I know somebody from university who's called Phil Collins, and I think there's something terribly unfortunate about sharing a name with somebody who either is famous or becomes famous.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's this common perception that having a famous last name is all you need. A surname may get you a meeting, but if there's no talent you won't get the part.
My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.
I don't think it's anything you ever get used to... for many years, I could never sort of put my name in the same sort of category as the word 'famous' or anything like that. And I just found it very uncomfortable... if you get used to it, then something must be wrong.
My name was originally John Collins, but I just didn't think it had the flair I needed. I found out the poet laureate of Poland was named Krasinski and so it seemed like a shoe-in for show business.
In America, people really struggle with my name, so I don't have a nickname as such. I've had Sharlito, Sheldon, Charldo, really interesting variations on the name. Some of them can get it, but many can't.
I always think that if you know somebody's name then there's something slightly fraudulent about that person. Otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him or her.
I don't want to be known as somebody that everybody knows about.
I'm not famous; I am simply very well-known to certain people. Famous is something different.
I am not a name-dropper. I can't help it if everybody I know is famous.
And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.