There is rule in Hollywood that two actors can not have the same name. The purpose of this rule is to avoid confusing the audience about which performer was in which TV or movie. (Getting credit, or credits, is the only currency that counts in Hollywood.) That explains why Michael J. Fox isn't simply known as Michael Fox (someone else already had secured that name).
Flash forward, and we are on the cusp of moving past the S-curve into full blown adoption of digital media.
If a central strategy of old media was avoiding viewer confusion by requiring that TV and movie performers each have a truly distinct name, in the age of digital media the imperative is having a name that is readily discoverable by search engines.
This raises an interesting question. What do you do if your birth name is not search engine friendly? Why, of course, you change your name.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but the story that follows is completely true. Just the other day, a friend of mine who is financially backing a performer (sidebar: I have to be somewhat vague out of respect for both the performer and the person who told me this story) told me that the performer's birth name, while actually quite beautiful, also had the same letter pattern of a number of different acronyms.
The fear was that having a name which was not search engine friendly would create friction in terms of word of mouth being able to virally propagate the favorable buzz of a budding fan base.
One person would mention that "you need to check out this artist," and the recipient of that message would run a quick search. Overwhelmed by the noisy search returns, the recipient would move on to other activities and that flicker of early buzz would die.
So they changed the name of the artist. True story, and my gut says that this example is the tail of a larger dog not yet in the picture.
