When a Routine Step Suddenly Felt Wrong

For Eileen Harkess-Murphy and Rachel Allen, replacing participants’ real names with pseudonyms should have been the easiest part of preparing their focus-group research on employment and dementia for publication. Instead, it became a source of deep uncertainty. What started as a box-ticking exercise turned into a series of ethical, practical and philosophical questions about how researchers represent the people whose stories they tell.

The core of the problem is that a name carries assumptions about age, culture, ethnicity and identity. The two researchers, both based at the University of the West of Scotland, found themselves asking whether a pseudonym might inadvertently misrepresent a participant, strip away a voice that someone had fought to be heard, or reinforce stereotypes they had no intention of endorsing. The experience, they say, challenged the long-held view that anonymity is automatically protective.

As they worked through the dilemma, they distilled their discomfort into six questions for any researcher facing the same task. The questions touch on whether anonymity can sometimes feel like erasure, how to balance participant choice with safeguarding, who is responsible for decisions about naming, how to handle cultural and age-related assumptions, and what power dynamics are at play when a researcher decides what a participant is called in print.

The Identity Puzzle Behind Every Name

The gap between ethics guidance and real-world choices

The researchers point to a wider issue: while standard ethics frameworks still treat anonymity as a default, the world has moved on. Social media and patient advocacy have normalised people owning their stories publicly, especially among groups whose voices have historically been marginalised. For some, being named is a form of recognition; for others, it carries risk. The tension leaves researchers without a universal rule to fall back on.

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Their experience also highlights the hidden power that comes with naming. When a researcher picks a pseudonym, they make a judgement about what aspect of a person’s identity matters most — often ethnicity, but rarely other facets the participant might consider more central. The authors admit their own biases shaped those choices and argue that simply defaulting to “Participant A” strips qualitative work of its human texture, while picking a culturally matched name can reduce someone to a single identity marker.

A Practical Starting Point for Researchers

The researchers don’t offer a rigid protocol but do suggest three practical shifts that more thoughtful anonymisation demands:

  • Give participants a real choice. Where feasible, discuss naming options — real name, researcher-assigned pseudonym or participant-chosen pseudonym — during the consent process, explaining the consequences of each.
  • Document your approach reflexively. Write a short note in ethics applications and methodology sections about how naming decisions were made, what assumptions underpinned them and how potential cultural or age-related misfires were addressed.
  • Weigh protection against representation. In small, well-networked participant groups, think about whether revealing one person’s identity might inadvertently identify others, and adjust the strategy accordingly.

The authors stress that researchers can’t get it perfectly right every time but that treating pseudonyms as an ethical decision rather than an administrative task avoids the biggest missteps.