Community Q & A: How did you come up with your stage name?

Fonda Feeling (Photo Roger Gordy)

I swear it came to me in a dream after researching old school burlesque and drag names very early on.
- Fonda Feeling

Pris comes from Blade Runner. I'm a geek and the prismatic family of spells in D&D, plus I wanted my name to embrace myself non-binary trans woman
- Ms Pris Matic

Bombay is the name the British made up for Mumbai, and I wanted to combine it with the whitest boy name I could think of, which was Benji. Together they’re a subversive reclamation/critique of colonialism. 
- Benji Bombay

Well, really I'm known by my legal name. My old moniker was given to me by a performance artist roommate of mine 18 years ago as I seem so cute and innocent from the outside but my work is usually deeply questioning of norms and status quo. Creature was also given to me by The Baroness (NYC) at one of her workshops recently... It fits me now that I'm moving through my gender identity in a new way. It is catching on more and more, and I like it. - Karin Webb / UnAmerika's Sweetheart / Creature

I want to "do more" than just burlesque and Alliteration!
- Daphne Dumore

My stage name is the name I go by with friends and family. My mom gave me half, I earned the other half in a haunted house. My stage is my real name now and it found me.
- Jessicalee Skary

I was always a theatre kid. As far as straight plays go, Shakespeare has always been my favorite playwright. I’ve been in many productions of his plays. When I was 16, I played Queen Gertrude in an incredible, modernized production of Hamlet(we of course still used the iambic pantameter, but we wore contemporary clothing and used a modern soundtrack that included songs by Alanis Morrisette and Iron & Wine, it was excellent). The director of the production put an interpretation of the play into motion that portrayed both Gertrude and Ophelia as strong, feminist characters, not the weak, more helpless tropes that are usually associated with them. I really appreciated that. In our production, Ophelia put up a real fight and feigned madness to try and somehow escape her fate. That really spoke to me and I held onto it. My debut act was an Ophelia act to pay homage to my namesake. As far as orchids go, they are my favorite flower. I now have two Orchid tattoos on my body, the first of which I got when I had first signed up for the workshopping, competition show in which I made my debut
- Ophelia Orchid

It's an obscure nerd reference to the Brandywine river in the Shire in Lord of the Rings. I also wanted to have a name that included feminine-sounding alcohol words, and a first name that could pass as a real first name.
- Brandy Wine

I named myself after the Bjork song, believe it or not. The lyrics resonated with me at the time and I wanted a 'real' name. For the surname, I felt like I wanted to highlight the Finnish part of my heritage - It felt believable but just far removed enough from 'me' to make a stage name. I considered using my grandmother's maiden name, but I was advised to pick something easy to spell and pronounce unless I wanted to be introduced wrong forever. So I borrowed the name of a Finnish rockstar. So far he hasn't noticed.
- Isobel Valo

I was going for sort of an action star persona, so... Daniel Craig(James Bones)/Danny Ocean(genius heist leader) + Nathan Drake(tomb raiding thief/adventurer)/Tim Drake(detective/one of Batman's Robins) = Danny Drake Nathan Drake was the main focus, he's basically the son of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Also, I was aiming hard for alliteration.
- Danny Drake

It was originally the title of my xanga, i felt it was really edgy to toe the line between divine and profane in my post catholic school teenaged years. It also fit with my visual kei aesthetic at the time. Eventually it became the name of my clothing line that never happened and then my burlesque name.
- Divine Filth

This was my grandmother's name...
Just kidding! I started off as Dalya DuSunshine and felt like that didn't quite fit...my love of puns birthed Porcelain Dalya
- Porcelain Dalya

Lucifer Christmas was helping me brainstorm name ideas, and they came up with my name. I'm a librarian in my muggle life. The Dewey Decimal system is a proprietary classification system invented in the 19th century.
- Dewie Decimator 

My mom suggested! 
- Honey Pie

I was named by my tattoo artist who did my pixie back piece. It's been my leather craft business name for over 10 years as well.
- Leather Pixie

I'm a Neverland transplant, just waiting to return to Mermaid Lagoon. I hadn't realized it'd be so fitting with my father's name being George and eventually having a pet named Nana - just like the Darlings in Peter Pan.
- Landis Darling

I chose to go with my real name because what you get on stage are parts of me.- Gage

A lot of trial and error, testing potential names with friends and fellow performers. I have a 2 page long list of rejects that I should probably set fire to...
- Valentina Vicious 

I liked the name dahlia, and I wanted to reference my love for A Clockwork Orange and my love of horror. So Strack means horror in Nadsat, which is what they speak in the story.
- Dahlia Strack

I performed as Allix Mortis for almost six years and as I was touring I kept running into new performers, especially fellow kings, who used the last name "Mortis." I'd been wanting to rebrand myself and shake things up anyway so I took a little break and then returned to stage as Lucifer Christmas. This was actually one of the first names I'd ever kicked around and I still thought it was cool all those years later -- there's no real story to it,I just get a kick out of the juxtaposition of the two names.
- Lucifer Christmas

I always admired the grace of Ginger Rogers and her old school glam. I am a little less reserved so there needed a to be a kick. The last name of Snap came from homage to a campy horror film and my unhealthy obsession with the cookies.
- Miss Ginger Snap

Lying in bed, trying to come up with a clever pun on a celebrity name, a la Busty Keaton...
- Polly Surely