I am thinking of adopting a last name that I’d use for my public creative endeavors (mainly writing and acting). I wouldn’t legally change my last name, mainly because it’s a pain in the ass, and I feel kind of bad about doing that. But I hate the sound of my first name and last name together and want something that doesn’t make me cringe every time I hear it. And I don’t want to change my first name.
Has anyone done this? Did people who knew your real name think it was weird when you announced one day you were going to be using some other random last name? Were you already “known” at all when you started it, and so how did you work it with having some things under your old name and some under the new? I don’t want to change my credit cards, bank accounts, license, etc.; I just want to use another name professionally.
How did you pick the new name? I have some ideas in mind and one I’m leaning very strongly to but I’m not sure yet if I should do it. I need to decide fairly soon as I’m starting something for which I really need to get my name–whatever that is–as the name that everyone involved will know me by.
My cousin is a stand-up comedian and artist with a difficult to pronounce last name. For professional purposes he adopted a new last name. He told friends and family and uses it in emails and all other correspondence. The only time he uses his real name is for legal purposes and obviously on his credit cards and such. People generally will refer to you by the name you choose.
I have another cousin who is a writer and she uses an old family name for her work.
Think of some names you like and say them with your first name, over and over, imagine it written and be mindful of initials. You don’t want them spelling ASS or anything like that.
Maybe you like an old family name or a name of someone you admire. Go through the phone book to get ideas too.
I have both an English first name and a Korean one. Nowadays the only people who use my Korean name are my family and my older friends (older as in opposed to newer). My American friends all know my Korean name but they don’t use it - I’ve never had a problem with people calling my by my English name even when they know it’s not my “real” name.
(At graduation, though, they insisted on calling me by my formal name, which caused some of my peers to look confused, but whatever.)
The only problem I’ve had (and it is a very mild problem) is at work, when I want my colleagues and students to call me by my English name but all my formal documents have to include my Korean name. That sometimes causes confusion at the beginning of a semester. Other than that, I haven’t run into any difficulties.
I daresay a last name change would be less of a hassle, since people rarely call you by your last name (generally speaking).
**Chao: ** did your cousin change his after he was already getting work, or was it totally before? For me it’s not so much the changing part but the fact that I already have credits under my real name. Not a lot but some. That’s kind of the part that I think will be weird. "Jane Smith, sometimes billed as “Jane Flockenspiegel.”
As for sound/initials, I knew that the best-sounding name that would go with my first name would be something with two or three syllables, with the accent on the second syllable. So in playing around with various random names, I had one that I was just using as a “placeholder” of sorts, and then when I did some research on it I discovered it had a meaning that coincidentally was very personal to me. I thought that was kind of fate, you know? And I wanted something that would not be likely to be misspelled or mispronounced (as my first name is constantly gotten “wrong.”)
I have some other family names that I considered but they just don’t go well. One I like very much in Italian but in English it doesn’t sound all that nice. (The way people will pronounce it in English, I mean.)
HazelNutCoffee: I know what you mean by the old/new - I changed my first name about 15 years ago; or rather, I added a word to my first name that was a family nickname but not my “official” name. In that case, though, I did it after college and upon starting a new job, so now the only people who call me by my real first name are my family and childhood friends. Everyone else calls me by the “new” name. But I kept my license and everything the old way; I just use the new name without ever having made it legal. It’s pretty close to my “real” name anyway so I didn’t think it was important.
I dropped all my last names (father, stepfather, husband, husband, almost husband) and started using my middle name as my last name. It only took a month for most people to get use to it.
You can get a legal document for “doing business as.” (D/B/A). I believe you get an identification card that is honored at any bank.
Results may vary – my roommate has had no end of grief from his bank for doing nothing more dramatic than using his middle name (with first initial) instead of his first name (with middle initial). Apparently, nobody at the bank had ever heard of such a thing, and concluded that he was obviously a terrorist.
My sister changed her first and last name (legally) and she switched jobs when she did it. I think that made it easier for her. She didn’t have a large circle of friends to deal with, so I think it went pretty easily for her.
She’s never discussed why she did it in very great detail (and, in fact, didn’t come out and inform us of the change…we found out quite by accident), but I have a hard time calling her by her preferred name. I tend to use a childhood nickname. I do introduce her by her new name, but most of the family, (cousins, etc) still refer to her by her birth name.
Matt - I think I’d avoid some of those kinds of problems because I won’t use the name for my license or “official” stuff; just as my credits name.
Kalhoun: yep, my family rarely calls me by my “new” (as of 15 years ago) first name, except sometimes when they kinda make jokes about it. Not in a mean way, but in a “you’re so silly, we know that’s not your name!” way.
Another reason I’d like to change my last name is to prevent people from easily tracking me down. (Weirdos, I mean, not regular.)
I played with my top choice all day yesterday and it sounded pretty good. I kept having to catch myself when typing it because I kept spelling it wrong! Not that it’s hard to spell but it could be spelled normally either of two ways.
Annie: that’s a lotta names! I think I’d start fresh if I were you too.
I picked my stage name years ago, and just started using it. I never went through the legel crap to change it. It’s been 25 years, and I’m still using it. All my legal stuff is sill under my birth name, but only my family and those close to me use it. Most people that I deal with on a regular basis don’t even know my real (birth) name.
My cousin already had credits to his art and his stand-up to his given last name.
After hearing his name butchered by the host both intentionally and unintentionally, he changed it to a name that could not possibly be misprounounced or misspelled unless spoken by an anencephalic. This change has not affected his credits at all.
My understanding is that as long as you don’t use a different name to mislead or avoid legitimate debts or things like that, you can go by whatever you want to go by. You don’t need to make a big deal about it or anything…just start using the new name.
