Okay, I will try to explain it as simply as I can.  Officially, the method for determining the common or base name of an actor is to use the credit lookup tool.  Take all your different name variants, plug them into the tool, and whichever has the highest hit count, that is your base name.  From there, all profiles use "credited as" and point back to the base name.  That is the official way to do things.

Now, I personally don't do it that way, but I keep my stuff local.

Here are some issues when submitting a profile change.  You have to cite that the credit lookup tool was used.  Then you have to prove that actor Joe Blow really does equal actor Joseph Blow...because there are a mess of folks out there who will complain.  To top it all off, you have to do it for practically every single profile you change because there is no guarantee that you'll get the same voters every time.  Good luck, it's a thankless task.

I hope this somehow helps.

Edit:  Forgot to mention that the credit lookup tool can be found on the database page of the website at the top.

Thank you.  I will double check the changes I made and verify that the common name is, in fact, the most common variant in the credit lookup tool.  I think it is, so I believe my submission was correct.  If not, I'll make changes and re-submit.  And yes, it is a somewhat thankless job.  I've only been at this for about a week and a half.  So far, I've had all but one of my 25 contributions accepted, and that one I withdrew because somebody else had made a similar entry.  You get a "thanks" here and there in the comments, but the real point is that my database looks better, and the data of our fellow users is improved as well.  That makes the inner geek in me very happy, indeed.

And, for the record, Thanks.  Thanks to all of you for all the hard work you have put into the titles you have entered, and for the editing efforts you have made.  Thanks for the time spent explaining things to folks in the forums.  Thanks for the time that has been spent deciding on standards and working to make the software and the database better.  Thank you for helping make DVD Profiler a really useful tool!