Here's one that (to my knowledge) did not make it out of Canada.  The Pumps formed in 1978 in Winnipeg and released one album in 1980 before changing their name to Orphan, and released 2 more albums, one in 1983 and another in 1985.  While they never had any national hit singles in Canada, the first Pumps and Orphan albums both charted and several of their singles got a fair amount of radio play

Their 1983 single Miracle was on the radio often and to this day, still sounds fantastic!  If I had to make a Top 10 of songs I couldn't live without, it would be in there!


The Pumps - Success (1980)
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Orphan - Miracle (1983)
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There was Prince who became a symbol:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/ae/bc/f5aebc219c9a4bab87f4bbf26d049b05.jpg

He was then known as "The artist formally known as Prince." And finally going back to Prince.


Cat

There was Prince who became a symbol:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/ae/bc/f5aebc219c9a4bab87f4bbf26d049b05.jpg

He was then known as "The artist formally known as Prince." And finally going back to Prince.


Cat


Prince himself didn't come up with or refer to himself as "The artist formerly known as Prince." That was come up with by people because there is no verbalization for a visual symbol.

Prince himself didn't come up with or refer to himself as "The artist formerly known as Prince." That was come up with by people because there is no verbalization for a visual symbol.



But he was still known as... But you are right, he did not dub himself that.


Cat

There was Prince who became a symbol:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/ae/bc/f5aebc219c9a4bab87f4bbf26d049b05.jpg

He was then known as "The artist formally known as Prince." And finally going back to Prince.


Cat


But he was still known as... But you are right, he did not dub himself that.


Cat

I remember that. Eventually he went back to simply being called Prince.

...and speaking of solo artists who went by different monikers, there's John Mellencamp.

He started recording as Johnny Cougar, then shortened the first name to John; then later in the 1980s he used John Cougar Mellencamp; then by the 1990s he was simply using his first and last name, John Mellencamp. (Personally, I always refer to him that way.)

Prince himself didn't come up with or refer to himself as "The artist formerly known as Prince." That was come up with by people because there is no verbalization for a visual symbol.


So no one knew what that symbol was called?

So no one knew what that symbol was called?


Correct. if the symbol had a name, Prince wasn't telling. For a while, some hard core Prince fans thought it might be "Victor", but he put the kibosh on that.

Prince Courts Even More Name Confusion With 'The Sacrifice of Victor'

https://diffuser.fm/prince-the-sacrifice-of-victor/

Change was stirring for Prince in October 1992 when he released an album titled with an unpronounceable symbol. The record became known as the Love Symbol Album, and before long Prince became known by a variety of names.

The record, Prince's 14th overall and the second credited to Prince and the New Power Generation, was rife with religious and biblical allusions, while also offering a loose account of his life, however fictionalized. But when confusion soon abounded about Prince's changing identity, the public grasped whatever they could, and suddenly the album seemed to blur the lines between fact and fiction a bit too well.

The Love Symbol Album begins with "My Name Is Prince," on which he sings "In the beginning God made the sea / But on the seventh day he made me." But eight months before he changed his name to the symbol that graced the record — what appeared to be intertwined designations for male and female — he announces on the final track, "The Sacrifice of the Victor," that "When I reach my destination / My name will be Victor."

Seems simple enough, right? The album represented his metamorphosis. For the media and the public, who were looking for a way to discuss the man and his music, they assigned him a number of identifiers. They resorted to The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and eventually, The Artist. But for a time, they also tried out "Victor." Some even went so far as to break down the symbol, showing how its pieces can be reconfigured to form the letters V-I-C-T-O-R. But while the song, an upbeat track influenced, by lyrically and musically by gospel, seems to follow an exaggerated account of Prince's life — including his history with seizures, child abuse, courting former wife Mayte and more — and sacrifices, it's more likely that he intended the phase as yet another allusion: this time to a play on the proverb "to the victor go the spoils." When listeners found such identifications book-ending the record, however, they assigned it greater, literal meaning.

But they were wrong. On his Act II tour, which began shortly after he changed his name, he regularly proclaimed, "My name ain't Prince, and it damn well ain't Victor," a phrase captured in London for the video The Sacrifice of the Victor, which featured a condensed version of an aftershow — although he doesn't perform the song.

Seven years later, Prince very simply explained his name change to Larry King: He was finding religion. "I wanted to move to a new plateau in my life and one of the ways in which I did that was to change my name, to sort of divorce me from the past," but he wasn't telling the whole story. At the time, Prince had also wanted out of his contract with Warner Bros. He not only changed his name, but also began performing with the word "slave" written on his cheek, before returning to his original moniker when he left the label.

Aly & AJ - a duo of sisters (Alyson and Amanda Joy Michalka) that started out as a teen pop act in the mid-2000s - changed their band name to 78violet (read as "seventy-eight violet"; not sure of the meaning behind it) in 2009 for the purpose of moving to a new record label. Six years later, in 2015, they decided to revert to their original name.

Here's an obvious one I should have thought of right away.

Tyrannosaurus Rex changed their name to T. Rex to make it easier for all concerned. Also, The Strawberry Hill Boys became The Strawbs as their sound changed and evolved.

Tom Cochrane is a singer from Manitoba who is best known for his 1991 hit Life Is A Highway.  Prior to that song, he was the lead singer for the band Red Rider.  From 1979-1984, they released 4 albums and 9 singles with varying degrees of success in Canada and on the US Rock chart (plus 2 on the US Hot 100).  Their highest charting single on the US Hot 100 was White Hot which peaked at #48 in 1980

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In 1986, the band changed their name to Tom Cochrane and Red Rider and released 2 more studio albums (plus 1 live album) and a further 11 singles, 4 of which charted on the US Rock chart, the biggest of which was Big League in 1988 which peaked at #4

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While Tom Cochrane still remains known in the US as a one hit wonder for Life As A Highway, he did have other hits with Red Rider, and here in Canada, it's since been basically lumped in all as one.  Red Rider is Tom Cochrane more or less and he is officially considered a Legend