Changing My Stage Name - When?

April 11, 2011 7:48 AM

How much hassle would it be to change your performance or working name, especially when you have some projects in transition? Is there a good time to do so?

So for the past couple of years I have been performing, producing, and writing under a certain name. I have gained international fame/infamy with this name in my niche and am generally recognisable.

However, my work has taken quite a different direction now than it has when I started and the old name doesn't suit anymore. (There's also some personal/professional drama associated with the name that I no longer want to have any association with.) I'm wondering about what to do with my old name - especially since I've still got some projects in the works under the old name.

In a couple of months I'm going overseas for a residency where I'm being billed under my old name. Most of the contacts I made in this city are familiar with that name too. While I'm itching to change my working name now, I feel that it could probably be too confusing to change it before I head to my residency city. Would that be a major risk factor? Is it possible to go "XYZ formerly known as ABC"?

Then there's my website, blog/Tumblr, and online presence to rebuild - not just my social profiles but also everything else. I do get quite a few people searching for me every so often, and if I change it now I feel I'd lose contact with them. (Not to mention I don't have the skills or resources to redo a website!)

But the need to change the name and start over has been gnawing at me for quite a while, and certain incidents have made it even more necessary. I just don't know *when* to do it.

(Thankfully I don't really have any legal paperwork with my working name - payments and bills are made to my legal name, which isn't going to be changed in a while, so I don't have to deal with THAT aspect!)

Has anyone else dealt with this? How have you managed, especially if your work spans various areas?

[and on a specific but related note: I have started to create work under a different name, which is more adult/erotic in nature. a lot of my creative work is moving towards that direction anyway, but I was wondering if I should keep the adult persona separate and just change the name I use for everything else - performance art, writing, events, blahdeblah. suggestions?]

posted by divabat to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

I personally think it's more interesting when artists do new and different work under a single name. That's why, say, Nine Inch Nails is a much more interesting and diverse band than Delerium or Front Line Assembly (or Intermix, or etc etc...)

But, if you feel the need to change your working name, the best time is always always now.
posted by Jairus at 8:03 AM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I haven't done this myself, but I know a few people who make (or made) work under more than one name... they tend to have a website that uses their primary (often their non-stage) name, but with other work listed on that site as, you know, as Madame de la Live Arte et Le Thinking Tres Deepe and as Mr Wobbly Bobbin and her Amazing Juggling Elephants. This seems to work well for them. During the transition they were generally able to keep old social profiles and just add a line like "...is a performance identity of Firstname McNewname".

They seem to have had an easier time of it than the people who have completely abandoned one identity, and who have to grapple with both building up the new identity, and making sure that it doesn't get connected to the old one.
posted by severalbees at 8:16 AM on April 11, 2011

The Mefite Formerly Known As Wendell did it (my pen name writing at MSNBC.com and elsewhere was Wendell Wittler but now is Craig Wittler), but I did it at a time when I was "between projects" (nothing happening for over 6 months) and I was always paid in my real name so there was little or no problem with it, but I still get addressed online occasionally as Wendell. I'm keeping my old blog's content at Wendell.Me (the vanity TLD!) but I have registered OtherCraig.Com and OtherCraig.Me (No List! No Late Show! No License to Kill!) for future use if I get back to writing anything more than Tweets and MeFi comments. I flip-flopped between names before, but then it was after a much longer hiatus where I thought "if I try to restart my creative stuff, which me do I want to do it?" So it's a lot easier if you're not prolific and keep the day job.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:13 AM on April 11, 2011

You'll always be John Cougar Mellencamp to me.

Personally, I think the avatar/username era has really reduced the friction here. It's expected that someone will have a variety of personas just for everyday life. My sense is that simply changing it and moving on is going to result in a shrug for most people rather than any sense of Big Drama, and getting angsty-beanplatey over it is only going to prime the pump for Big, or at least Medium, Drama. Trent Reznor used Nine Inch Nails as his brand for everything for years, then started doing some other things under his own name (e.g. The Social Network) and others under that new band thingy with his wife. And Jack White? King of changing brands in midstream, with all the fake stuff built up around The White Stripes, then the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather, and so on. People understand these are just projects.

If you need to leave hooks between identities, do so. If you want to maintain an identity at arm's length, do so. I don't think it affects how people think about you. But you're a lot better off just matter-of-factually doing it then you are trying to firewall these identities from each other.
posted by dhartung at 11:39 AM on April 11, 2011