Google has updated its "common name" policy for Google+. After much debate, Google is now allowing people to use nicknames and, in some limited cases, pseudonyms. Nicknames are great for those that want an alternative to their name but don't feel the need to hide it or to be anonymous.
Google+'s new pseudonym policy only applies to people who already have an established identity with that pseudonym. You can't create a pseudonym for Google+ alone.
But the entire discussion is moot since Google has made another, less publicized change to its name policy, people can use any name as long as it 'looks' like a name, it doesn't have to be their own 'real' name and no one will verify whether your Google+ name is your 'real' one or not, whatever 'real' may mean to you.
Yonatan Zunger, the chief architect of Google+, has explained, in a comment to the new name policy announcement, that Google will no longer be policing names as long as they look like names, i.e. they have a first and a last name and are not random words.
"Our name check is therefore looking, not for things that don’t look like 'your' name, but for things which don’t look like names, period. In fact, we do not give a damn whether the name posted is 'your' name or not: we will not challenge you on this basis, nor is there any mechanism for other users to cause you to be challenged for this," Zunger wrote in pretty unequivocal words.
In further comments, he clarified that this is a new policy and that, while it's not strictly written in the official policy text, there's also nothing in there that says you can't use a fake but 'real looking' name on Google+. You just have to read between the lines.
This essentially means that the debate over anonymity is over, people can use any name they want on Google+ as long as it satisfies certain 'aesthetic' criteria. This still means that you can't use your gaming handle as your only name. However, you can use it as a nickname and make up a 'real looking' name to go with it.
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