alethonym

plural alethonyms

1. rareThe true name of a person.

   “Samuel Langhorne Clemens” is the alethonym of “Mark Twain”.

   3 more examples

   Or we can contemplate such literary power inductively by asking […] whether poetic names might not be alethonyms for ourselves and our homes, our lovers and our gods as the subjects of the predicates otherwise only floating through the pages of discourse.

   1999, Cyril Welch, Contemplative Logic: Interpretations of Rationality, Atcost Press, →ISBN, page 92

   The holster has been named in secret, and it’s^([sic]) moniker, Arcanum, is what remains of its alethonym.

   2024, Linda Codega, “Arcanum Holster”, in Zachary Cox, Inevitable: A Doomed Arthurian Western, SoulMuppet Publishing, →ISBN, page 256

   Indeed, Matalusa Kingdom takes its name from the “chosen leader of the tribe-less” (0:56:30), Matalusa, who receives, in turn, the homophonic alias (or possibly alethonym) Martyr Loser King.

   2025, Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki, “The Art of Being Governed? On Failings of the Utopic Imagination”, in Aparajita Nanda and Lucia-Mihaela Grosu-Rădulescu, editors, Inhabiting Ustopia: Science Fiction in Film, Performing Arts, and Digital Media, Springer, →ISBN, page 148

   Synonyms: orthonym · Antonyms: pseudonym