It's time for me to set the record straight.

My name is pronounced thus: Door-en. It rhymes with doormen, or "It's rainin', it's pourin'."

The reason I bring this up is that I've been called "Duran" or "Duran Duran" since I've been old enough to sing "Hungry Like the Wolf."

It's not that it bothers me when people call me that. In fact, in many cases, it's rather endearing.

"Duran" rolls off the tongue a bit better than "Doran," and it's always fun to walk into a room to the chorus of "Dur-aaaan Dur-aaaan." Because I've been called it for so long, it's pretty much a part of me.

But in the name of journalism and getting facts straight and all that, I'm taking my stand now.

People I've known for months and even years occasionally get confused when I introduce myself to others.

"It's Doran? I thought it was Duran," they say. Frankly, it's a bit disheartening that people don't even know how to say my name.

It's only two syllables, and it has a nice balance of consonants and vowels. It's not much different from mispronouncing "paper" or "soda" or something.

Even some of my best friends pronounce it "Duran." It doesn't bother me, really, but it's just sort of weird.

I have no connection with legendary boxing middleweight Roberto Duran, and I have never been in a synth-pop band (though I wouldn't rule it out).

It's just that I'm so used to it that it's jarring when my friends call me "Kevin."

But the reason I bring this up is that despite my current stand against Duran Duran, I finally cracked last week and threw down some bones for one of their albums.

It was the perfect storm: I was spending a day and a night walking around in New York City before going to a concert to see The Shins (which was awesome, by the way). My travel companion and I had some time to kill before the show that night.

We stopped in a bunch of clothing stores that I had little to no interest

in before I finally got my chance to meander the aisles of the Virgin Megastore.

After scouring the store and realizing I had very little money to spend on its excellent music collection, I stumbled upon the bargain rack.

The bargain rack in any retail music store is amazing. It's like a treasure hunt, and in a store as big as that, the selection was the best I'd ever seen.

And all of a sudden, there it was. And it was a mere $8.

Instances like these are the reason we still need record stores. While downloading a Duran Duran album is pathetic and weird, buying a Duran Duran CD is kitschy and ironic.

For a long time, I thought I'd never buy a Duran Duran CD. But then, I discovered that in the shelves and shelves of my father's old record collection, even he owned a Duran Duran album.

He told me he felt obligated because of the whole last name thing, but I have my doubts. Who could resist the boyish good looks of Simon Le Bon and the dulcet tones of his voice?

Listening to the CD on the car ride back to Penn State, I felt oddly connected to the band.

It wasn't a "this music was made for me and only me" connection, or even a "this music is pretty good" connection.

For some reason, I felt like I should have been far more familiar with the band, if only because of my mispronounced last name.

On top of that, the band has had 11 Top Ten hits in the U.S. Until last week, I'd only been familiar with one of them.

Needless to say, the album is terribly dated. But I don't mind. I'm sure that if I'd been alive at Duran Duran's height of popularity, I'd have been a huge fan, regardless of my name. I mean, I enjoy The Killers, and that band is just a big rip-off of Duran Duran.

Listening to it now, it's on par with putting in my dad's old Boz Scaggs records. Yeah, there's a reason it was popular back then. You might be able to pull it off if you're having an '80s party, but if you're listening to it for pleasure, you're wasting time that could be spent on more timeless stuff.

On the other hand, "Rio" has one of the craziest rhythms I've ever heard, and its intensity is off the charts.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like me.