I was watching Jay Leno a couple nights ago and appearing as a guest was the ever-annoying Roseanne Barr. She indicated that she is again going by “Roseanne Barr”, rather than just “Roseanne”. She explained that one of the reasons was that dealing with credit card companies and such was a bitch when you’ve only got one name.
So…what’s the deal with one-namers and their credit cards? What is the name on the Mastercard of Sting, Madonna, Cher, et al.
You know, as I read this, it’s kind of a pointless question. I mean, their credit cards probably say “Sting”, “Madonna”, and “Cher”, respectively, since I suspect those are their legal names. I guess I was more wondering how difficult they find it getting through regular day-to-day activities when so much of our commerce is now computerized and the computers probably don’t accomodate single names all that well. But then, how would you people know? I suspect you don’t book plane tickets under “Mangeorge” or such.
My brother changed his name legally to “Andrew”. On legal documents it would sometimes appear as “NFN Andrew”
NTF = No First Name
He gave it up too after awhile.
People who use a stage name don’t need to change their legal name of course. I recall seeing Madonna’s full name,“Madonna Ciccone”(sp?), on songwriting credits or something recently. I think that Michael J. Fox added the J. to his stage name because another actor named Michael Fox was already a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Sting’s real name is Gordon Sumner. He goes by Sting professionally, but in business dealings he uses his real name. Here’s a court document identifying him as Gordon Sumner.
It’s just as bad having too many names. My wife’s from Mexico and her complete, maiden name is in the form “first second patronym matronym.” She took my surname name, so I’m not really sure how her name would be in Mexico now. I imagine “first second matronym de balthisar,” or maybe “first second patronym de balthisar” (I’ll have to ask her). Of course, here it’s just first second balthisar. But when it comes to filling out forms – particularly government forms – that ask for her maiden name and there’s just a tiny box, I never know what to put. I want to use the patronym, but it seems like often the matronym is more important, or maybe they want the whole thing.
It’s compounded when I forget that my wife’s name – the one she goes by – is really her second name and I tend to write that instead of her real first name.
Cherilyn Sarkisian, a.k.a., Cherilyn LaPierre, a.k.a. Cher Bono, legally changed her named to Cher.
Madonna’s legal name remains Madonna Ciccone.
On must also consider that mono-named celebrities in fact don’t have any problems with charge cards, and Roseanne just said because she thought it was funny. After all, she is a comic, and I don’t see it written anywhere that comics can’t just make stuff up.
Hey, I’ve dealt with a guy named “X” as his legal name. Our dbase listed him as X, X because it needed a first and last name.
He asked for a copy of his credit report and disputed the name as incorrect. We explained the dilemma, but he didn’t budge. He insited we change it, and we couldn’t. So, we decided to delete his whole file and wished him good luck. After not being able to get any credit, he kindly asked us to list his first name as “Mister”.
Of course, I also dealt with a man named Ghengis Kahn, Jr who was upset to be confused with his father Ghengis Kahn, Sr.
Can’t make this $hit up.
I don’t have a middle name, and occasionally someone tells me that I “must” have one, because “everybody” has a middle name. So by default, my middle name becomes “NMN.”
Slight tangent. I used to have a girlfriend who went to high school with Madonna and once showed me Madonna’s yearbook picture. The name under it was Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (or was it Veronica Louise?). BTW how do you happen to know that is her current legal name though?
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When I was in band a few years ago, we had copies of one or two of Madonna’s songs (I don’t remember which ones). The copyrights were listed at the top as belonging to “Madonna Ciccone”. So at least as of when she was writing those songs, that was her legal name. One could presumably check the copyrights on more recent songs for up-to-date information.
Exactly what I did, Chronos.
BTW, “Louise” is her middle name as given at birth, while “Veronica” is her confirmation name.
Madonna changed her name legally a couple of years ago to Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie, soon after she married Guy.
RB Jones joined the military, and was told he had to account for the two initials he gave, upon signing up, with the full name they both stood for.
RB said that that was the name his parents gave him.
So. the military wrote out his forms as follows:
R (only) B (only) Jones.
…and forevermore, he was known as RONLY BONLY JONES. 
I wonder what Prince did when he had his named changed to that gothic looking symbol?
Also, how you would like to have the name John Doe and try using your credit card to check into a hotel?
Did he actually legally change his name to that? It seemed more of a publicity stunt to me.
More (albeit slightly conflicting) info here. Apparently the ‘unpronounceable’ symbol was pronounced ‘Androgyny.’
Prince’s legal name has always been Prince Rogers Nelson. He changed his performing name “Prince” to the famous symbol but that was more of a contractual ‘get-out’ than a publicity stunt. He wanted freedom from Warner Bros to release much more of his work than they were allowing (this also led to him going around with “Slave” written across his face for quite a while). Warners wouldn’t release him from his contract, but they only had control over the artist called “Prince” - if he released songs under any other name they couldn’t stop him.
I remember first of all he was going to call himself “Victor”, then came the symbol, then no one knew what to call him so he became “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” , and then just “The Artist”. Now he’s free from the Warner Bros contract he has gone back to using"Prince" on his recordings.
I remember there was a guy in Chicago that billed himself as
The Artist Formerly Known As Vince