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This has worked well for me personally. My dad and I have the same name, and I share a fairly common name for Dutch people. My name is Bert Regeer, but I always

This has worked well for me personally. My dad and I have the same name, and I share a fairly common name for Dutch people. My name is Bert Regeer, but I always go by Bert JW Regeer. In conversation I am still Bert, but everywhere else I am Bert JW. This solves a lot of problems. People no longer get me confused with my dad or some guy working for Shell, when I sign up for mail or anything along those lines it has my middle initials in the first name field (unless they have a special field for middle initials) and I don't have issues with my dad and I sharing a name (If we travel together, sometimes the airline will cancel the ticket because they believe it is a double booking ... makes it really fun when we both go to check-in). Best of all, I now rank really high for Bert JW Regeer. As in, almost everything on the first through third page are exclusively me (may change depending on location) on Google. That makes it fairly easy to find me.

patrickambron 14y ago
This is a really good idea (we encourage users to do it). If you have too common a name, use a middle initial. The trick is, you need to use that name in prof. setting (biz card, resume, etc) otherwise people will still Google the other name, and they won't find you
- X-Istence 14y ago
  Indeed, my middle initial is on everything. Business cards, it is in my domain name (bertjwregeer.com), it is used in email, everything.
billpatrianakos 14y ago
I'm wondering how far this goes and how it affects other areas of life. So you've branded yourself with a new middle name that's either made up or a variation on your real one. So when you open a PayPal account do you still use the new name? You mention this helps when signing up for things that end with you getting mail. So if you get mail sent to your new name and it's something you paid for, maybe it's a subscription, maybe not, then I assume companies begin knowing you by the new name and it eventually gets into your credit report. I never realized how easy it is to change your name in such an unofficial way but still have it almost be taken as if it were official. After all, when you sign up for a subscription you can call yourself anything you like but still put the name appearing on your credit card in the payment area as these are often two different things. So then who gets the credit? The cardholder version of you or the new name version? I think this is really interesting and may have implications beyond just brand management. Or maybe I'm reading into it too much?
X-Istence 14y ago
Since "billpatrianakos" asked me a question that is related (and it seems his comment is [dead]), let me clarify and state that "JW" is actually my middle initials.

patrickambron 14y ago

This is a really good idea (we encourage users to do it). If you have too common a name, use a middle initial. The trick is, you need to use that name in prof. setting (biz card, resume, etc) otherwise people will still Google the other name, and they won't find you

X-Istence 14y ago
Indeed, my middle initial is on everything. Business cards, it is in my domain name (bertjwregeer.com), it is used in email, everything.

billpatrianakos 14y ago

I'm wondering how far this goes and how it affects other areas of life. So you've branded yourself with a new middle name that's either made up or a variation on your real one. So when you open a PayPal account do you still use the new name? You mention this helps when signing up for things that end with you getting mail. So if you get mail sent to your new name and it's something you paid for, maybe it's a subscription, maybe not, then I assume companies begin knowing you by the new name and it eventually gets into your credit report. I never realized how easy it is to change your name in such an unofficial way but still have it almost be taken as if it were official. After all, when you sign up for a subscription you can call yourself anything you like but still put the name appearing on your credit card in the payment area as these are often two different things. So then who gets the credit? The cardholder version of you or the new name version? I think this is really interesting and may have implications beyond just brand management. Or maybe I'm reading into it too much?

X-Istence 14y ago

Since "billpatrianakos" asked me a question that is related (and it seems his comment is [dead]), let me clarify and state that "JW" is actually my middle initials.