Living the life of the entrepreneur

Recently, I decided to “anglo-size” my name from Paradies to Paradise. I can’t claim that I was original in this concept – there are many people who have changed their names for acting, politics, and business. I wasn’t even original within my immediate family… But as they say, better late than never. I don’t know if that applies here but it sounded good before I wrote it. So in making the change, I wanted to find out what famous people have changed their names, which led me to compile the following list of the better known people who have done this (note: I was trying to put people that you/I might not have known as opposed to a more obvious list of names):

Ralph Lauren (formerly was Ralph Reuben Lifshitz)

John Wayne (formerly was Marion Mitchell Morrison)

Dr. Martin Luther King (formerly was Michael Luther King Jr)

President Gerald Ford (formerly was Leslie Lynch King Jr)

Ulysses S. Grant (formerly  was Hiram Ulysses Grant)

Quite a few famous folks indeed – I found a list of many, many more here if you’re interested. Also there is a great book on positioning I read recently called “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition” by Al Ries & Jack Trout. There’s an entire chapter in it dedicated to name changes… and so I have to give credit to finding out about John Wayne from this book. It’s a great read on product positioning if you have a few spare hours and it’s also pretty fun as there are a number of interesting anecdotes throughout the book. Till next time,

Andy “Paradise”