“Got a spare £3,000? I’m selling my middle name on eBay”

Two weeks ago, Tab Headquarters received an email that stopped the office in their tracks. A third year business student, by the name of Stuart Levy, was proposing to sell his middle on eBay and asked us to write about it.

We were sceptical, but intrigued. Keen to meet the infamous Stu we took on the challenge and, much to our surprise, the Stuart we met was far from the pretentious moron we had anticipated.

Here, in an exclusive interview, Stuart ‘Question Mark’ Levy reveals his plans and the motivation behind this seemingly bizarre idea.

Hello Stuart. First thing’s first. Can you explain exactly what it is that you are doing?

I thought it would be a funny idea to sell my middle name on eBay. So I’ve put a listing on the site that says Stuart (your company name here) Levy. I don’t have a middle name. I don’t really get the point of middle names so I thought I may as well see what happens. It’s an amusing idea, a social experiment almost. I don’t know whether it will get any attention at all, or if you guys will have to buy it for ten quid or something.

How did you come up with the idea?

I came up with the idea quite a while ago when we were in school. The teacher was having a baby and I said as a joke, “You should sell the name on eBay”, and then had the idea in the back of my head for a while. I was speaking about it to a friend a few weeks ago and he thought it was a really good idea. I thought why not, of course it would make sense to sell my middle name on eBay.

“You only live once: that’s the motto, baby, YOLO” -Drake 2011

Stuart, we enjoy your YOLO mentality. How much do you hope to raise?

This is one of the things I had to think about the most. I don’t really want to sell it off for pennies and get a silly name for it, so I’m starting the bidding at £3,000. An American guy did it ten years ago and he made $8,000. It’s such an unusual idea. For example, people could choose a name like “Stuart Is Gay Levy” for about £5 and it gets stupid.

What do you plan to do with the money?

I hope to travel America. Also, I used to work for a non-league football team who are always strapped for cash, so I would certainly donate some to them.  As well as that, if ever there’s an earthquake I’d have some money in the bank to give.

How kind of you. Have you thought about the consequences of your actions; what name you might end up getting?

I’m hoping that there will be big companies interested, who are big users of social media. Companies that use humour in their advertising; for example, ones that would a pay a kid £3,000 to have their name as his middle name! As a publicity stunt. The only possible downside is that when it comes to getting a job it might look negative, but I would hope that employers would think it’s a funny idea. If they don’t, I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway!

You’ve surprised us, Stu. We thought you were going to be a massive prat but you’ve clearly thought this through. It’s impressive!

Yeah, I’ve been planning it for a while with a friend- he gets 8% of the sale. I actually spoke to my parents about it a few weeks ago when I went home. I don’t think they thought I was serious about it, but as I said, they chose to not give me a middle name. I think it was because my grandparents died at the time, so my middle name would have had to be Walter or Norman to honour those people. I guess they thought no middle name would be better than Walter or Norman.

To conclude, what would you say the main aim of this venture is?

The main aim over the money is to see what happens, like a social experiment. I just hope it goes well!

Anything but Walter or Norman

For all potential buyers/namers the bidding war for the rights to Stuart “Question Mark” Levy has begun.

Bid here!