Well I always had a problem with my name being so "english" which my mother did on purpose because she wanted me to fit in in America, or my name would have been Hedwig! Could you imagine that for a belly dance name?

A good friend of mine dubbed me Mahina Pua (moon flower) for a Hawaiian name and I just thought why not just adopt Mahina for belly dance too. But everyone already knew me as Elizabeth so that's how I ended up with my "stage" name.

when i first started dancing, i used a stage name because everyone else did then. i danced under inanna, because i kept getting her image in a set of fortune telling stones i was using at the time. (i know, how witchy-poo of me.)

then i got a gig travelling with a nightclub cirkus, and they preferred the name i was doing spoken word under at the time, which is Angie Never. Angie is my real first name, and i just picked Never because i was punk and i liked the way it sounded.

Inanna kind of fell away and Angie Never stuck, and lots of people think that's my real name now. if anyone who knew me when i first started dancing introduces me as Inanna now, i feel kind of silly about it.