‘Is this the real Chris Evans? Who are we talking to here?’ laughs Rio Ferdinand.
That’s right, the former England defender is taking the piss out of my name.
It might be a cheap shot, but in fairness to Rio, it’s 10 minutes into our interview for FourFourTwo before he brings up the elephant in the room. Normally, it comes within seconds of the introduction.
You see, being called Chris Evans normally attracts a steady stream of jibes about whether I’m the ginger-haired radio DJ and presenter. So while Rio wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to make the link, he currently holds the crown of the most high-profile person to do so.
Of course, I laughed off Ferdinand’s gag in the good nature it was intended, before exclaiming that I get it all the time. And that’s true, I do.
I was born in 1987, so at the same time I was becoming more aware of the world around me as a child, the world was becoming more aware of the other Chris Evans.
His emergence came too late for my parents to give me a different name. I’d never considered it was a big deal for them (why would it be?) until my mum once apologised for famous name-ing me.
I don’t remember when I first knew I’d got a more famous name twin for that very reason. He’s just always been there.
Back in pre-Covid times when I came into contact with more people day-to-day, barely a fortnight would go by without a comment, snigger or double-take whenever I told somebody my name.
The only consolation is that, in my case, Chris Evans’s eclectic career means the quips refresh through the years.
While I’ve recently grown used to people telling me they’d been listening to ‘my’ radio show, there were times when ‘How’s Billie?’ was the order of the day in reference to my namesake’s marriage to Billie Piper in the early 2000s.
Hair colour is another favourite (I’ve got brown hair), as are comments about our comparative bank balances (apparently, I don’t have the air of a millionaire).
At times, there are more niche references. Such as when a security guard at my uni’s library reminded me ‘Don’t forget your toothbrush!’ as I checked in for a late-night session ahead of a looming deadline.
He wasn’t concerned about my oral hygiene though – at least, I don’t think he was – but instead uttering the catchphrase from the TV show of the same name, which Evans hosted in the mid-90s.
I was too young to ever have watched it, but it says a lot about my accumulated knowledge of Evans’s career, despite never considering myself a fan, that I understood what the security guard was getting at.
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In some ways, I’m sure it has helped me though. People are much less likely to forget my name and it’s given me the chance to perfect the fake laugh when someone makes a joke I’ve heard dozens of times before.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me especially, it’s just hard to muster the enthusiasm for a line I’m so familiar with.
As a journalist, I’m sure seeing Chris Evans in the byline can make people double-take or means my email stands out a bit more. To prove that point, I was once asked by a former international football manager’s agent to confirm I wasn’t ‘theChris Evans’ before agreeing to do an interview with me.
I also helped to arrange a test day at a race track for a supermarket’s delivery drivers in a previous job and was later told one of the participants only agreed to take part because he thought it was something to do with Top Gear after seeing my name on the email invite.
I’m not sure the name is a career-specific benefit, though. When I was at college, I worked a Sunday job at Homebase alongside a guy called Jonathan Ross.
We were like a comedy double act and could entertain customers by simply standing next to each other, if people were observant enough to read our name badges. At least Jonny had the option to shorten his name.
Being more than 20 years Evans’s junior, I figured there was a time limit on how long the comparisons would last. Or at least it would eventually come to a time when it was only the older generation to whom the name Chris Evans would mean anything.
It promised to be a new era for me. One of relative anonymity. A time when I no longer felt people thought I was making my name up when I told them.
So imagine my bewilderment when I discovered there was a new Chris Evans on the block.
And this time, he was a Hollywood actor who’d go on to feature in some of the biggest box-office smashes across the globe. Cue the start of plenty of cracks about Captain America and being tagged in fan appreciation threads on Twitter.
It had started all over again. I don’t think I’ll ever escape…
Black and white photo of Chris by Nick Dawe
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