Stage Name
All these butcherings of my last name remind me of something that happened a few years ago.
We were meeting with a large hospital near the west coast and, as I often do, I gave a few examples of my own experiences having “Damianakis” butchered (how can you not butcher such a name?) and how that affected my experience with various organizations. And of course, the flip side, how the organizations were impacted as well (added expense and risk, etc).
At one point during the meeting I was fielding questions about the advantages of our mathematical modeling approach when the CIO raised his hand and asked me “is Damianakis your stage name?” I was caught off guard, “No, I’m not involved in the performing arts” I responded. “No”, he said, “is that your real name?” Then it finally registered…
It’s good to know that I have the right name for my chosen profession.
Surprisingly though, most people suffer the same problem with their names as well. At least that’s the result of my informal, unscientific poll. Even people with short common names often end up having their names being butchered. Common responses in my poll were “they never get my name right” and “they often make a mistake,” etc…
Unfortunately computers are equal opportunity offenders, so the problem isn’t confined to just names of people, it happens with every kind of data they store.
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