My Name - Vote on It

I've been directing music videos and commercials for a while, but last year I started doing TV and this year it looks like I will have a feature started and a few industry friends suggested that since I'm just embarking on a more name oriented career and my name is relatively common (though not as common as "Grace Lee" apparently) - but since it is common, I should add my middle name.

I don't want to add my middle name because I have no connection to it, but I could add my middle initial.

So - I decided that industry people opinions is one thing - what do the people "out there" think.

Here are the two options:

Mark Allen

Mark D Allen

If you would like to suggest something else, be my guest in the comments... :)  That ought to be interesting.

Hopefully you've already decided, but here are some additional things to consider.

I own only the .net of markallen (markallen.net), but I do own markdallen.com

One bonus of a common name is that it sounds familiar and as my name goes around, hopefully people will confuse that they've heard my name before with thinking it is me.  It already happens.

In the future, the D would significantly reduce the name confusion for searches if people bothered putting it there. Okay, folks - now... it's up to you, let's hear your opinions.  (Even if you're in the industry I'm interested!)

(One side note... friends call me by both names most of the time out of habit.  It's just something that's been true since I was a child because there were always Mark's around and my names were easy to say as one.)

Thanks.