Does anyone use a name that's not their own?

[Warbaby]

I don't mean a nickname, a stage name or an alias to hide one's surreptitious activities. My given name is Robert - not a bad name, but an all too common one in my book. When I first met my wife a dozen years ago, she thought that Robert didn't fit me and that I should've been named Walker. She's called me that ever since. When we moved to Amsterdam, she introduced me to her old friends there as Walker and that's who I am to them. Several of our stateside and Canadian friends have taken to calling me Walker, as well. I don't mind - in fact I rather prefer Walker now.

This isn't the first time it's happened, either. Back in the 70s, a very dear woman friend renamed me Elliot, and several years earlier a girlfriend decided I should be Simon. Both of them changed my surname, as well: Elliot D'Autrefois and Simon Dark.

Has anyone else been renamed by a friend or is it simply that I'm not supposed to be a Robert? Or is it just that I tend to have eccentric friends?

 

[lolly_loisides]

A friend/ex workmate used to call me Pearl. He said my hairdo reminded him of Janis Joplin (wish I had her voice though). Here's a photo of me - you can see why

 

[Diamondback]

Well, one of my psych profs arbitrarily changed my name to "Jason Bourne" within the walls of and for the duration of his class. (It was part of a conditioning regimen, he had decided that the best way to get me up-to-speed to be able to defend a girl I both loved and was employed by against her stalker ex was to implant a real "Bourne Identity".)

I am known to use names of fictional characters as aliases, so "Bourne" is just one more in the collection, albeit one with a certain degree of truth to it.

Warbaby, my callsign (also my username here) was inflicted on me in a manner similar to what you describe. You could almost say except for among relatives and certain others, "Diamondback" is my name now and what appears on my ID is just a "paperwork convenience"...

 

[Lincsong]

Few people call me by my first name. Usually it's some variant thereof or I'm simply called by my last name.

 

[pretty faythe]

Gah, I wish. I am so tired of "Faith" lol.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I have always been fond of pseudonyms and have adapted several in this lifetime. Even my mother doesn't know who I am anymore! lol

-dix...ahh... Gern Blanston

 

[Inky]

I only use my legal name on legal documents. I've used some sort of pseudonym or another since I was a teenager. And when I became a citizen, I changed my given name to my current legal name. I like to disappear every now and then

 

[Tomasso]

Back in the 70s

It seemed to have been de rigueur with hippies back in the day.

 

[JennyLou]

Gah, I wish. I am so tired of "Faith" lol.

I wish I could change mine because there are so many other 'Jennifers" .

 

[Diamondback]

On a related tangent, due to limited sense of "self-identity" over most of my life (another complication of an assimilative personality), I've had a tendency to completely reinvent myself every so many years, from "Trial-Size Commando" to "Secret Service/MIB" to finally "Mini-MacArthur" under which I think I've finally found who I really am. (Not to mention a whole lot more style than the "Mall Ninja" look...lol ) Kinda fits with the rattler nickname, needing to "shed outgrown skins" every so often... but I think this one, while I still have to grow into it a bit more, should fit for most of the rest of my life.

Anyone else have a "pattern of behavior" similar to this?
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Now playing: John Williams - The Raiders March
via FoxyTunes

 

[The Wolf]

I had used the name John Francis Xavier McIntyre years ago when introduced to some people back in my teens. Then when talking to one of them later after they knew my real name they said they thought I went by adifferent name when we first met.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

["Skeet" McD]

I don't quite know how this one fits in the schema here: but here's the story, for what it's worth.

My Christian name is Kevin...when I was born (1953) that was a VERY unusual name, a good deal less so now. I got it because my father--the eldest of 14 children, almost all male--was estranged from his family, and didn't want any of his many brothers to be able to think I was named after them...that removed most of the common Irish male names. "Kevin" was open...and that's what I became.

But--as a Catholic--I got to choose a name for myself at confirmation (13 or so) and the name I chose for myself was "Patrick."

Now we zip forward about a decade: I get involved with living history/reenactment (18, 19, and 17Cs, in that order). The name KEVIN existed, of course, during these periods...but was quite unusual: basically, you had to have come from Glendalough, the location of St. Kevin's oratory. But PATRICK was the MOST common Irish male name through all those periods...and for authenticity's sake, I began to use "Pat" instead of "Kevin."

