Tuesday’s column about the origins of some famous on-air names generated quite a lot of mail from readers wanting to share their own great stories. Here’s a sampling of our favorite feedback from the e-mail inbox.

• Rosemary Young, senior producer, Premiere Radio Networks: “My second air job was at a country station in Pennsylvania where I inherited the name Angel Alexander from the two women who preceded me in the time slot. I was told that the station owner came up with the name by combining the names of two vintage cocktails—Angel Tip and Brandy Alexander. The best part is that all three Angels looked and sounded completely different. There were times when people asked me to autograph a picture of one of the other Angels and didn’t even realize it wasn’t me. I believe there was one more Angel after me, before they finally killed her off.

“The most amusing part of the story is the underlying sentiment—that women in radio at that time were interchangeable. Not to sound like a raging feminist or anything (I think it’s kinda funny now when I think about it), when we had our promotional pictures taken, they had us dress up in vintage Western stuff for those old fashioned sepia-tinted shots. I wanted to do an Annie Oakley-type thing, and they wanted me to dress as a dance hall girl—even being told that I wasn’t showing enough cleavage when the proofs came back. It wasn’t bad enough that my name sounded like a redneck hooker, one of our trucker listeners told me that someone was on the CB using my air name to solicit roadside sex. Ya gotta love radio in the early ’80s.”

• Tony Benken, VP of promotion, Treehouse Records: “When I started at WKJM (Power 95) in Lafayette, Ind., I didn’t want to use my real name ’cause there is only one family named Benken in that town. So, I took Tony and my middle name, Jay, made it ‘TJ,’ ran thru names that ‘rolled off the tongue,’ and TJ Roberts was born. Fast-forward six months, and my ex-girlfriend corners me in a bar and demands to know why I stole her name! I said, ‘You are Tami Roberts, and I am TJ Roberts. I didn’t steal your name!’ She said, ‘My middle name is Jean. I AM TJ Roberts!’ We laughed about it later, but initially she thought it a lame attempt to get back at her.”

• Nikki Landry, afternoons WIAD (Fresh FM) Washington, D.C. (and former KBWF (the Wolf) San Francisco MD/air personality): “When I first started out in radio, it was 1996 [and I was] a part timer at a country station in Wichita, Kan. (106.5 Hot Country KYQQ). The city is known for [being] the ‘air capitol of the world’ since all the big airplane companies are HQd there. So we had to come up with a name that was ‘local.’ I came up with Olivia Jett! Yep, ‘OJ in the morning,’ or ‘The Big O,’ which didn’t go over very well. You get the idea.

“Then in 1999, I moved to Virginia because I was active duty Air Force and I did part time radio at a hot AC station (B101.5) in Fredericksburg. I needed a hip, cool name … hence, ‘Nikki.’ Then I needed a last name, so while stationed at the Pentagon I went down our recall roster and found a Colonel whose last name seemed to fit. It was Colonel Mike Landry. I called him to ask if I could use his last name [and explained] that I was a DJ on the air and he said ‘Sure! That’s amazing my dad has been a DJ in Atlanta for 40 years.’ I knew then I was destined to do what I do.”

• Joel Raab, Joel Raab Associates: “I have a client/owner who used to go on the air sometimes as ‘Les Johnson.’ No kidding.”

• Radio veteran Al Brock: “I got the name Al Brock in 1973 when I went to work for a radio station in Florida. The PD told me there were three names left on the jingle reel. The names were ‘Captain Midnight,’ which wouldn’t have worked since I was doing middays, Paxton Quigley, which I couldn’t go around admitting was my name, or Al Brock. I picked the most sane and sensible of the three and have been known as Al Brock ever since. Well, almost! I used the name Dave St. John at one station in the Harrisburg Pa., market back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and wanted to switch permanently. [But] I realized I was too well known as Al [and] that a switch to ‘Dave’ was probably too confusing, so I switched back to Al and have been Al ever since. The interesting part is that my real first name is David. I have used several names in my radio career, including stupid ones like Billy Blue, Randy Robbins, Beaver Cleaver, Larry (yes Larry) Brock, but have been Al Brock the longest.”

• Chuck Geiger, managing editor, Full Throttle Country: “When I went to work for KPLX Dallas in ’94 doing swing, I couldn’t use my real name, Chuck Geiger, due to the contract with my former station. My wife said ‘Become Uncle Buck.’ I used the name and it stuck. Listeners caught on to it. When I returned to country in ’97 in Allentown, I used it again and it caught on once more, [and] in Wichita, Fresno and Yuma. And with God’s amazing grace, soon I might get to use it again.”

• “Dr. Bruce” Nelson Stratton, PD/mornings KFTX Corpus Christi, Texas: “When I was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Va., in the early ’60s, I did a brief (two month) Saturday night stint at R&B station WOL in Washington D.C., under the name of ‘Buster Hyman’ because I knew I could get away with it. When leaving WEER in Warrenton Va., for my first PD gig at WDDT in Greenville Miss., I needed a cool top 40 name and found ‘Phil Harmonic’ on the back of a classical album and became [him]. When I left Monroe La., to take the PD job at WPLO in Atlanta in about 1968, the GM told me 10 minutes before I went on the air ‘You’re NOT going to use that “sill-ass” name on WPLO,’ and I re-took my given first and middle name, Bruce Nelson.”

As for the “Doctor” part of his name, Stratton recalls: “In about ’74 I received an ‘honorary doctorate’ degree from the Universal Life Church and hung it on my wall in my office for fun. Hal McLain, who was on 12-3 p.m. before my PM drive [shift], started saying ‘Dr. Bruce is next,’ and it stuck.”

• Vinny Marino, writer/producer, “The Donny Osmond Radio Show”: “Everyone asks why I picked Vinny Marino as my air name. That IS my real name. No one ever believes me. Sending out T&Rs to radio stations in the South and Midwest was interesting. Some thought it would be great to have a jock with an ‘EYE-talian’ name, while others said no BECAUSE of it. But, it’s the name I was born with.”

• Mark Holland, VP, corporate development, JAM Creative Productions, Dallas: “A bit more history on ‘Justin Case.’ [The name] was used by the late Julian Breen, when he was assistant PD of WABC under Rick Sklar from 1968-71. During an AFTRA strike, Julian had to man the airwaves and did several shifts as ‘Justin Case’.”

• Greg Sax, Show Dog-Universal Music: “I used to go by ‘Great Sex’ on the air, but after you get let go a few times you conform to the ‘money in your bank’ route.”

If you missed Tuesday’s story on this topic, you can read it right here.