Bob Dylan. Jon Stewart. Woody Allen. Winona Ryder. Martin Sheen. Bruce Lee. Ben Kingsley.

[dorkulon]

Joseph Conrad. Carole King. Elia Kazan. Goldie Hawn. John Denver. Tony Curtis. Elvis Costello. Larry King. Anne Bancroft. Jennifer Aniston.

All of these and many more people have chosen to adopt different names than those they were born with to represent themselves to the public.

Why? Because they figured their birth names were too "foreign" or too "ethnic" for mainstream acceptance. They figured they could make their paths to success a little easier by choosing a name that wouldn't bother the small-minded. And after all, what's in a name? Would Dylan's music be any better if he were Zimmerman? Would Heart of Darkness be a better book were it written by Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski? No, truth is they would be the same, but you might never have heard of them.

Bobby Jindal is a whackjob, and frankly poses no serious threat to Obama winning a second term in office. There are a lot of legitimate reasons to pick on Jindal. But making fun of his birthname only proves that he was right to change it, that Americans are too limited to accept it, too lowbrow to refrain from schoolyard mockery of "funny" names. The painfully ignorant mockery of Barack Obama's name during the election campaign made me furious, and I was glad to count myself among the people who were above such brutish, xenophobic stupidity.

Now I don't know what to think.

[Loudmxr]

1. Oh the DUers are just playing Ann H Coulter for a while. And some of them miss Phish.

Let em have some fun. It'll pass.:boring:

[and-justice-for-all]

2. I dont care what his name is...

He's just another repuke fascist asshole and that is all I need to know.

[REP]

3. Bruce Lee was named Bruce and Jun Fan at birth

I take your point, but Bruce Jun Fan Lee was his name from birth.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

4. I suspect Conrad's change was for a practical reason at least somewhat.

He changed it when he got British citizenship I suspect not only to acculturate to the English but also because his given last name was a bit of a mouthful (Korzeniowski).

Still, point well made. And I didn't know that about Anne Bancroft.