{"id":1407374,"date":"2026-02-17T10:14:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T15:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sparknotes.com\/blog\/?p=1407374"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:14:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T15:14:44","slug":"23-rejected-titles-f-scott-fitzgerald-considered-before-settling-on-the-great-gatsby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/23-rejected-titles-f-scott-fitzgerald-considered-before-settling-on-the-great-gatsby\/","title":{"rendered":"23 Rejected Titles F. Scott Fitzgerald (Probably) Considered Before Settling on The Great Gatsby<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Naming things is hard, which is why I name all my documents things like \u201cproject draft,\u201d \u201cproject draft 1,\u201d \u201cproject draft 3222,\u201d and \u201casd3t2khjlp.\u201d If I ever decide to have kids, I have no reason to believe this trend won’t continue; the birth certificate will simply read \u201cPROJECT DRAFT FINAL VERSION FOR REAL THIS TIME ASDFGHJKL\u201d until I get around to naming the kid something better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, F. Scott Fitzgerald struggled to find a name for his beloved novel, The Great Gatsby<\/em>. He briefly considered Zuckerberging it and just going with Gatsby<\/em> (dropping the “the,” and also “great”), but he also thought about Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires<\/em> (meh), On the Road to West Egg<\/em> (double meh), and The High-Bouncing Lover<\/em> (what). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those are just the ones we know about. Here are some other titles I’m PRETTY sure F. Scott Fitzgerald definitely considered before just throwing his hands in the air and being like \u201cFINE. Let’s do The Great Gatsby<\/em>. Let’s just do it. I don’t even care anymore. It’s whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> Nick and Gatsby’s Fun Time <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> The American Dream (and Other Dumb, Impossible Things That Can’t Happen)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong> Just a Whole Lot of Foreshadowing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.<\/strong> Old Sport: The Novel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.<\/strong> The Valley of Ashes (The Ashes Represent Your Hopes and Dreams if You’re Poor, and Also if You’re Not Poor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.<\/strong> The Solution to All Life’s Problems is \u201cJust Throw a Party About It\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.<\/strong> Everything is a Metaphor for Moral Decay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8.<\/strong> How to Get Girls (The Trick is to Disappear for Five Years and Return a Wealthy Man)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9.<\/strong> Looks Like Tom Buchanan Is At It Again<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.<\/strong> Old Money vs. New Money: The Moneying<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.<\/strong> Everybody is Cheating on Everybody<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.<\/strong> Illusions and the Colossal Vitality Thereof<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13.<\/strong> Repeating the Past, Which is Of Course a Thing You Can Do<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14.<\/strong> Bad Stuff Happens in New York City<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15.<\/strong> In Fact, Everything Bad Happens in New York City<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16.<\/strong> The Midwest: Hey, At Least It’s Not New York City<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17.<\/strong> So It Turns Out the Jazz Age Was Less Fun Than It Sounds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18.<\/strong> Homosexual Subtext: The Novel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19.<\/strong> Green Lights and How Best to Stare Wistfully at Them, Thinking About All the Things That Could Be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20.<\/strong> In Retrospect, Whoops<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21.<\/strong> Vehicular Manslaughter Makes Any Relationship Stronger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22.<\/strong> Are You in Love with Her, or Are You Just in Love with the IDEA of Her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23.<\/strong> If At First You Don’t Succeed, Become Rich and Try Again<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naming things is hard, which is why I name all my documents things like \u201cproject draft,\u201d \u201cproject draft 1,\u201d \u201cproject draft 3222,\u201d and \u201casd3t2khjlp.\u201d If I ever decide to have kids, I have no reason continue reading<\/span>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[438,628,2335,7064,5161,694],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407374"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448623,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407374\/revisions\/1448623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}