Few things invite as intense a search as the identity behind a famous pseudonym. Last month, Reuters concluded after a tortuous investigation that Bristol-born Robin Gunningham is the elusive street artist Banksy. This week, the New York Times claimed that London-born Adam Back is the famed bitcoin developer nicknamed Satoshi Nakamoto—a claim the computer programmer has denied. Maybe literature and music, where pseudonyms don’t invite such scrutiny, can provide a lesson. Views about George Orwell’s writing are unlikely to change when you know he was born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari, Bihar. Fans of electronic music duo Daft Punk did not mind that they wore metallic helmets in public for decades to dissociate their faces from the fame. Neither should it bother you that this text you are reading is without a byline.