My name can get a little confusing—not because it’s hard to spell or pronounce, but because there are so damn many of us.

If you’re looking for the comparative public administration scholar Christopher A. Cooper, you want the political scientist at the University of Ottawa. If you’re looking for the actor Chris Cooper, sadly, I am also not him (although I did like him in Lone Star).

After spending far too much time on Ancestry.com, I can confirm that I am not related to North Carolina’s 75th governor and current U.S. Senate candidate, Roy Cooper.

To make matters worse, I usually write academic pieces under Christopher A. Cooper, public-facing work as Christopher Cooper, and am quoted as Chris Cooper. This is very confusing and if I could go back in time, I’d probably be more consistent. But I’m now firmly ensconced in middle age, and it would be an awkward time for a rebrand.

If you have a problem with any of this, I encourage you to bring it up with my mother and father, who thought pairing one of the most popular first names of the 1970s with a common last name was a good idea, or with 22-year-old me, who thought adding my middle initial to academic work would solve the problem.