Marion Dane Bauer: Hello. My name is Marion Dane Bauer. My name is fairly easy to pronounce. My mother told me that when I was born, my father would consider only two names, Marion and Barbara. Barbara, to her, sounded like "barbarian," so that left only one choice, which was Marion. She chose to spell it with an "o," -ion, which is the boy's spelling, because she didn't like the name Maryanne, and wanted to make very sure I would never be called Maryanne.

But Dane is my maiden name. Bauer is the name of the man I was married to for 28 years. It's a good German name that means "peasant," or "farmer."