author name not appearing in rss feed

The files that generate the rss2 feed (wp-rss2.php) does not, by default, use the <author> tag. I assume the reason behind this is the RSS specs define its use for email addresses, which could open it up to spam harvesting. In any case, you can add the tag to the <item> element in the rss2 template (I don’t believe RSS .92 supports it).

<author><?php echo $authordata->user_email; ?> (<?php the_author(); ?>)</author>

Alternatively, you could add <?php the_author(); ?> as part of the <title> tag:

<title><?php the_title_rss() ?> by <?php the_author(); ?></title>

The last thing I want is to publish my email address. My aggregator shows an author name. Pulp Fiction Lite calls it creator. Mine says unknown. But the feeds I am getting don’t have email addresses. They are just cleartext names.

RDF/RSS1 has a tag called <dc:creator>. Any chance the feeds displaying author name for you are using RSS1 for their syndication format?

In any case, it’s all dependent on what is included in a particular feed. As I noted above, the specs for RSS2 say <author> is intended for an email address, but that doesn’t mean everyone will use it “specifically” for that.