In 1993, Prince was fed up with his label, Warner Bros, with whom he had signed a $100 million deal less than a year before. They wanted him to release fewer CDs so he wouldn’t flood the market. The artist responded by accusing Warner of stifling his creativity but he couldn’t get out of his contract so he decided to change his name to an unpronounceable combination of the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀). In order for the media to use the symbol, his record label had to mail out thousands of floppy disks with a custom font.

Officially, the singer explained his new designation in a press statement by saying:

It is an unpronounceable symbol whose meaning has not been identified. It’s all about thinking in new ways, tuning in 2 a new free-quency.

What about introductions?
As he told an interviewer in 1995,

I get by. I don’t need a name as such, really.

Journalists started to call him “the artist formerly known as Prince,” but in 2000 he went back to Prince when his Warner contract expired. Between 1993–2000 sales of his new music slowed down significantly, but he still managed to get his point across.

A brand is a brand!

P.S.: Our movie about names is on its final stage of postproduction. Help this movie to see the world. Contribute to the crowdfunding action! http://bit.ly/It5Zmv

Tickets for the 2012 edition of the Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference have been sold out in less than two hours. Since they’re nontransferable somebody had this brilliant idea!

Thumbs up!

Many people decide to change their name because they don’t like their original name or find it embarrassing if mispronounced or misspelled. People with names that are identifiably “ethnic” sometimes have problems with that and want to change their name. Some individuals instead would like to reclaim their ethnic heritage by returning to a surname that may have been lost over the years or by the adoption of a new one. Transgender people often request name changes to reflect gender and same-sex partners may choose to share a common surname to facilitate financial or legal transactions. A woman may change her name for marriage and can decide to reclaim her maiden name upon separation or divorce, or take on an entirely new name. Numerology can be another reason for a name change. Whether it is because of a recent religious conversion or simply to honor a person’s religious deity, name changes for religious reasons are quite common:

In 2008, Steve Kreuscher asked a judge in Illinois to legally change his name to In God We Trust: First name, In God. Last name, We Trust. The reason is that God has been good to him, and he wants the world to know.

http://news.exchristian.net/2008/06/man-officially-changes-name-to-in-god.html

Although some may consider it extreme to change your name to support a cause, name changes for political reasons are not unheard of. In the past 10 years, Christopher Garnett became KentuckyFriedCruelty.com, Brandi Valladolid became RinglingBeatsAnimals.com, and Marvin Richardson legally changed his full name to Pro-Life.

Other interesting name changes from recent memory are:

Santa Claus: Robert Rion of Mundelein, 1997
GoVeg.com: Karin Robertson of Virginia, 2003
Megatron: Michael Burrows of Washington, 2007
Optimus Prime: Scott Nall of Ohio, 2001
Low Tax: Byron Looper of Tennessee, 1998
Jesus Christ: Jose Espinal of New York, 2005

Chioggia represents a unique demographic case in Italy, and world-wide I’d say: because of the exceptional number of people bearing the same surname: either Boscolo or Tiozzo. I’ve looked in the phone book for Angelo Boscolo and I found about 40 of them!
The postmen were losing their minds, everybody’s surname was Boscolo…

Read more: http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/arts-and-culture/calling-names

2007 should have been a great year for name changing. Just few months after the name change of the three Slovenian artists another great name change took place this time at the Superior Court of California: an Americans artist succeeded in legally changing her name from Kristin Sue Lucas to… Kristin Sue Lucas! The title of her action is Refresh. When the Judge asserted that this is not really a change the artist answered:

I should have brought a philosopher…

Kristin and I became immediately FB friends and later on we meet live in New York. The last time it was in May 2011 when we shot the reconstruction of »Refresh« for my documentary. Here it goes the clip:

Here you can find the entire transcript from the court hearings. Worth reading!

http://www169.pair.com/klucas/before_after/refresh_transcript.pdf

In 1967, before the boxing fight, Terrell refused to call Ali by his name. Instead he insisted on calling him Cassius Clay. Ali told him and the press that he was going to punish him mercilessly and make him say his real name.

During the fight Ali called out “What’s my name?” to Terrell.

In and interview with Howard Cosell on ABC not long after the match Muhammad Ali apologized for talking to Terrell throughout the fight, and saying “what’s my name” then hitting him. However he said he did it so Terrell and other people would respect his religious beliefs. Terrell ended up saying “Muhammad Ali”…

I received an invitation; it had my name and my address on it. I didn’t really think too much about it
– Margareta Winberg, Stockholm.

When Margareta Winberg received an embossed invitation from the Swedish government to attend a formal dinner she was a little surprised as she never worked for the government. Nevertheless, since she had received the invitation through the post, with her name and address on it, she didn’t really worry too much about what it was about.

I just knew that I was invited and that it was ‘about the environment’,

she said to the The Local paper.

On the set date, Winberg got herself glammed up and duly presented herself at Sweden’s official government office complex at Rosenbad. It was only then that officials realised the mix up, for the invitation had been supposed to go to a former deputy prime minister, agricultural minister and ambassador to Brazil – who just happened to share the same name.
Despite the gaffe, the event’s host, current environment minister Lena Ek, kept her cool. Mrs Winberg was escorted to ‘her’ seat and introduced to the other guests.

When Lena realized the mistake she did everything she could so that the lady wouldn’t feel uncomfortable,

said Erik Bratthall, press spokesperson for Ek, to daily Aftonbladet. He told another Swedish paper how Ms Ek thought the whole thing was ‘a great laugh’ and that no harm had been done.

I was allowed to take part anyway. The food was nice and there were a lot of people talking and talking,

Winberg said.
The other Mrs Winberg has since received an apology and reportedly took the mix up in good humor:

I hope my namesake had a lovely dinner,

she told Swedish media.

Despite involuntarily crashing the party, Mrs Winberg said she didn’t feel awkward taking part in the event alongside Sweden’s environmental policy elite.

I just took it for what it was; a mistake, as did the others. I had a great time and listened carefully to all the speakers,

she told The Local.

I’ve also met interesting people like that guy Blix,

she said referring to the former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix.

Main source: The Local

NO, NO! I don’t want to know your name, you don’t have a name and I don’t have a name either, no names here, not one name.

Last Tango in Paris, an affair between a young French women and an American male. No personal information. No names involved. Their entire relationship is based solely on sex.

What happend to Paul (Marlon Brando) when he declares his love to Jeanne (Maria Schneider) and she finally tells her name?

During the United Kingdom general election in 1983 an interesting name change took place.
In May 1983 Mr Colin Hanoman changed his name to Margaret Thatcher and, on the same date, Mr Simon Stansfeld changed his name to Ronald Regan.

Subsequently, on May 23, Mr Thatcher personally submitted nomination papers to the returning officer for the Finchley constituency with himself as candidate and Mr Regan as agent. His description was “Conservationist Party”.

MORE: http://ukscblog.com/case-preview-hanoman-v-southwark-10-june-2009
http://bit.ly/HUZfMZ

How many times in your life people asked you this question? How do you normally answer? By saying your real name, a fake name, or a pseudonym? Do you have only one name?

Do you like your name?