If you're a jock, do you use your real first and last name on the radio, OR do you have a fake name?? With all the loonies running around, I don't see the point of using your real first and last name!

I did that for many years and used it with a moniker as well. The last few I was on the air, I took out the entire real name due to the very reasons you gave above.

My listeners were quite polite most of the time, so it wasnt a big deal back in the day.

Only if your name is djfrresh!

I don't . . . my parents, siblings (as well as their spouses) and i all share a very unique name and I would rather not have THEM connected to something I said on the air . . .

541to503: I see your name is Johnny Johnson! My mother went to your Spa!

I don't use my real name on the air, for what ever it's worth.

I do here however.

just try reading a news story about escaped convicts...and thinking my wife and kid are home alone...and then you decide to say I'm Chevy Chase and your not!

I don't use my real name either. But the thought of loonies after me makes me want to live on the edge. Eh, maybe not!

When I do play by play or color I use my real name. If I am on air any other time I don't use my real name. Less crazy people listening to high school sports I think.

Using a fake name back in the mid 70's actually caused me some real trouble. I was coming on board a graveyard shift and chose a name that, unbeknownst to me, was shared by a local small time drug dealer. He was notorious for burning his clients. It wasn't long before the threatening phone calls began coming in.

One night I saw the flash of headlights through the window behind me from a car pulling into the parking lot...rare at two in the morning. When I went to the window to see who it was, I saw some guy leaning out of his driver's side window holding a gun pointed in my direction.

I hit the floor and crawled toward the booth, pulled the phone down and called 911, then crawled back to the window, pulled down the shade, crawled back to the booth and segued when I was supposed to break, and prayed the PD wasn't listening. The guy drove off when he saw the police heading in our direction...I don't know how it turned out...he probably just got a warning if he got stopped at all.

No connection...but today I use my real first name and a shortened version of my last name.

I used my real name for most of my 32 career. I did use a fake name for two years while in Seattle.

Assuming "Chief Racin' Fox" is my real name, then yes I do. ;o)

(Do CB handles count in this discussion? Because someone I know used to always use his real name on CB. He still might, but I haven't really heard him on the air in almost a decade.)

After that incident last year at the Vancouver Mall involving one irate CBer murdering another, I have become even more leery about using my full, real name on CB, saying of being tracked down by loonies! (I can see giving away my last name--Fox--may at least be somewhat safe because it's a fairly common surname, like Smith, and as a result it could be hard to track down an individual just by going on that.)

I used my real name the first nine years. Switched mainly because I found my name hard to say and harder for listeners to remember (or maybe it was my personality, I don't know) I chose "Gallagher" out of the phone book a couple days before a new job. Thought it flowed nicely and had some good hard "g" sounds in it. About two years later I learned of Ron Gallagher, the brother of the comedian Gallagher. Ron was out on tour doing his brother's watermelon act.

I've done both, mostly without my real name. When I happened to do news I'd add my real last name.

Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. It's fun to be recognized, usually! It's also cool to hear people talk about you with knowing you're standing next to them!

These days? I'd go with the fake name!

I used a fake name for my entire 22 years on the air.

Real name being hard to remember and impossible to spell.

Now that I am no longer on the air this can make for some interesting situations. I have 20 years worth of friends that know me only by my air name and of course a lot of other friends and family that know me by the real name. Of course they all know about the air name thing and get a laugh about it occasionally.

Once you have used the same air name that long it is nearly impossible to tell everyone you know to stop using the air name and switch to the real name.

I even had to explain to my bank. Occasionally someone would make out a check to my air name and maybe I didn't want to explain it to them.

So I am stuck with two names... It is wierd.

I'm wondering if this happens to anyone else using a pseudo name. Its happened to me and it's embarrassing!

Do You meet listerners more frequently than say meeting your new doctor? Have you ever introduced Yourself with your radio name without thinking since it's so automatic? Then You have to correct yourself.

Used to use a fake but now I don't care, I use my real name.

yeah, but do you have several lines of credit cards with fake names? My wife says I am going to jail someday...

Not to hijack the thread - but I used to work in a bar when KNRK was getting some legs in the mid 90's. I had an occasion to meet some of the jocks at their studio one night. They were nice - shook hands - that was that.

