Personal Branding: Are Funny Names Effective?

Poll at the end, but first a question/request. Here's the question:

What's the funniest name you've ever encountered at work?
Leave a comment or (if you prefer to remain anonymous), you can EMAIL ME.

All done? Great... Now read on.

I'll start with a true story.

I once worked with a marketing guy whose last name was "Fink." Nice guy; really smart. But, frankly, I found it very difficult to take his opinions on branding seriously because, if I were named "Fink", I'd change my name.

Indeed, I actually DID change my name. My original last name was "Sickler", which has an ugly sound to it. The "James" was my middle name, which I adopted as my last name about 25 years ago.

I finally asked Mr. Fink why he didn't change his name. Here's what he told me: "Are you kidding?!? Everybody remembers my name! Almost nobody remembers your name, Jim."

Anyway, along those lines, I recently heard competing presentations from two big CRM vendors. The guy from Salesforce.com was named "Brett Queener" but the guy from Oracle... I can't remember his name, even though I've interviewed him a couple of times.

Simliarly, there's a medical columnist whose last name is "Lipshitz." I'll be able to remember that name on my deathbed. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to have to introduce myself to people with a name like that.

Anyway, I was wondering what you guys think about this aspect of "personal branding," so I've put a poll at the end of this post. BUT FIRST: