Apologies for taking a while to get back in here and continue with the series. Allow me to explain.

I’m online at the office all day and for some reason, I just never got around to downloading iTunes for my desktop. Call me a creature of order. iTunes goes with Apple and Windows Media Player goes with Windows XP. Wrong.

A podcast called JD’s Musical Alchemy finally got me to download iTunes and in turn, opened up a whole new world to me on my desktop!

That’s what I’ve been busy with. Subscribing, subscribing, subscribing to podcasts like there’s no tomorrow. That in turn got me excited about doing one myself with ex-morning show partner, Zach! Zach and Joey 2.0!

But that’s just a thought. And maybe another file in this series. We’ve tackled Beginnings, Training, and still to come, I have stuff on Announcing, Hosting, Producing and… maybe more… or not. Something on Podcasting. Maybe.

So, what’s in a name?

I started my career in radio in 1989 with a very boring, very matronly, very aunt-like real name – Thelma. I couldn’t think of anything interesting, so I was left with the Default option of using my real name. Ugh.

But it didn’t matter. I lived with it because all the newscasters I grew up listening to in 99.5RT at the time used their real names – Katrina, Vicky, Althea, Claire, Grace – all goddesses on the air and off. I figured I could be one out of two. At least a name like ‘Thelma’ made you wonder what she looked like in real life. Was she a nerd? Or a rocker chick that moonlighted as the vocalist of a metal garage band called Angel Witch? Oooh. The mystery of the face that goes with the voice that goes with the name.

I was a ‘Thelma’ until I joined 101.1 Kiss FM in 1991 where I was made into an ‘Aleks’. The ‘K’ and ‘S’ were because of our call sign – DWKS FM. And that’s when I discovered the playground of being a persona. Changing my name gave me the license to express myself more. I don’t know how to explain it. It was like becoming a different person on air; becoming ‘Aleks’ and not just ‘Thelma’.

This came in handy when my boss asked me to train as an Announcer. Wow. Four newscasters and I was asked to be a jock. Me!

So I became ‘Aleks’ for CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station Kiss FM until we changed our sound and re-formatted into jazz station, Kiss Jazz 10-11. That’s when I became ‘Sarah J’. And a new persona. Fun ‘Aleks’ had to be replaced by sultry ‘Sarah J’.

In 1995, after a three year break from radio when I pursued freelance voice talent gigs and a brief career in theater and stage production, I looked for a station that could use a jock or newscaster that came from both pop and jazz formats. NU107 did. They had an opening for a newscaster and didn’t care about the pop and jazz experience.

And since NU107′s format was/is Alternative Rock, I needed a new name. ‘Aleks’ and ‘Sarah J’ didn’t cut it because they didn’t fit the format and I wanted to start afresh since my absence. So I tossed around – ‘Mick’ (too Rolling Stones), ‘Dylan’ (too Bob), ‘Kennedy’ (too MTV VJ) and ‘Joey’.

‘Joey’ won. And then a more famous Joey became popular, model Joey Mead. It wasn’t a problem for me while I was in NU but when I moved back to RT for a year in 1997? People would call and say, “I saw you on TV the other day!” Depending on my mood, I would either play along or burst their bubble.

Moving back to NU107 in 1998 to put up ‘Zach and Joey in the Morning’ solved that. I then became ‘the Joey on NU107 who laughs loud and talks a lot every morning’.

We guested the famous Joey Mead when we featured models one morning. And that solved that confusion once and for all.

Lesson: Your air name is an option. If anything at all, it’s a consideration if your name isn’t exactly… radio-friendly. That of course is subjective and dependent upon what format you’re with. You can do a double – Jeremiah Junior, Boo Kyler, Major Tom; or keep it simple and just pick a name.

Slipping into ‘Joey’ every morning for almost five years helped me to be ‘Joey’ – fun, larger than life, funny. And it stuck. Some people refuse to call me Thelma and prefer my radio name. To them, I’ll always be Joey.

Hope this helps.