But about a week later, this kid came into the bar that I worked at and claimed to be Tim Taylor from KNRK and started hinting that he'd like some Jager...for free. He wanted to grab the mic from me and, you know, cuss in a bar in a way that he wasn't allowed to do on the air. I had a Polaroid camera handy and took a shot of him saying " shit " over the mic to a unimpressed crowd.

He didn't know that I had just met Tim Taylor at KNRK - but I thought it was kind of funny that this kid had the balls to try it all on for size. I can't remember how, but I was talking to Tim Taylor about it about a week after he came in. He wanted to see the pic.

Tim was about as professional as a man could be in that circumstance. He didn't tell me who the kid in the picture was - and I didn't ask - but it was obvious they knew each other. Tim politely thanked me and looked like he wanted a shot of Jager.

My point is this;

I am Scott Lander when I go to bars. ( I'm kidding - but it would be funny to try out some names on people to see what happens ).

I use the name Hey You. Everybody knows me.

Hey you, sit down.
Hey you, shut up.
Hey you, get out of the way.

Hey you....nice post.

Folks, why do radio people use fake names and tv people and print reporters use their real names?

TV people are visual, you can put a name to a face. Radio people aren't real. They are imaginary. Walk into a radio station and all you see is an empty studio and a computer. HAL creates the names and voices.

Not really, but I will save the alliteration descriptions to someone else who has more credibility than me. If you work a Froggy format you get a froggy name, Sometimes the choice isn't yours to make.

Chickenjuggler....

Using my name at a bar in Portland will get you kicked out and (possibly) arrested!!

USE IT!!

God..I love you, man.

Chickenjuggler-

Tim Taylor was with Rosie 105 KRSK then, not KNRK. Then he was at 105.1 The Buzz after the switch.

But I was at KKRZ and then KNRK in the late '90's and I had my free Jaiger with Scott Lander there at the Lotus (Which they were all cool there).

Thanks Chickjuggler!

Duke Blazer. Try that one sometime in your favorite bar.

Or bail bonds office.

Well, it's been a while. I MAY have the details really wrong. I've told that story so many times though that I felt pretty sure. But yeah - it's possible I am wrong about it.

" There was a DJ I met from KNRK when they were in the first basement studios. They were cool. I met a guy who claimed to be one of the people I met at the studios. He wasn't. It made me laugh.

The End."

Rick Taylor (NOT the KUPL DJ) perhaps? The former 2AM-6AM guy?

I used my real name while on the air at KBPS and looking back now I wish I hadn't.

There was one occasion when I had some rather creepy "fan mail" waiting for me at the station. Whoever wrote the letter spelled my last name wrong (thankfully my last name is hard enough to spell from phonetics), but after I got that letter I decided that I would not use my real name on any other stations from that point on.

For those that don't think looney people listen to high school sports... don't be so sure. Haha.

RICK Taylor! Yes. That was it. Rick. Between the Chris' and the Tims around here, and bong resin in my head, I had shifted the name. Sorry about that. But yes, it was in fact Rick Taylor.

I like to go into bars and say I'm Rip Taylor and throw confetti everywhere. Then I do my famous Paul Lynde impression and lip synch a Freddie Mercury song.

Chicks dig it...if they have an Adam's Apple.

Oh No! We can't escape Ann Coulter anywhere today!

My real name does not trip lovingly off the tongue and is so often misconstrued by listeners, and yet I've insisted on using it in Portland, and I don't know why. (I have been Cyndi Fox doing traffic on a few stations.) I should have changed it years ago. Here in St. Cloud, I'm Cyndi Wild on Wild Country 99.
Yeeha ya'll!

I am confused...Is Cyn not in Portland anymore...
she was back for how long, and then she left...is that right? Confused in Oregon.

Oh hi, I'm "between engagements" right now. I came back to MN to help my Mom out for awhile. I hope to be back before the first snowflake flies. Thanks for asking!

I will say this... Cyn's shout jingle on KISN-FM was one of the cooler ones!

If your real name was Dick Wadsworth you'd change it to "Jeff Clarke," too.

Jeff, I know your real name and Dick Wadsworth isn't close. I won't say it because everytime I do, I fall to the floor crying in laughter. God Bless your mommy and daddy.
How is ya?
I am back in this stupid biz again.
See ya.