Stage Name Confusion

Subject: Stage Name Confusion
From: Taconicus
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 06:34 PM

I've always been strictly amateur in performing music, but recently I've agreed to play at an event, and then I found out they want to pay me. Which is fine with me!

But before they put my name on the "bill" a snag developed. It turns out my name is the same as the name (or stage name) of an up-and-coming pop music singer/songwriter out of Nashville. So what am I supposed to do in that situation? Get a new name like movie actors do?

I suppose I could just go as "Taconicus" – but that seems kind of pretentious, like "Sting" or "Boy George."

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: foggers
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 06:56 PM

Unless you are trying to pass yourself off deliberately as that other performer, is it likely to be a big problem? I suppose it may depend on how the "rising star" is advised by management. If they hear of you, they could insist on you changing your performance name. If they were really litigation minded they could threaten to sue but would have to have grounds such as evidence of lost earnings, I would think.

So if you want to pre-empt all that, perhaps a performing name could make sense. Do you have a middle name that use could insert the initial? Or a shorter nickname? Or another family surname you could adopt?

And if you are worried about it sounding pretentious then you could post a list of possibilities for a Mudcat vote!

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 07:02 PM

One of the members of Mithril, a Celtic band from Mobile, Alabama, is named Ben Harper. He's usually introduced as "The real Ben Harper, not that other guy."

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 07:06 PM

I'd say use your own name if you want to: if anyone objects just say you had it first and show them your birth certificate! If the other person is using your name as a stage name they might be the one who has to change!
There are already several examples of more than one performer or group having the same name, but I can't see how anyone can argue with you using your own name! Your promoter can maybe do something to make it clear that you are not this young upstart who's pinched your name!

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 07:33 PM

How about something country - Tex 'Coney' Cuss

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 07:38 PM

How about using just your forenames, like George Michael.

Always supposing that you have more than one forename.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:18 PM

Go on as "Taconicus" If you are a performer it is fine to be pretentious.

Or better still, perform as "The Great Taconicus"

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:32 PM

Request CASH -

AND cash ONLY -

under the barrel-head -

Let got and deny the ego -

Money talks and Bull-Sheet walks.

Take the money and run.

place an apostrophie, period, comma, before your name...you will drive Ombama's momma insane, just avoid, "star" "atstrophie" or your may access .... trunks that are not elephants.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Taconicus
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:33 PM

Do you have a middle name that use could insert the initial? Or a shorter nickname? Or another family surname you could adopt?

Actually, I'm already using my first and middle name as my performing name.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 09:09 PM

Guy who used to be involved in High Wycombe Folk Chamber (UK) was Anthony A Rose , to avoid confusion with the late Tony Rose , and Ian A Anderson (fRoots and hot Vultures) added his middle initial to avoid confusion with any Zeppelins !
And I am the only Terry Silver on the Equity roll , so I dont have that problem !

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 09:16 PM

Equity rules differ. They are why the star of "Candid Camera" (in the UK series) was "Peter Dulay" not his real name of "Peter Dooley". Unless you are a member of Equity their rules do not apply. In real life you are entitled to use your real name (at least as far as English law goes). There could be complications if you were doing it what actual intend to defraud, but surely you are not.

Terry, I think you are confusing Zeppelins with Jethros.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 09:20 PM

True Richard ! Jethro NOT Zeppelin !

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 09:52 PM

There are a number of ways you can pick a stage name and still keep it related to yourself. For example, actor Stewart Granger. His real name is James Stewart, but when he got to Hollywood, there was already a well-known James ("Jimmie") Stewart. So he took his last name as his first and borrowed his mother's maiden name, which was Granger.

I was once faced with a similar situation, when I went to work as an announcer for a radio station. The station manager didn't think my last name was particularly euphonious, and suggested that I chose something else. I contemplated "Richards" because Richard is my middle name. Also "Robertson" because my father's first name was Robert. Then I said, "To hell with it, I'm going to use my own last name." The station manager shugged his shoulders as if to say, "Well, it's your funeral." But euphonious or not, it didn't bother my radio career any.

Wotthehell! It doesn't seem to have bothered Colin Firth's acting career at all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 04:01 AM

Whenever people comment on my name I point out I was performing before my namesake. Unfortunately I've never received any of his royalty cheques by mistake.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 04:45 AM

It doesn't seem to be a problem for Glenn Jones or Glenn Jones...

