous members of his sect.

Thus, we can think of "Pythagoras" as the pseudonym of a collective of Greek intellectuals from about 500 BCE.

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  • $\begingroup$ Do you have any reference for that? This seems a bit authoritarive statement. $\endgroup$
    – Denis Serre
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 19:04
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    $\begingroup$ What about "Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans" by Leonid Zhmu, page 257? You can see that page in google books. The fact that all his sect's discoveries were attributed to Pythagoras is common knowledge, although I could not get another explicit reference in the 10 minutes I spent finding the above. $\endgroup$
    – Rodrigo A. Pérez
    Commented Jan 5, 2013 at 5:57
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    $\begingroup$ sounds like what happens nowadays for discoveries in a typical medical lab... $\endgroup$
    – Delio Mugnolo
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 14:56
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"Madame Veuve Prime/Madame F. Prime" was most likely a pseudonym (see Eneström, G., Questions 41 48. Remark on the question 43, Bibl. Math. (2) VII. 31-32, 64, 96, 120 (1893); (2) VIII. 32, 63-64, 96, 120 (1894) (1893,1894). ZBL25.0011.05.), but so far no one seems to have identified the author.

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    $\begingroup$ Most of Madame Veuve F.Prime's papers seem to have been published in Journal de Mathématiques Elémentaires between 1892 and 1895. While the name does sound like a pseudonym, I doubt it was a famous mathematician, more probably a high school teacher or a student. In a 1892 article she is mentionning Brussels as her hometown (but this could be a decoy), see archive.org/stream/s4journaldemathm01pari#page/162/mode/2up/… In any case, it does indeed appear to be difficult to identify the author. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Sauvaget
    Commented Jan 1, 2018 at 21:21
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Niccolò Fontana best known as Tartaglia.

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  • $\begingroup$ But was that actually a pseudonym? $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 10:48
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    $\begingroup$ Tartaglia is more a (pejorative) nickname than a pseudonym I think. If I were him, I wouldn't like people on the street calling out "Hey, there's Niccolo the Stammerer!" $\endgroup$
    – J. M. isn't a mathematician
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 11:34
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    $\begingroup$ Is it worse than the French translation "Hé, voilà Henri Lebesgue" ? $\endgroup$
    – Georges Elencwajg
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 21:54
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Andersen, Kirsti; Meyer, Henrik, Georg Mohr’s three books and the Gegenübung auf Compendium Euclidis Curiosi, Centaurus 28, 139-144 (1985). ZBL0571.01014. discusses the identity of J.D.S., author of "Gegenübung auf Compendium Euclidis Curiosi (1673)", and are convinced that it is not (as assumed by Bierens de Haan) a pseudonym of Georg Mohr (hence, the real identity seems still open).

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Gohierre de Longchamps used the pseudonym Elgé for publications in Journal de mathématiques élémentaires and Journal de mathématiques spéciales of which he was editor, see

Lazzeri, G., Gastone Gohierre de Longchamps, Periodico di Mat. (3) 4, 53-59 (1906). ZBL37.0031.04.

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Endre Weiszfeld, a childhood friend of Erdős, changed his name to Andrew Vázsonyi to escape persecution as a Jew. But much later, he also used the alias Zepartzatt Gozinto, at least for this book review. The story goes that the name arose when he made a joke in a talk and George Dantzig misheard it.

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"Mathematician" might be a slight stretch, but math-related and of real-world significance: no one has yet figured out who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

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In addition to K.M.S. Humak mentioned earlier (which encodes "Kollektiv Mathematische Statistik: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR"), Helga Bunke had a long-term career in literature under her maiden name Helga Königsdorf.

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Křesomysl Blizzard https://zbmath.org/authors/blizzard.kresomysl was a pseudonym of the collective of Walter Schachermayer, Erik G. F. Thomas and Heinrich von Weizsäcker for the publication

Blizzard, Křesomysl, A Krein-Milman set without the integral representation property., Frolík, Zdeněk (ed.), Abstracta. 8th winter school on abstract analysis. Abstracts of papers presented at the winter school, WSAA 8, Moravská Bouda, Czech Republic, 1980. Prague: Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. 39-42 (1980). ZBL1437.46007.

Note that the DML CZ https://dml.cz/handle/10338.dmlcz/701173 did only partially resolve the identity as E.G.F. Thomas with the remark "Author corrected, K. Blizzard did not participated at the school"; the full identity is given in [20] of Schachermeyer's homepage https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~schachermayer/pubs/index.php.

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Does Plato count? (No pun entirely intended.)

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    $\begingroup$ I don't follow. $\endgroup$
    – Qiaochu Yuan
    Commented Nov 7, 2010 at 21:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Michael, his real name being ...? $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts ♦
    Commented Nov 7, 2010 at 23:26
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    $\begingroup$ Aristocles according to Wikipedia's article about him. I don't know if I knew that, but I've been familiar with the nickname meaning "broad-shouldered" or something like that for a long time. $\endgroup$
    – Michael Hardy
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 1:57
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    $\begingroup$ Who considers Plato a mathematician, and on what grounds? $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 10:58
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    $\begingroup$ @Gerry: One person who considers Plato a mathematician put the assertion into the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article about him. It's in more than one place in the article and maybe more than one person put it there. You can look at the edit history, and maybe even find out the actual identities of those who did that. My uncertainty about the "grounds" you asked about was why I phrased my answer as a question. $\endgroup$
    – Michael Hardy
    Commented Nov 8, 2010 at 13:40
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Noaï Fitchas was a pseudonym for the group of Joos Heintz and his students Leandro Caniglia, Guillermo Cortiñas, Silvia Danón, Teresa Krick, and Pablo Solernó.

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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I mentioned that here on 9 November 2010. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 1:01
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    $\begingroup$ I thought I carefully checked that it had not been mentioned earlier... Sorry for my mistake! $\endgroup$
    – Bruno
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 7:50
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Levi Ben Gershon (1288-1344) (see also here) is commonly known to us as the RaLBa"G. Again, this is a nickname rather than a pseudonym- RLBG = "Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon", much in the same way as Shah Rikh Khan is known as SRK.

He wrote three mathematics books including Maaseh Hoshev, which "... is notable for its early use of proof by mathematical induction, and pioneering work in combinatorics. "

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    $\begingroup$ An abbreviation is not a pseudonym. He wrote his works under his real name; RaLBa"G is how others refer to him, but did he ever use that? $\endgroup$
    – Robert Israel
    Commented May 27, 2016 at 19:35
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    $\begingroup$ He may have written his works under the Latinization of his name, Gersonides. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 3:15
  • $\begingroup$ Is the quote mark in RaLBa"G literally a quote mark, or some sort of diacritic? $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 15:24
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    $\begingroup$ @LSpice The quotation mark "gershayim" indicates an acronym. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershayim $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Moskovich
    Commented Jan 5, 2020 at 9:53
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