I Am Not a Number...

So -- my surname's ridiculous, according to 56% of the readers of this LiveJournal. Well, possibly.

There are a number of reasons I like it, though. Firstly, it's euphonious. Divorced of the actual connotations of being an English surname, it sounds like the sort of thing you might find in Tolkien (who, speaking of silly surnames...).

Secondly, both elements of it mean "Steward" in some form or other. As far as my family have been able to tell, "Hallard" appears to derive from Anglo-Saxon "Hall-ward", ie the warden of a hall. And a Purser, of course, is in charge of money and valuables on a merchant or passenger ship. If I ever use a pseudonym, it'll probably be "Steward".

Thirdly, being self-constructed, it's unlikely to be duplicated (and certainly doesn't seem to have been so far). We can be fairly sure there aren't any serial killers or conservative politicians going around using it. Even the elements of it are relatively rare, although admittedly there's already a published author named Philip Purser, who once interviewed Philip K Dick. Hallards are rarer, although my bachelor name would sem to have been shared by an American football player and a character married to Faye Dunaway.

There's also a Marta Hallard in Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, and it's Basil Hallward (with a "w") who paints The Picture of Dorian Grey.