Why can't Sean Combs pick a name and stick with it?

—Courtney, Dumfries, Virginia

The B!tch Replies: Now, now. Stars have pitifully few options when it comes to keeping themselves in the news. They could crank out four movies a year and enjoy all those worshipful Ann Curry moments. But that's work, see.

They can switch out their boyfriends every three weeks--or just pretend to, like in the case of say, I don't know, Jessica Simpson, and enjoy all that Us Weekly ink.

Or they can change their names. A name change always merits at least one story by a frazzled Associated Press reporter and, at minimum, 300 very definitive words by People.

Experts will tell you celebrities change their names for a host of reasons--revamping their image or avoiding some legal tangle, for example. Or perhaps like Prince, who changed his name into a symbol in the early 1990s, they want to expose their music label as a bunch of bloodthirsty slave traders with inky black tar pits where their hearts should be.

Regardless of the motivation, the one constant is a fresh round of exposure from the press. Ergo, when Prince pulled his name stunt, the Philadelphia Inquirer redubbed him Symbol Man. Even the mere introduction of a nickname can unleash a torrent of ink--just ask J.Lo.

Every single time Sean Combs has changed his stage name, at least one major news outlet has made him a tad more famous. It's a strategy that works. And it's certainly easier than climbing into another all-white suit and cavorting in the background of a video while Lil' Kim threatens the camera with her Acrylics of Doom.

Combs' latest name change just happens to be the result of court action and applies only to the U.K.--but no matter. Even congresspeople noticed this time, which probably means even more fame and money for Combs and his diamond-encrusted wonder entourage.

"And even Puff Daddy--I guess he changed his name to 'Puff Diddy,' and then just 'Diddy,' I don't know what that's about," a North Dakota legislator recently said in a speech, "but Sean Combs, 'Puff Daddy,' was having his clothes made in Honduras. Let me say a word for 'Puff Daddy,' 'P. Diddy,' or 'Diddy' or whatever his name might be."

I suspect that lawmaker still isn't invited to the annual White Party, but I digress. A brief history of the names of Sean Combs:

• 1997: Puff Daddy inflates for the first time via a debut rap album.
  
• 2001: Puff Daddy switches to P. Diddy. Some reporters speculate he does it to distance himself from his successful defense against firearms charges in a New York trial that year. Either way, Combs stays famous.
  
• 2002: P. Diddy tells a British tabloid, "I'll change my name as often as I've had lawsuits, and that's a bunch."
  
• 2005: P. Diddy shortens his stage name to Diddy. His ego, however, remains its original size.
  
  2006: Diddy agrees to revert to Sean Combs in England, after a British music producer named Richard "Diddy" Dearlove sued, saying the rap impresario was causing confusion and spurring unfair competition.
  

I bet Dearlove won't be invited to the White Party, either.