Talk:Stage name

We need to keep Prince's birth name here. Yes, Prince is now his 'real' name -- no one is disputing that. But the focus of this article is not whether a name is 'real' -- it is whether the name has been changed from a birth name for professional reasons. Prince certainly meets that criteria and his entry should remain. by Paul Klenk

I agree, the list should be inclusive and that includes small name changes. I was thinking that a useful addition would be to add if the person is an actor/actress, musician (including what instruments they play or not). I've never been a fan of lists with nothing but reems of names and nothing else. How this is formatted we need to discuss. Iam 10:06, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

See my addition for Poly Styrene - looks like this:

Poly Styrene - Marion Elliot (Singer with UK punk band X-Ray Spex)

This seems the easiest format without getting into tables, etc. We already have a similar entry for Mrs Bland.

I guess the problem comes when there's already some comments in brackets. Perhaps comments about the name could be in italics, and the comments about the person's profession could be in regular text? --Bwmodular 12:28, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PS I've started to add such comments to all my recent entries, even though I realise that we may decide to change the format - seems to make more sense to add the info now and reformat it, rather than leave the info out and have to add it once we've decided a format --Bwmodular 12:51, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

(Hope no one minds I reduced the levels of indentation above)

I've been thinking about this, due to the recent rapid expansion of this list, and I wonder if maybe it should be split into three or four sections by occupation, something like "musicians", dramatic "actors", "comedians", and "other". There would be some overlap between the actors and comedians, but I think that would cover just about everyone, with very few in the "other" category. --Arteitle 17:56, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, probably a good idea. I wonder if just splitting between musicians and actors would be enough?--Bwmodular 16:43, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Probably not. The musicians would probably have to be split into two with a list especially for Rappers and Hip Hoppers. They seem to dominate modern music with their inventive stage names

(I changed around the indentation again... keeping each person at their own level of indentation makes it easier to tell them apart.)

You're right, it seems like about half are rappers. So maybe "Rappers and Hip Hoppers", "Musicians and Singers" (not that Rappers aren't; maybe it should be "Non-Rappers"), and "Actors and Comedians". Or it could be rephrased: "Rap and Hip Hop", "Music and Song", "Drama and Comedy". Only a handful of names (athletes, particularly) wouldn't fit. --Arteitle 16:30, Mar 26, 2004 (UTC)

Merge

This page previously carried a request to merge with List of pseudonyms. However this page is already at the length limit. Perhaps we should just make sure that any names on the stage name section of that page are included in this more comprhensive one. Rmhermen 14:22, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe it would be a good idea to split the list into separate articles along lines such as those described above: actors, rappers, musicians, etc. --Arteitle 18:55, Jul 3, 2004 (UTC)

A lot of these stage names aren't really stage names, they're just initials or incidences of people going by their middle name. That doesn't make for a stage name--my dad goes by "H.L. Welch" or "Lew Welch", but that's not some pseudonym he made up for himself, it's his actual name. Therefore, I propose removing certain entries (such as "O.J. Simpson") due to that. Philwelch 02:37, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I noticed the same thing looking at the list--for instance, "Missy Elliott" was listed as a stage name for "Melissa Elliott," which seems inappropriate to me, as "Missy" is a common abbreviation of "Melissa." We don't need a list of every famous Robert who goes by Rob, etc. I'd remove those, as well as those who go by middle names.

Perhaps this list could be broken down. I see three main categories here: 1. Stage names that are presented as full names, like Demi Moore or Chuck Norris. 2. Stage names that are abbreviations of the full name, like Cher or Ron Jeremy. 3. Stage names that are obviously not legal names, like Johnny Rotten or Terminator X. Is there an elegant way to name these, perhaps to split this into three lists? Thirdreel 15:43, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Trimming

Okay, I did some trimming to this to make it more manageable and to keep a standard of stage names. I left in those who have changed or completely dropped their surnames--however, I took out some of those who only used part of an extended surname-- for instance, Julio Iglesias de la Cueva.

I took out those who go by middle names: Benny Andersson, Lance Bass, Billy Bragg, Sean Connery, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Drew Pinsky, Trent Reznor, Brad Spitz, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Tiger Woods

I took out those who go by a reasonable abbreviation for their first name or middle name, such as "Woody" for "Woodrow": Desi Arnaz, Chuck Berry, Sonny Bono, Ali Campbell, Shawn Colvin, Perry Como, Marlene Dietrich, Ani DiFranco, Missy Elliott, Duke Erikson, Glenn Ford, Chrissie Boy Foreman, Boon Gould, Eddy Grant, Woody Guthrie, P.J. Harvey, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Jimi Hendrix, Tito Jackson, Casey Kasem, Jay Kay, R. Kelly, k.d. lang, Stevie Nicks, Tony Orlando, Roland Orzabal, Teddy Pendergrass, Kelly Rowland, O. J. Simpson, Toby Smith, Ike Turner, Tina Weymouth, Hank Williams, "Weird Al" Yankovic

I removed Gloria Estefan because that was her legal married name; I removed Maude Adams because that was, I think, her maiden name. (comment: it wasn't her maiden name, rather she adopted her mother's birth surname for the stage - 04:48, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I removed Neneh Cherry and Tupac Shakur because those seem to be the names they used since childhood--not adopted for a performing career.

I removed all five of the Spice Girls because they were never credited by their "spice-names"--all were generally credited by their legal names. Ali G and Pee-Wee Herman are the characters their creators are most famous for, but those are the names of the characters, not the actors. "M" and "K.C." were the names of bands, not the professional names of the performers.

Phew. Thirdreel 19:01, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

good work, but I have to say that clowns in particular are generally known by their character's name, I would say Pee-wee Herman and any other clowns that are removed from this list could well be added to the list at clown (don't be shy, it's an inclusive list, as it is being edited, of people considered by professional clowns to be clowns: (it includes Ernest Borgnine because he performed in parades as a clown and Lucy Ricardo because Lucy is Lucille Ball's clown character, but the preference on that list is to list the clown by clown name when it is known.)

I'm massaging the clown and juggling and circus etc. pages into a more thorough treatment of these areas, with the view of eventually cross referencing the whole universe of clown related material. If you feel disinclined to add them yourself, just toss the discarded clowns on my talk page and I'll see they get a good home. If you'd be so kind. again, nice job.-Pedant(not at home)

I did some more trimming, to get rid of the red links. The information in the article is insignificant if the people listed aren't well-known enough to have articles, and useless if the information is given without a link. If you think a name removed is significant enough to include, you should probably write an article for that name, at least a stub, then put the name back on the list. Removed names are listed under Stage name/Removed. Thirdreel 00:48, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)