Prince

I think I've pointed it out here before, but I'll point it out again.

The whole reason that Prince changed his name to that symbol was because he wanted to leave his record label (for, IMO, valid reasons), but the label wouldn't allow him to use the name Prince. He felt very angry about that, since Prince is his given name (Prince Rogers Nelson). (Remember when he shaved the word ``slave'' into his beard? It was related to this.)

In order to leave them, he agreed not to use the name. He instead used an unpronounceable symbol. Since it is unpronounceable, people were still forced to refer to him as Prince, even if subjectively. Once his contract was up with the old record company and he was legally able to use the name Prince again, he changed back, with no one ever having called him anything else, not diluting his ``brand name'', and getting some free publicity on top of it.

IMO, brilliant.