Let it be noted that I am B-sting, electronic musician, producer, bass-player and on a very rare occasion a DJ. You might say “well duh, we know this.” But apparently it’s not universally known. Thanks to my Google alerts, I occasionally notice there’s other B-sting’s. If they’d typed their name in Google before they chose theirs, they would’ve noticed my various websites are the top results, for a reason.

I’ve been using the name B-sting as an online name since I built my first website around 1995 on the now defunct De Digitale Stad (DDS). When I got my first chat account (on icq), I was B-sting. Other B-sting’s later joined, but even if you look now, you’ll notice I have the lowest number. Still. Every forum I ever joined: B-sting (or Bsting if the dash was not allowed). Years later I got B-sting.nl and eventually B-sting.com. Because I am B-sting.

I don’t own the name B-sting. There’s multiple Mr. Smith’s out there and not all of them are LL Cool J. There’s a photograper with the name B-sting, there’s multiple gamers with the name B-sting, a consultancy firm, a blogging mom, a painter, a golf club, a meme, there’s even an EP by an Australian band named the Testeagles entitled B-sting (which came out in 1998, after me mind you). Good for them. But it kinda annoys me there’s other musicians who still pick the name B-sting. How hard is it to check if a name is unique, before you chose it?

I can’t blame the English jungle/garage-DJ the Impeccable DJ B Sting, since he started using the name around the time I did and Google wasn’t around back then to check it for either of us. Also I have the dash, he doesn’t. And he’s Impeccable. Good for him. We invented the wheel around the same time. It happens.

But apparently there’s also an unsigned South-African rapper who recently decided B-sting was a good name. I’m sorry to disappoint you Brandon Jason Gow, but I am B-sting. You were 2 years old when I became B-sting. You can’t stop me from being B-sting, but then I can’t stop you either. I just think you should have checked your name before you picked it. I wish you good luck moving on up on the Google rankings (you’ll need it), but I think picking another name might be easier. Especially if you want to be signed. I mean when you registered your ReverbNation-account, you could have noticed the name B-sting was already taken. Did you look it up? It is me.

Hey, Nirvana didn’t check their name, but if they had access to Google in 1987, I don’t think they would’ve used the same name as a British rock band from the Sixties either. It’s just bad marketing, even if eventually they did become more famous than the other band. Even Bad Company eventually changed their name when they got sued by the other Bad Company. And who can forget about The Originals/The New Originals/The Regulars? Just saying.