In 1993, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol.
Contracts, media coverage, and catalogues struggled to adapt. Systems designed around stable textual identity had no way to represent the change.
He became known as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”
Years later, he reverted to the name Prince.
Across databases, archives, and platforms, his identity became fragmented. Releases appeared under different names. Catalogues became inconsistent. Historical continuity became difficult to reconstruct.
The underlying entity never changed. The person remained the same. The work remained the same.
But systems that relied on unstable identifiers struggled to preserve continuity.
This illustrates a core principle: names are not identity. They are attributes of identity.
Infrastructure must anchor identity to something more stable than names.
Without stable identity, history fragments.