I've received a number of unusual questions over the years as a workplace advice columnist, but an e-mail I received recently gave me pause.

It came from a 60-year-old customer-service employee from Farmingdale, N.Y., who wanted to know if his employer could legally force him to use his first name, which he loathes.

"I detest my first name to the point that I hate either hearing it or using it," he wrote. "I feel that my name is my property, and the company has no right to tell me how to use it."

It turns out that his employer can in fact legally require him to use his first name, according to a civil liberties expert, because no law addresses the issue. More about that later.

The reasons people change their names are as varied as the initials themselves. Many people, like the e-mail writer, hate a name and ditch it in favor of initials or their middle names. Some who resort to initials do so to hide their identity or to build a unique persona.

Generations ago, some female authors adopted male noms de plume to get published. Many glitterati and literati of both sexes use initials, such as the actor B.D. Wong and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling.

Newton Jones Burkett III, a correspondent for New York's WABC-TV news station, became N.J. Burkett in a sort of Hollywood moment almost 19 years ago. In 1989, he was preparing to move from a small station to WABC, when the station president and his agent suggested he change his name.

"They felt that Newton Jones Burkett sounded a bit aristocratic and made me somewhat less accessible," he said.

He certainly didn't cultivate that image, said Mr. Burkett, who reports many stories on the streets of New York.

"I think of myself as a pretty accessible person," said Mr. Burkett, 45, "and one's name shouldn't have anything to do with it."

But he said he couldn't go along with a wholesale name change because so many local people knew him -- he grew up in the metro area and graduated from Columbia University. He also couldn't go along with a complete name makeover because of the business he's in.

"I'm in the truth business," he said, "and lying about my name wouldn't be the right thing to do."

His father had told him about N.J.'s great-grandfather, a Tennessee newspaper publisher known as J.W.N. Burkett -- short for John William Newton. The WABC reporter remembered the story while grappling with a name change over dinner with his wife.

"What about N.J. Burkett?" he said he asked her.

He said she smiled and said, "That's it."

He worried that his dad, also Newton Jones, would disapprove. His father, however, paid him a compliment when he said, "I really think that using your initials has really distinguished you in the media market."

While Mr. Burkett's name change was encouraged by his employer, there are others -- like the one the writer works for -- who balk at the use of anything other than an employee's given first name. And such inflexibility is legal for nonunion private-sector workers.

"There is no law in this area, and when there is no law, the employer makes the law," said Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J.

In employment-at-will states like New York, employees who refuse to honor company policy can be fired on the spot or fired for no reason at all. Public employees and union workers have some protections against such on-the-spot firings, he said.

Employers shouldn't minimize the importance of employees' name concerns, said Mr. Maltby, who admitted that his own middle name "is buried in a deep hole in my back yard."

"It's not trivial," he said. "Some people really have reasons to hate their name, and I am one of them."

The e-mail writer, who declined to provide details in an interview, explained in his query how his name change came about. "Ever since I was little, my family has always called me by my middle name rather than my first name," he wrote. "As a result, I have always referred to myself by my middle name except when it was absolutely necessary to use my full legal name."

Just because companies can legally require employees to use their first name doesn't always mean the decision makes sense, some human resources experts say. "If that's the name everybody knows him by, what his peers and managers call him, I don't see a problem," said Paul Munoz, the president of HR Group Inc. in Plainview, N.Y.

He said that if the name the employee has adopted causes confusion because someone else on staff has it, a company may have a legitimate reason to balk. Otherwise, Mr. Munoz said, not honoring an employees' adopted name amounts to overkill.

"It sounds a little draconian but, again, it depends on the circumstances," he said. And, he added, "I can't believe there is a company out there that says you have to use your first name for customer service."

Robert Micera, director of human resources at the accounting firm Margolin, Winer & Evens in Garden City, N.Y., said that he could understand why the company would want to use the employee's legal name for such documents as tax forms. Otherwise, he said, flexibility could be a win-win.

"It's a very easy decision for keeping somebody's morale high," he said. "It's a no-brainer. That's not the hill I would die on as a company."

C.L., aka Corey Llewellyn, has embraced his initials because of the image it creates.

The 30-year-old chief executive and co-founder of DigiWaxx Media, a Harlem-based company that helps record labels distribute promotional materials electronically to DJs and other music industry types, says simply, "It's just cooler than your regular name."

And he says it provides an extra identity for him.

"It gives you an alter ego," he said. "Corey Llewellyn is the super business person. C.L., he is the guy that's in the mix, in the know."

C.L. said he acquired the name in junior high. A classmate dubbed him C.L., after the rapper C.L. Smooth. "That was definitely part of the reason that it stuck," he said.

Name changes also have their drawbacks.

Burkett said that sometimes when he is busy on assignment, local viewers stop to ask what the initials stand for.

Someone even asked him if the initials stood for "New Jersey." Mr. Burkett, who did grow up in Elizabeth, N.J., said he looked at the person dumbfounded and said, "That's right -- my mother named her son New Jersey."

A. Martinez, actor, musician ("Santa Barbara," "L.A. Law," "Profiler"); "A" stands for Adolph

k.d. lang, musician; "k.d." stands for Kathryn Dawn

B.D. Wong, actor ("Law and Order SVU"); "B.D." stands for Bradley Darryl

F. Lee Bailey Attorney; "F" stands for Francis

G. Gordon Liddy, Watergate conspirator; "G" stands for George

S.E. Hinton, author of young-adult literature; "S.E." stands for Susan Eloise

J.K. Rowling, author of "Harry Potter" series; "J.K." stands for Joanne Kathleen

T.S. Eliot, author; "T.S." stands for Thomas Stearns

e.e. cummings, poet; e.e stands for Edward Estlin

A. Whitney Brown, comedian; "A" stands for Alan

J.R.R. Tolkein, author; "J.R.R." stands for John Ronald Reuel

First Published: February 11, 2008, 5:00 a.m.