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 one 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), nor am I Chris Cooper the federal judge, Chris Cooper the political communication professional, Christopher Cooper the former Wall Street Journal reporter, or Chris Cooper the guitar player (I can only play songs that include no more than 3 chords, and none of those can be F—that one hurts).

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 add to the confusion, I always write academic pieces under Christopher A. Cooper, usually write public-facing work as Christopher Cooper, and am most often quoted as Chris Cooper. If I could go back in time, I’d 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.