Have you/would you change your name for the sake of your career?

I have an easy first name — "Nick" — but my last name is of Eastern European descent (Ukrainian to be exact), and is quite difficult to pronounce by all the non-Slavic people I encounter. (Of course, I think it's pretty simple once you sound it out.) Changing my "pen name" has come up in random conversations with friends and mentors, so I was wondering if any of you have done it or would consider doing it. Yay or nay?

(Suggestions welcome ;D)

 

Chris Jones discussed this today on his blog.

http://sonofboldventure.blogspot.com/2011/02/name-by-any-other-name.html

 

We were talking about names in the office last week and I commented on how my byline name is so boring, but if I went first initial, middle name, last name, it sounds distinguished, albeit super douchey.
I've thought about it and if I moved up in the ranks, I'd probably do it.

 

My favorite part of that was that he considered going by his initials, but realized C.A. Jones looks like cajones.

Anyway, I worked with a reporter who used Richard as her last name because her real last name is Dick.

I've known a lot of people who used their mom's maiden name instead of their own last name on-air. Oddly enough, all of them have moms with Hispanic sounding maiden names.

 

I have a Chris Jones-esque common name. I briefly thought about using my mom's maiden name when I was first starting out, but quickly decided that was a bad idea. I did throw my middle initial in the byline and stuck with that, though, just to have a tiny distinction between the other half dozen or so journalists around the country with the same name as me.

 

I knew someone who shortened their last name for professional reasons, and I knew someone who went by her first and middle initials because she was told by a male editor that it would make her sound "less feminine."

 

If the name on the birth certificate was good enough for Steve Hummer and Michael Hunt, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

 

Totally irrelevant, but the Mike Hunt joke was resurrected on Jon Stewart about 15 minutes ago, to hilarious effect. As was Haywood Jablome.

 

Make sure you don't change it to Harry Baals, if you accomplish anything in Fort Wayne, Indiana they will never name anything after you.

 

When I was in HS, I worked at fast food restaurant, and one of the manager's names was Dick Hair. Now, if my name is in the public sphere, I am changing that bad boy. And asking my parents, "WTF?"

I use the familiar shortening of my first name as my byline, just because that's what everybody calls me. Perhaps this is a reach, but my full first name in my byline would seem too formal and maybe even a little pretentious, since nobody calls me that. And no, my first name isn't Aloysius or Bartholomew or Kensington or anything like that.

 

Hannah Storen

 

My name is my name!