Erik Satie

Satie was a pianist but he truly hated being referred to as that. It just sounded too much like "penis" to his sensitive ears.

Instead he preferred,

pianoer or gymnopedist.  

And later, 

phonometrograph or phonometrician.

And then finally,

onomatopoedist

Anything, in fact, but penis. I mean pianist.

Satie even hated being called Satie. He made up other names to call himself. 

Like Virginie Lebeau.  

When his friends would start to call him Virginie he would pretend he didn't know they were talking to him. Don't call me that, he would complain. It sounds too much like vagina.

And so it would go on like this.

Satie was a contrary old git to be sure. He was absurd. In fact, he was an absurdist before any such term even existed. 

He twice entered the Paris Conservatoire and was thrown out a side entrance on the same number of occasions. His teachers considered him merde and would be frustrated by the slow tempo of his play. Satie would often leave the piano entirely after a note to take some tea before, eventually, returning to play the next one. 

This absurdist minimalism was too much even for the musically liberal Paris Conservatoire.

So he joined the army. With predictably disasterous results by all accounts. All we really know is that Satie left "through deceptive means". Knowing Satie, he probably snuck out through a toilet window carrying a dead halibut down his pants.

Turning his back on the Parisian music establishment, Satie set about forming his own church of which he was the only member. He'd become deeply religious but, of course, absurdly so. 

The church he formed was called The Metropolitan Church of Art of the Leading Christ and he immediately promoted himself to Purcer and Master of Chapel.

This role seems to have consisted of producing religious pamphlets which he dispatched to Saint-Saens and other leading composers of the day. Apart from that he dressed in a sack, grew a beard and composed melodies lasting several hours.

Then he inherited some money, ditched his pious ways, and became a dandy about town. Within a few months he was known as "The Velvet Gentleman". 

That's what he called himself anyway. Everyone else just called him an absurd old penis. 

I mean pianist.