Aliases - Motives and Anecdotes? Inspired by CoolHands

[carinaman]

CoolHands said:

Is it normal for people in real life to create an alias? Or is it just criminals that generally do so.

I thought that was an interesting question worthy of discussion. Can there be a legitimate reason for assuming another name?

Can any BiB or former BiB share their some anecdotes about people passing themselves off as other people and their motives for doing so that may help explain why people take up another name?

[Dr Jekyll]

A friend of mine regularly has to deal with sorting out insurance policies etc for the recently deceased, and it's quite common for the paperwork to say something like 'George Joseph Thompson also known as Phillip James Skinner' with no particular resemblance between the names. Alternative surnames with the same first name are even more common

[XCP]

I locked up a man who walked into the station claiming ( through sign language and pidgin English) to be an illegal immigrant from West Africa ( Ivory Coast IIRC).
I tried French but he was unable or reluctant to engage at all. Immigration came and fingerprinted him. Turned out he was English, from Birmingham, and was wanted on a Crown Court Warrant for Rape.
His plan was to get deported to Africa in order to flee the country! Doh.

[Derek Smith]

I have an alias. I got it from a website. I often use it online in those circumstances when I am asked for details and I don't want to give mine. I'm from Wolverhampton and have two kids, a car, and address, everything. I'm 15 years and a month younger. I live a great life, apart from being in Wolverhampton.

[Dr Jekyll]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemma_Barker_case

[carinaman]

Dr Jekyll said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemma_Barker_case

Good one.

[cootuk]

We had a guy at work years ago who had allegedly been on the wrong side of the Spanish civil war and somehow acquired an alias when he fled...also moving his birthdate to make him about 10 years younger.

[covboy]

Derek Smith said:

I have an alias. I got it from a website. I often use it online in those circumstances when I am asked for details and I don't want to give mine. I'm from Wolverhampton and have two kids, a car, and address, everything. I'm 15 years and a month younger. I live a great life, apart from being in Wolverhampton.

Ah the internet

Where men are men

Women are men

and kids are NCA officers !

[djohnson]

My uncle used a completely different name at work for most of his career. He did something in insurance and apparently his team all did this since there was some risk of those they'd dealt with seeking revenge.

[QuickQuack]

My wife and I are both doctors and in common with thousands of other female doctors, she uses her maiden name for all of her professional stuff and for her financial affairs (i.e. tax and bank accounts) but she uses her married name for everything else. She is Mrs QQ on her passport where it is also recorded that she is also known as Dr YY.

We both have online aliases for all those instances where one prefers to be anonymous.

[Digger]

In which scenarios is using an alias going to get one into trouble. . . i.e. Illegal?

[BlackLabel]

Apparantly politicians use them. For example:

"The former SNP leader told the Mail on Sunday that he often travelled under a false name for security reasons and he liked to use Captain Kirk's name as he is an avid Star Trek fan."........

"........It is understood he normally travels from Gatwick or London City airports, where staff are aware of his alias......."

".......It is understood Mr Salmond has been using the name of the character, played by William Shatner, for years for security reasons to avoid alerting people to his presence in advance.

Since resigning as First Minister in the wake of his independence referendum defeat last year, he no longer has protection officers who could explain the ruse to confused airline staff."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11910...

[grumpy52]

When I worked for a security company and did investigation or surveillance work we all had other names and addresses. All were our own first names and different surnames .My alais tied me to an address in Manchester which if anybody ever checked was a genuine name and address of somebody of the same age as myself .
Our boss man was ex SIB and he furnished all the details .I even had business cards in the alias name .

[InitialDave]

I do find it amusing to see the fake names I've used on stuff that seems likely to generate spam etc (quotes etc) appear on actual mail items. That Mr Ima Madeupguy gets a fair bit of junkmail...

covboy said:

Ah the internet

Where men are men

Women are men

and kids are NCA officers !