More details on the funny penname

[Ya Sam]

of the Italian writer Tommaso Pincio,


"Tommaso Pincio" is obviously an Italian rendering of Thomas Pynchon's name 
but this is not the sole reference for the pseudonym. "Pincio" is an a hill 
in the center of Rome whose name comes from one of the families that 
occupied it in the 4th century AD, the Pincii. During the Renaissance period 
"Pincio" was also a vulgar term for penis. Subsequently the word turn on 
meaning "a nobody people". Nowadays it has almost disappeared from the 
common Italian language. Considering that "Tommaso" may denote a double 
identity (the Greek translation of the name means "twin"), it has been 
hypothesized that the pseudonym "Tommaso Pincio" is to be read "double of a 
nobody people"; the author has never confirmed the explanation, though. He 
claimed that he chose "Tommaso Pincio" as pseudonym just because it comes 
from his fiction. In fact, Tommaso Pincio is a minor character of his first 
novel."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommaso_Pincio

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