Definition of starred commands with `csname`

I want to define a command, let's call it \commander, for defining starred and non-starred versions of a new command. \commander would be called as follows:

\commander[<options>]{\thenewcommand}

This creates the commands \thenewcommand and \thenewcommand*, with slightly different instructions. (The specific definitions of those commands are of no importance for this question. I've already worked them out.) The way I tried to define \commander depends on a one-argument command called \commandname, which returns the string of the name of a command, but without its backslash. For example:

1. \commandname{\empty} returns the string empty
2. \commandname{\color} returns the string color
3. \commandname{\thenewcommand} returns the string thenewcommand
4. And so forth...

I don't think that there's any problem with \commandname since it has worked perfectly up until my attempt of defining \commander. But just in case, here is its definition:

\newcommand{\commandname}[1]{%  \ifcat\relax\noexpand#1%  \expandafter\expandafter\expandafter%  \@gobble\expandafter\string\fi#1}

(This was poposed by Ashok.)

Any suggestion for improving or simplifying this \commandname is welcome.

\commander is then defined roughly as follows:

\newcommand{\commander}[2][]{%  \expandafter\newcommand{#2}{%    \@ifstar%      \csname star\commandname{#2}\endcsname%      \csname nostar\commandname{#2}\endcsname}%  %  %DEFINE THE #2 COMMAND  \expandafter\newcommand{\csname nostar\commandname{#2}\endcsname}%    {<code for #2>}  %  %DEFINE THE #2* COMMAND  \expandafter\newcommand{\csname star\commandname{#2}\endcsname}%    {<code for #2*>}%}

But whenever I attempt to call \commander, it returns the following error messages:

Command \csname already defined. \commander{\thenewcommand}Extra \endcsname. \commander{\thenewcommand}

I have previously used a similar structure for recursively defining commands, so I suppose the problem is in the simultaneous use of \@ifstar and \csname.

I would strongly prefer that the solution be as TeX primitive as possible because I would like to use it in several projects. In my current project, though, I am using the packages everypage and pgf/tikz. So a solution depending on those packages is also welcome.

Thanks in advance for your help.