Knock, Knock. Who's there?

Recently, I read a blog post by author KT Daxon about pen names and how to choose them. She told the sweet story of how her name is a combination of all the important things in her life. Her children, her husband, her family.... touching and pretty inspiring. I respect her choice, and think it is the perfect blend of love.I have no such story. I chose my pen name because of a perpetually pregnant adult cartoon character.No. There isn't a hand drawn or CGI woman with a bulging belly named B.B Swann. However, there is one with my real name. When I decided to make the leap into authorship, I couldn't wait to see my name on a book cover. I imagined my family bragging to their friends, spreading the word far and wide that they knew me.Ahh, the dreams of the naive.While creating my web page, with the help of a friend, she asked if I would use my real name or a pen name for my books. Like I said, I wanted to use my name proudly.Then reality hit.I already had an inkling that there would be problems. I first noticed it when I bought new tires for my car. After I signed my name to accept said tires, the clerk laughed. "Hey, do you know that's a character on..." (Not sure if I should/could put the name here, copyright laws and stuff you know.) I just gave him a smile and said, "Yeah. I know." It happened again when I got an oil change. And again when I bought new wiper blades at the auto store. (Seeing a trend here?)So, I did what I always do when I have a question: I researched. The first thing I did (and I highly suggest all new authors do this when deciding on their names) was open google and type in my name. Once I sold a book, I'd hoped the multitudes of my vast readership :) would search for me in the same way, and I wanted to make sure nothing sketchy appeared.Well...let's just say, a dark haired, scantily dressed, lady-with-child (who never seems to give birth) is as sketchy as it comes. I didn't want my potential future readers to get confused, or worse, turned off. So began the search for my nom de plume.Here is what I learned. For some reason, there are lots of baseball players with a variant of my last name. Also not good. I like watching the Cards, but I don't play the game. And though there are sports like running and soccer in my books, there are no boys with bats and tight pants.TV dinners, boat makers, art dealers, vitamins, doctors, neuroscientists, and various criminals convicted of crimes I'm pretty sure I wouldn't commit (court martial? murder?) All came up as I tried different touching combinations like KT did.It took trial, and error, and a quite few laughs, but I finally found a name I could work with. B.B. Swann, it kind of rolls off the tongue, don't ya think? Well, it's better than the many alternatives I tried anyway, and I'm way too old to have babies. Only time will tell how the name works out in the long run, but I'm looking forward to the ride.At least I have new tires to do it on.