Entertainment For Lively Minds
Stage name psychology
Posted by Mark Ellen on 6 January 2011 - 4:51pm.
Reverse psychology: the late Japan bassist Mick Karn's real name was Andonis Michaelides. So "Mick Karn" was his stage name and Andonis Michaelides was the unglamorous handle he was trying to hide. Usually yer Reg Dwight metamorphoses into yer Elton John, not the other way round. Any other examples of people who traded down for professional purposes?
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George Michael?
.
Although
George Micheal's Greek Cypriot name is pretty unpronounceable for us Brits.
It's all Greek to me
See also Dino and Tula Contostavlos, AKA Dappy & Tulisa from N-Dubz.
it never did Demis Roussous any harm
(adopts Alison Steadman voice): I like a bit of Demis Roussous, don't you?
Dido
Originally Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong. Can see why she changed it but Dido is still a bit gittish.
On that note
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno had a bit of a downgrade.
Not music, but I always felt sorry for former Brighton player Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway. He decided just to go with the first name of "Charlie".
Is it really a downgrade?
I don't know many people who use all their names all the time. Most of us just make do with first name and surname as Brian Eno has done, don't we?
Maybe not the best example
but M.I.A. is a damn sight less glamorous than Mathangi Arulpragasam
Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV
..or plain old Frank Black to you.
Viscount Gideon Osborne...
... to plain honest one might even say oiky George Osborne?
I've often wondered as well with another George, this being Orwell, if his change from Eric Blair was a trade up or down?
In hip-hop
your degree of street credibility seems to be in direct proportion to the ridiculousness of your real name.
Ice-T, Method Man, and Busta Rhymes are presumably still addressed by their mothers as Tracy, Clifford and Trevor.
Busta..
..also spent his early years in Morecambe. Not quite so cool a hood as the Bronx or South Central, (but with roughly the same amount of drug related crime).
But it did influence his first single
Turn Out Dope Again, Niggaz (Wayhay!! Get Out Of That Bitch!)
Have an up
For the best bit of trivia I've ever heard.
Terence Trent Howard to
Terence Trent D'Arby to
Sananda Francesco Maitreya to
the Where Are They Now File?
James Newell Osterberg
to plain dumb Iggy Pop
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
to Lady Gaga and world domination
Thought this would have been first
Ingram Cecil Connor III and The Flying Burrito Brothers.
Nice ring to it but Gram Parsons didn't think so.
Apparently
This not as otbuse as it may seem. His mother was divorced/widowed when (In)gram was just a littl'un. She remarried sometime later and became "Mrs Parsons" whereupon Mr Parsons and his stepson became very close.
Ergo Gram Parsons.
The senior Parsons gets a mention in Gram's song "In My Hour Of Darkness"...
"Then there was an old man
Kind and wise with age
And he read me just like a book
And he never missed a page
And I loved him like a Father
And I loved him like my friend
And I knew his time would shortly come
And I did not know just when".
So there you go.
The (downgraded) Tony Awards go to:
Anthony Dominick Benedetto and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.
John Mellor
...oh do the math...
There's some great
ones from Brazilian football the most obvious being Edison Arantes do Nascimento or Pele as his mates call him.
Edward Tudor-Pole
who went under the name Eddie Tenpole.
Scientist or...
"Hopeton Brown Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires" sounds very noble, in a kind of Edwardian superhero way
I have it on good authority that
Conway Twitty's real name was Rocky Hercules.
Gary Barlow.
His real name is Suckmaster Burstingfoam.
No it isn't
It's Ted Cunterblast
vanilla Ice
was Robert Matthew Van Winkle
Jack White of the 7NA Hitmakers
was originally named Baron Dirk Von Thunderhatchet IV but changed his name to escape the shadow of his father, Baron Dirk Von Thunderhatchet III who was reasonably well known in the Detroit area for his carpentry and high quality yet affordable soft furnishings.
I'm Happy Harry
but really I am Miserablis Bastardus
I Am
Spartacus!
I'm Brian
and so's my wife!
The 14th Earl of Home
Became matey old Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
And then Anthony Charles Lynton Blair also traded down a little bit.
As I said about Eno above...
...Tony Blair didn't really "trade down" did he? He took a perfectly normal shortening of his given name and added that to his surname.
I have two middlenames that I never, ever use: not because I'm "trading down", but because I'd look a bit of a tw@t introducing myself to all and sundry as "David John Lintern Ellcock". Plain old David (or Dave) Ellcock is fine by me...
Dani, Suffolk's Finest
I understand 'Filth' is not a family name.
That's no way...
...to talk about Kylie's sister.
Would that be the same Dani Filth
recently voted Suffolk's most iconic image?
That's what you get for involving the public.
When we first discussed this poll on Ipswich Community Radio some months ago number 46 was an elderly couple who'd stuck their photo up on Flickr and three family members had voted for them - they don't seem to have made the top twenty either, mind. The Stowmarket town sign also featured healthily in the top forty as I recall. What the organisers are missing in their quest to rid the poll of 'fixing' is that the second-placed icon is a disused lido which has a healthy campaign to get it refurbished behind it and is also the recipient of some hearty vested interest block voting.
Sorry, I seem to have wandered off the point there. Ahem - he's also known as Lord Filth in some circles, which arguably counts as trading down and then up again?
Never mind that
Was Bontcho Guenchev in the running?
(There's a niche reference if ever I saw one)
Personally
I prefer Don Van Vliet (or even Don Glen Vliet)
It's like your lips, teeth and tongue are having a fight when you say it.
Don Revie, eh
if he'd changed it to Revvvvy (motorcycle racing star), Rev Rev (father of Goth Metal), Revi (international model) or Reveh (globe trotting cook) well...
could'a made him a star... pfff
'ardest game inna werld this