What's in a name

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Alright, here's a question: I'm trying to start a career in the music biz, and it's starting to take off some, but I'm faced with a dilemma that has to be resolved before a critical mass of people know about me. Which name should I go by?

My given birth name is

David Boily (pronounced Bwa-Lee)

which is what I use at the moment, but the problem is there's a lot of people with the same name fudging my google, and second it's sort of hard to pronounce for such a simple name. Also davidboily.com is already taken by some photographer.

My other choice is

Samuel Bertrand

which is my middle name paired with my mom's maiden name, so genetically speaking it's as valid. It has the advantage of being less common and easier to pronounce in both english and french.

Which one is more appealing to someone who doesn't know who I am?

I really like Samuel Bertrand. I like David Boily, but I like Samuel better. I have a French friend living here in the U.S. who named her son Matthieu with French pronunciation (she was very insistent - NOT English "Matthew") and she had a lifetime of irritation over it.

I have been meaning to tell you, I listened to your music last week and I think it is wonderful - mood evoking and lovely.

"Hi this is Bank of X, can I get your name please sir? Ok, and now for security can I have your mother's maiden name.... ok, thank you..."


Seriously, you really need to reconsider how much personal info you give out here!

A fake name sounds like a good idea. Bertrand was an inventor wasn;t he?

True about the maiden name part. Damn! But I doubt anyone could scam me out of any money, I don't have any, no credit card and I'm dirt poor. But yeah, good call. Although my real birthday is obfuscated, I always give different dates.

The thing about Boily is that most english speaking people pronounce it (boil-ee, like the verb to boil), which doesn't sound good, and most french speakers hear it as Boyer which is the more common surname.

Thanks for the insight and personal preference. I too slightly prefer Samuel Bertrand, and it's not that fake, so I wont feel phony using it.

And I'm really glad you enjoyed my music, it's always uplifting to know someone else than yourself likes it.

I don't know if he was an inventor, but here's the list from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand of noteworthy individuals with Bertrand as a surname, none of them seem to be inventors.

Probably I'll go for it, now on to the work of switching everything to a new name!

David
http://109musique.ca/david
http://myspace.com/davidboily

Hey, you're good.

I agree American's would say Boilee unless it was spelled like Boilet' or something. Your work is very nice.

Thanks for the good words!

Already started the name migration, we'll see how it goes.

David

well, you could do the Heavy Metal route and just misspell it..

Actually, there's a show biz bit where the first person to use their name gets it. Famous example;
Davy Jones, of the Monkees, got started, before David Jones, the glam rocker released Spiders from Mars...so he had to change his 'stage' name to David Bowie.

Well, I suppose a photographer could be considered to be in showbiz. He's starting to get a serious name for himself, my name! So yeah, I suppose I should abide by the unwritten rule and change mine.

Change Bertrand to Bertland.

Though if you want to stand out more change the second name to something that is also an object/thing.

Samuel Hedge
Samuel Stone
Samuel House
Samuel Fire Hydrant
Samuel ATM

Or you can have name that denotes an action

Samuel Clap
Samuel Poke

Comedian Paul Martin changed his name to Paul Merton. It is more memorable less utilitarian, and is also an outskirt of London.

Well, it's a good idea to change my last name to something more memorable than Bertrand, but it has to be memorable to both french speaking and english speaking people, with no ambiguity of pronunciation in either language.

an action verb? Before you know it, you have an adverb, like Johnny Dangerously...
Just make sure it makes you sound good...