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 04:51 AM

Go Irish - become Tac O'Nicus.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 05:17 AM

I had a similar problem to Don Firth when I joined The Aden Forces Broadcastng Association - The Deputy Directo of the Studio used John Silver as a 'radio' name , so I spent eighteen months as Terry Argent until we pulled out of Aden in 1967

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 05:21 AM

Terry Argent makes you sound like a long lost member of The Zombies...

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 05:56 AM

I've heard performers say " I don't use my real name for security reasons....Social Security reasons".
boom, boom

RtS
(aka Tone-Deaf Lime Clinton,Thimbles O'Hooligan,Wandering Woody Weaver, Mal Kanto)

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Max Johnson
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 08:36 AM

We're about to encounter this. There is now a US Goth band called 'The Dead Sea Surfers'. As we no longer perform, it's never really been a problem, but we might soon be releasing some old '80s recordings. It probably won't be an issue, but these things can get tangled, particularly in catalogues.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 05:16 PM

Problem with The Great Taconicus is that they'd expect him to saw Pamela Anderson in half, or escape from shackles while dangling in a shark tank.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 08:17 PM

Well over here we had Andy Stewart and Andy M Stewart (the latter was the wan wi' the troosers!) - and still people got them confused.
There are 2 Kristina Olsens, as one of them told us when she came to our folk club.
Just be yourself, and let THEM work it out! I'm guessing you're Stateside, but surely even there they can't sue you for using your own name?????

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 12:22 AM

I tried to get Sam Larner on Youtube yesterday so that my wife could hear the man who gave us Butter & Cheese & All, of which she likes my singing: and found that there is some young singer of that name on Youtube also.

Eheu fugaces!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 04:59 AM

Well, I 'share' my name with a jazz musician (according to Google). I haven't had any problems with him so far even though my websites are in my own name- I'm probably below his radar!

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 05:07 AM

I adopted my wife's middle name, Grosvenor, as part of my now double barreled surname, in late 1960s, because, as a theatre critic, I was always getting confused with Michael Meyer, who was at the time the most active translator of Ibsen & Strindberg into English. Mind you, as late as the 1990s, a young woman on the committee of the ADC in Cambridge said she remembered with pleasure a lecture I had given when she was at Bedales School ~~ but it wasn't me, it was the other fella!

~Michael [Grosvenor Myer]

To confuse it all still further, the Californian branch of my family spell it Mayer ~~ Louis B Mayer of MGM was my grandfather's first cousin, so mine twice-removed; so my initials, which are sometimes referentially joked about on this forum & elsewhere, are not entirely adventitious.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 05:37 AM

... and, moreover, Valerie's "Grosvenor", as a forename tho her surname was Godwin, was indeed connected to the Westminster family & the London Square. Her father was a Forest of Dean coalminer & her mother a trained chilren's nurse; but two of her great grandmothers were sister Misses Grosvenor, both daughters of an early C19 illegitimate son of a daughter [or possible a niece] of the then Marquess of Westminster; so her parents were second cousins, her descent came on both sides, and the present Duke of Westminster her how·many-th[?!] cousin on wrong side of blanket. She once wrote to him to ask if any record in family archives, but got a v dusty answer from his private secretary that His Grace was unable to furnish any assistance with her enquiry. But we always called him "Cousin Gerald" ~~ he is, I believe, the nation's wealthiest nobleman - but none of it has come my way, alas!

What's that they say about those six degrees of separation...?

~M~

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Tootler
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 07:24 AM

but none of it has come my way, alas!

Know the problem.

My great grandfather owned an ironworks and we are distantly related to the Edens (via a several greats grandmother), but none of it has come my way either

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 07:33 AM

To add to the Meyer confusion, Miracle Films was a fief of a family called Meyers.

My maternal grandfather's patronymic was "Hogg" but happily no-one thought to add "Quentin" or "Hailsham" as one of my middle names.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 08:40 AM

And of course "Myers" is the much more common form ~~ always getting letters &c so addressed. Valerie & I would always assure those who addressed us as such that we were in fact very singular.

~M~

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 02:48 PM

Pop star Katy Perry's real name was Kate Hudson, but when it came to performing, there was also a Kate Hudson who acts and is daughter of Goldie Hawn. She had to use her mother's maiden name, Perry instead.
Recently she married Russel Brand, but is stuck with the stage name as there is already a Katy Brand who does comedy.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Stage Name Confusion
From: Taconicus
Date: 23 Dec 11 - 11:31 PM

Thanks for your device, everyone. Now if I were two or more I could just pick a "band" name. Kind of hard to do that as only one person, however. Hey, what if I use a sock puppet? Then I could be, like, "Mungo and the Sock Puppet."