MVC TextBox with name specified not binding model on post

Question

This is like MVC 101 here so I feel completely helpless on why this isn't working. I have an extremely basic Model:

public class StockEnrollmentModel
{
    [Required]
    [DisplayName("Employee Name:")]
    public string EmployeeName { get; set; }

}

My view looks like this:

@using (Html.BeginForm("SimulateForm", "HR", FormMethod.Post))
{
<div class="row">
    <div class="col-md-6">
        <div class="form-group">
            @Html.LabelFor(e => e.EmployeeName)
            @Html.TextBox("stock_employee_name", Model.EmployeeName)
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary" value="Submit">Submit</button>
}

The web service I will be posting to requires specific names for the input fields in order to successfully receive the data

As in, the rendered html needs to read:

<input type="stock_employee_name" type="text" /> 

After much googling, I determined I need to use an Html.Text box in order to have control of the name attribute that is generated.

The problem I'm having is that when I submit the form, the model in my controller is completely void of data. Investigating this shows that the form posted to the server with "employee_stock_name=Some Name" rather than "EmployeeName=Some Name"

From my research, this shouldnt be happening, correct?? This exact situation should be the reason you use TextBox instead of TextBoxFor.

What am I missing?

Here is my controller for what its worth:

[HttpPost]
    public RedirectToRouteResult SimulateForm(StockEnrollmentModel model )
    {
        if ( ModelState.IsValid )
        {
            return RedirectToAction("SignForm", "HR", model);
        }
        return RedirectToAction("StockPurchase", model );
    }

UPDATE

The accepted answer below was what I eventually ended up using. There's no real way to easily change the name of the HTML field and maintain the MVC model binding. I ended up changing my property names to match what I needed the name field to read.

Answer 1

The first parameter of the HtmlHelper.TextBox function is the name attribute of the input element created by the function. You're specifying "employee_stock_name" as that parameter (and thus as the name attribute of the input element), so that is what is being sent across the wire.

You should either specify the correct name:

@Html.TextBox("EmployeeName", Model.EmployeeName)

or use HtmlHelper.TextBoxFor to generate it automatically:

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.EmployeeName)