Miles Kington: Where there's a William, you need a third way

'If you are called William Smith, a third name tends to relieve the tedium and make up for the Smith bit'

A couple of miles from my home is a small cottage bearing a plaque that tells us that here lived William Smith, the father of British geology. Smith is the man who worked out the correlation of fossils and rock strata and made the first proper geological map of Britain, showing how the same deposits reappeared all over the country. (Indeed, my friend Tim, who lives in nearby Batheaston, says that Smith used his knowledge to predict that there would be coal found under his very village. No coal was ever found, but the place where drilling was done is still called Coalpit Lane. Good job that the Trades Descriptions Act doesn't cover road names...)

Gradually, through exhibitions in Bath, newspaper articles and a recent biography from Simon Winchester, I have pieced together the basic facts of Smith's life, though he is a much forgotten man and far too obscure ever to figure in a TV quiz show, which is the ultimate test of fame. And why is he not famous? Because of his name. If you are called William Smith, you have two of the commonest names in the English-speaking world and you have to work twice as hard to become famous. Being the father of British geology is just not enough, I am afraid.

There are William Smiths who have become famous, but never quite under that name, I think. The famous young black actor is not William Smith, but Will Smith. William Henry Smith was a famous newsagent but he preferred to be called WH Smith, using initials rather than the dreaded William. Look in the biographical dictionaries, and you will find plenty of William Smiths, but none of them household names – not William Smith the lexicographer, not Sir William Smith, the founder of the Boys' Brigade, not William Robertson Smith the Scottish theologian and orientalist...

Talking of William Robertson Smith, it's interesting how, if you are called William Smith, a third name does tend to relieve the tedium and increase the chances of memorability. I have in front of me a copy of Who's Who 1999, which lists six living people called Smith, William, but in the cases of no less than four of them we are referred to other names: Smith, Sir William Antony John R.; see Reardon-Smith. Smith, William Austin N; see Hon. Lord Nimmo Smith. Smith, William Peter; see Smith P.W. Smith, Sir William Reginald V; see Verdon-Smith...

Now, I can quite understand why, if you are called William Reginald Verdon Smith, it would be a terrible temptation to add the Verdon to the Smith and become Verdon-Smith, but there are big risks in this flight from being plain William Smith. Invisibility, in his case, because I curiously turned to Verdon-Smith in Who's Who and he is not there under that name. Nobody is there under that name. His entry has been lost. If you look up Bill Reg Verdon Smith in Who's Who 1999, all you will find is "Sir William Reginald V; see Verdon-Smith...". Nothing else.

Jazz being the field I know best, I have been trying to remember if any William Smith ever made it to the top, and the answer is yes but, again, not under that name. The third great alto saxophonist of the 1930s, along with Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges, was christened William Smith but he called himself Willie Smith. Dave Brubeck's first sparring partner, before Paul Desmond, was the clarinettist Bill Smith. He later turned to classical composition – not as William Smith, oh no, but as William O Smith. One of the greatest of Fats Waller's contemporaries on the piano was Willie "the Lion" Smith, who was never known as Willie Smith, only as Willie the Lion.

Willie the Lion's Christian names, incidentally, were "William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff", which shows the anxiety of Smith parents to give their offspring an unusual name to make up for the Smith bit. In jazz annals you find a Clarence Smith, a Hezekiah Smith and a Cladys Smith, though they became respectively "Pine Top" Smith, "Stuff" Smith and "Jabbo" Smith.

But the man I always felt sorriest for was a distant cousin of mine, the fine jazz pianist Pat Smythe. For a start, he had the same name as a famous female showjumper. For another thing, everyone thought his name was pronounced the same as hers, to rhyme with "lithe". But it wasn't. His name was pronounced "Smith" and all his family still pronounce it "Smith". This must be the ultimate Smith irony – to have a name pronounced "Smith", to want to be called "Smith" and to fail utterly in the attempt.