notname means A standard name invented for an artist or author whose identity is unknown. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
Why this word is great
NOTNAME — [Noun] A conventional placeholder name invented by scholars for an artist or author whose true identity has been lost. Borrowed from German Notname, from Not ("necessity, emergency") + Name ("name"), literally meaning "necessity name." Unlike a pseudonym—a self-chosen mask for art or secrecy—or the designation anonymous—a mere label of absence—a notname is a specific, scholarly fiction, a taxonomic act of posthumous charity. It conjures a ghost from the void: the Master of the Embroidered Foliage, named for a precise tangle of leaves; the N-Painter, identified by a cryptic letter on his vases; the Pearl Poet, known only by a single luminous detail. We build these little shelters of syllables against the great forgetting, knowing they are the archive's quiet admission that to be remembered at all sometimes requires becoming someone you never were.
noun
- A standard name invented for an artist or author whose identity is unknown.“The use of the Notname was a frank admission that the lot in question was less prestigious than originally suggested, and the final price paid was lower than what would be expected for a Castagno painting.”