Peter Schickele's first name is Johann. He never uses it. Even when he was a young child, his parents never had any intention of calling him anything but Peter. Some years ago, when moving and getting a new driver's license, he dropped the first name from the license. Part of the problem with the name Johann is that even if he decided to start using it, at this point nobody would believe that it was his real name.
All of this information comes straight from the composer's mouth. He was in Boston this past weekend for the world premiere of a piece commissioned from him by the concert band I play in ("Metropolitan Wind Serenade", commissioned by the Metropolitan Wind Symphony for its 25th anniversary), and my wife and I were in charge of hospitality -- making sure he got to his hotel OK, taking him out to dinner, and driving him to the local public radio station for an on-air interview. I asked him about his name while we were in the car on the way to or from the radio studio. One thing he was wondering about is how you would have learned that Peter was his middle name, but not have learned what his first name was.
-- Morris M. Keesan -- keesan@world.std.com