What are some practices for getting a name change so that people can find me more easily?

Question

For a similar thing, see this thread, where Jay Wacker managed to get people to call him by the name Jay even though he didn't need to get a legal name change. I'm not sure how to go about this though.

The main problem with me is that I have such a frustratingly common name that a lot of people cannot find me when they google me. So many of them simply don't notice the middle initial that I always use in between my first and last names, and this could actually become a major issue in academia, since people have little time and are prone to giving up quickly if they want to look for me (or for my papers) and can't find me at all (I know this having seen how several academics use the Internet and how they look for people's names). This, in turn, could easily ruin my citation count in the future (it's not just that - it's helpful to others when I have a less common name so that they can more easily locate my stuff). I already know at least several people who specifically told me that they tried to find my email but that they couldn't find it (and this isn't limited to just them - there are many, many more - including long-lost friends who have wanted to talk to me for a long time, but who couldn't find me due to said ultra-common name). Of course, people can go through the respective university directories, but how many people really do that? From my observations (when I've seen people look for someone else), very very few do it. Hell, there are even several people at my OWN university who share the same exact first+last name as me.

In Academia, this is even a bigger problem because the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you, so they may know most of the search clues. Even a "full name" + university won't solve all the problems, because I may switch universities and people may only remember the old university that I was in. I'm also very very interdisciplinary, so I want to be searchable to people outside my field as well.

And even if I fix the issue for Google with a massive SEO operation or whatever (that may even be impossible for my ridiculously common name), it's still not going to fix the problem for all of the other ways that people use search.

I'm currently transitioning between undergrad and grad school, so now may be the perfect time for a name change? But I don't know what to do. Is it better for me to change my first name or my last name? The problem is that a citation like "Chen 2011" is going to produce so many entries that no one will ever find them, even though they frequently do google things like that (and I simply cannot prevent people from googling something like that). Chen is so frustratingly common that even a "Chen and Name2 2011" paper could come from some random medical paper rather than from something I wrote.

As an additional complication, the % of Chinese people using the English Internet is exponentially rising, and I can only expect the problem to get worse in the future because of that (and not just for my first name, but even variants of my first name too).

Answer 1

I think people stress too much about the "what if people can't find my papers?" problem. That's what CVs are for. Don't overestimate how often people will actually try to find all of your papers outside of hiring situations. It won't be often. By the time you are established enough to accumulate a significant number of publications, you will be connected to a research university or institute which will make it easy to link you to your publications.

If "the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you" you've got a problem that changing your name will not solve.

I'd especially like to hear from someone who have had this cause a career problem. My (legal) first name is one of 10 most common, and my last name is in the top 20 (within the US). While this is annoying, it has not caused me any career issues.

Answer 2

If you are going to be very practical, you're right, you should change Chen. But there might be emotional reasons against that, of course. It's a personal choice.

I'll note that you need to be very consistent, professionally; but you can still use whatever else personally/legally. You can choose a professional name like an artist chooses a stage name.

If you start now, always referring to yourself professionally using whatever you choose, and publishing &c under that name, people will know you like that. It's really that simple.

I always spell out both my first names in print, but I never insist that people treat me like that in person. My Portuguese friends tend to, but more random encounters sometimes do, sometimes don't and it's fine.

Answer 3

Name changes are a significant and sensitive issue for many people—particularly female academics who get married, and then have to determine whether to change their name professionally, or to use one name for legal purposes and another for professional publicity purposes.

An extremely common last name is certainly a difficulty in finding you; however, changing your first name won't necessarily improve your visibility, because, as you mentioned in your question, first names aren't normally included in citation searches. Therefore, whatever you do will need to be done to your last name.

Perhaps you could add a hyphenated extension to your last name; whether this would be a legal action (requiring a visit to a court, in most venues) or just unofficially for your profession is for you to decide. (However, it should be pointed out that a legal name change can have major implications on your everyday life, and should not be entered into lightly.

Answer 4

One small suggestion:

Set up your Google Scholar Citations page. This will make your publications and name more visible in Google scholar.

Answer 5

Certainly adding (or just making up) a middle initial to your name will help to differentiate you a lot if someone if looking for your papers specifically. But you have to be consistent and use it everywhere professionally. I work with someone who inserted a made up initial in his publications just for this purpose and says it works quite well. I don't believe that he visited a court or anything to do this.

For hiring purposes, your CV (as mentioned by others) and a "publications" page on your professional website will be the best. If you don't have a website, something like ResearchGate.com or Academia.edu will work in a pinch.

Answer 6

Look into how pen-names are handled in your jurisdiction. Authors often take pen-names for much the same reason you are considering changing yours, you want something more distinctive. Given the relatively global nature of this practice, there is likely a legal way to handle it everywhere in the world. This is a different route to changing your name everywhere, as you would for a married name. Depending on your legal system it may be easier.

For example; in the UK there is no singular definition of a persons legal name. Your birth certificate need not match your passport and your passport need not match your bank. So in the UK, everyone is entitled to have as many pen names as amuses them, so long as they don't try to make unjust gains by pretences involving multiple names (that would be fraud).

The only slight complication in this will be email addresses. My institution (not in the UK) automatically granted me my full passport name as an email address. This was not what I had wanted, as it's an absolute mouthful. But a polite email to the IT department, along with a couple of references to places I had used my shorter name, was enough to convince them to offer me the shortened form instead. So my advice there would be to use a personal email where possible anyway, because you don't change it between positions, and to ask nicely if you want a different address from your institute. Ditto for changing information on institutional webpages.

Answer 7

Don't underestimate the downsides to changing your name as it might not actually solve your problem. My cousin changed her name almost 15 years ago, and there are still friends and family members who think she just dropped off the face of the planet because they aren't aware she changed her name. It's practically impossible to communicate that sort of thing to everyone who needs to know. Your long-lost friends are now even less likely to find you because they won't even be looking for the right name anymore.

If you want to improve your findability online, it seems like you'd get a better return on investment by keeping your name and improving your internet presence. Keep a blog or homepage of some sort where you talk about the interesting things that you're doing and can link to your research. When you meet people that you might like to collaborate with one day, add them to your LinkedIn (or whatever social network you use for your professional stuff). Don't make them go looking for you, be the one that initiates the connection. There might be a bunch of people named John Smith in academia, but there's only one John Smith that I met at that photonics conference in Brussels and added to my social network. Connecting directly with people like that means they don't have to wade through the entire internet to find you. Even a well-connected person rarely knows more than 2-3 people with the exact same name, and the picture on your profile should make it clear which one is which. That personal connection is better than any SEO you could ever do, plus they'll see your posts about new publications without having to go search for you at all.