How To Pick Your Stage Name

Hey there it’s David H Lawrence 17th and here I am violating the rule about wearing white on camera because I feel like it today what I’d like to talk to you about is actually goes back to mm bullet 2004 I think when I done my first union job and I was being allowed to enter what was then just say it wasn’t sag after that and when you do that there’s a rite of passage where you have to choose your sag name now your sag-aftra name and the only requirement is that it’s Unique among all of the people that already have sec games now there’s plenty of David Lawrence is in the business one of them won an Emmy for for makeup in and wardrobe back in the 70s lots of David Lawrence’s in a voiceover in fact that’s why I’m David H Lawrence the 17th because we couldn’t come up with a version of my name that was unique and I was looking at my IMDb page and was like oh 17 what about that in the woman and sag after was like fine anyway I want to give you some tips on how to choose your stage name cuz when you get to that point you could make a mistake and just go with something to you think is cool or hip or whatever and you really have some practical things to think about first of all congratulations on getting in the Union right it’s awesome but I want you to think about four things number one if your name is a homophone of someone who’s famous that already exists in the union like say your name is Thomas and your last name is spelled c r u z e Wright Tom Cruise not a good choice Thomas Cruise not a good choice in fact the union probably won’t let you do it so you want to come up with something that is unique and is doesn’t sound the same as somebody else that’s pretty easy to deal with but the other three are more practical considerations dealing with First and foremost you want to check to see if you’re chosen stage name is unavailable domain so pop over to godaddy.com or your favorite registrar and type in your name right so if your name is John Smith and you’re going to add your middle name Sage on Thomas Smith you know check to see if John Thomas smith.com is available if it isn’t I got to I got a suggestion for you don’t go with that name go with the name that is available because having your own domain name is priceless having your own domain name is priceless and it extends from there the other two things that I want to talk to you about our also digital considerations the second one is is that name available as a Gmail address as we record this videos I record this video right now Gmail is genome the bomb it’s it’s really great now you can always get John at John Thomas smith.com if that’s you know whatever your version of that is but if you can also get John Thomas Smith at gmail.com you can avoid some of the identity-theft possibilities that might exist and you also can grab that real estate as your own so the domain name and the Gmail address and then of course obviously you can create an email address with your domain name if you want and then the third of the three digital considerations to round out the group of four is is that Twitter handle available is that Facebook handle available is that LinkedIn handle available Instagram Tumblr Pinterest you know all of the social networks my screen name on all on every social network is DH Lawrence xvii XVI was actually too long for Twitter when I had my my first account so I shortened it up and then every time a new social media Network would come out I would immediately grab DH Lawrence xvii on it so I have work for Pinterest and I have it for Instagram and I have it for another all of them are uniform and if you can do that that helps you say if you want to catch me on social media just go to John Thomas Smith at any social media at John Thomas Smith facebook.com John Thomas Smith you know it’s uniform and it’s easy to say and I got a Bonus one for you the bonus one is try to avoid if you can forcing a name by misspelling a word slightly misspelling a name going with a goofy version of a name like instead of James James you go with Jaymes that is going to cause you nothing but heartache as you completely have to correct everybody every single time you give them your name and don’t be afraid a long name is my name is pretty long but it looks great in the credits so anyway just some things I wanted to share with you tell me do you have a stage name how’d you arrive at a tell me in the comments below what did you do with it an omage to somebody did you think about the options domain name and accountant and Twitter handle and Facebook and Social Media stuff if you’re about to enter the Union you have I help to stop you from making a huge mistake I hope so, I’m really happy that you are watching these videos and if you’d like to be notified when the next video in this series of 365 comes out we’ll go ahead and click on my head there but there’s no head there then look for a subscribe button somewhere on the page will find what you want to see the latest video I put out go ahead and click on that frame because that one’s the last one that came out so go ahead and do it I’m David H Lawrence 17th I take you so much for watching and I’ll talk to you tomorrow