And therefore, quite a lot of people across the country knew me ONLY as Pat...and then my wife-to-be entered the picture, and liked that name better, as well.

Professionally, I'm known as Kevin...at home, I'm Pat....in other circles....a mixture. But SUM QUI SUM...whatever I'm called by.

"Skeet"

 

[tuppence]

A friend/ex workmate used to call me Pearl. He said my hairdo reminded him of Janis Joplin (wish I had her voice though). Here's a photo of me - you can see why

Not too sure on the spelling but Aerial of 'The Little Mermaid' fame.

 

[lolly_loisides]

Not too sure on the spelling but Aerial of 'The Little Mermaid' fame.

Wow, thanks. I wish I did look like the pic below - the tail would be abit of a bugger though.

 

[Lincsong]

I wish I could change mine because there are so many other 'Jennifers" .

Just asking, but is the name Jennnifer popular because of the character in the novel and move Love Story? [huh]

 

[Edward]

I regard Edward as my real name. I had long grown to loathe the flat, ring-free nature of my given name, loathed having a middle name (surely the most pointless concept in the known universe?), loathed the middle name itself (though it is certainly nothing unusual - simply dull and unremarkable in the way that only the middle classes can possibly manage), and the surname, well. That was okay, though I very quickly adopted various pseudonyms when I moved to Grammar School in the same town as my mother taught at the neighbouring (and very rough.... let's put it this way, a lot of those kids were in the UVF) Secondary School. It was a known fact that many in the town would have considered me a fair target for reprisals against disciplinary measures meted out by mater. Many years and many aliases later, I became Edward Marlowe - Edward after our first family cat, a figure who loomed large in my formative years from the ages of six to 18 and whom, sixteen years following his disappearance (it was very obvious that morning he was going away to die) I still miss dreadfully. Often brins a tear to the eye thinking about the old boy.... Marlowe I adopted after the English dramatist.

Many times I have considered taking the legal steps to change my name on paper. Outside of work and family, only a handful of old friends call me by the given name, though it's certainly not a secret that as far as my parents and the state are concerned I'm called something else. The reality is, though, that being in a career where reputation is everything, it would simply be an unnecessary inconvenience - not to mention that going by another name socially and especially online affords me a much greater degree of freedom by maintaining a clear separation between worlds. Once it becomes practical, I shall indeed be reaching for the deed poll, though I am minded to maintain a small vestige of separation between legal and 'real' names by opting to be a Blair for legal purposes - a family name (my mother's side) - maintaining Marlowe as a nom d'etage.

 

[Fletch]

Only one of these was given to me, and I would never use any of them F2F IRL. But whoopee $#!!. Here they are anyway.

-The credit on my first jazz arrangement went to Ragged Mike Barnes.
-For about a year I posted to an obscure bulletin board as Tyrell Oven-Baby No. 9, a name from a Steve Martin short story about the future.
-A fellow newsgrouper misrecalled my real name as Raoul Vandelayer, which I used intermittently in that newsgroup.
-After an acoustical quirk of early 20th century saxophones, I once tormented a clique of classical players under the name The Notorious Buzzy A.
-My alter ego in a parallel dimension is Fletcher DeShays, or de Shays, or Deshays, a Golden Era radio personality known to his small but loyal following as the only man in show business who didn't care how you spelled his name as long as all the letters were there in the right order.

 

[John in Covina]

There is a short disertation on names by John Steinbeck in Cannery Row if I remember right. Some gent in several places during his life gets called first Copenhagen and then just Hagen.

While I understand the concept of a nomme de plume or nomme de guerre, it does nothing for me, wishing to be someone else (for me) seems rather pointless. I am named after an uncle on my mom's said and a cousin on my dad's. John Charles - sounds pretty solid to me.

I have always had a hard time remembering names, all my life, so if you throw in even more names for the same people I tend to get into more trouble!

Max Power.

 

[Jack R.]

I have a tendency to use a pseudonym because my given name, "John" is so common. I was once called, "Rick" amongst my close friends, and they called me by that name until new people within our group knew me only as "Rick". It became annoying, so now everyone calls me by my given name. I'm working on a new one.

 

[Paisley]

Anyone else have a "pattern of behavior" similar to this [reinventing oneself]?

Yes--Madonna.