Celebrity Real Names
You get the name on the poster and four birth certificates. All four belong to real people who changed their names, working in the same field and born around the same time, so there is nothing to rule out on sound alone. 153 of them, drawn in a different order every round.
Why nobody famous keeps the name they were given
Why do so many famous people change their names?
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For four reasons, and the mix has shifted over time. Until the 1960s the studio decided, usually to file down anything that sounded foreign: Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis and Issur Danielovitch became Kirk Douglas. Then there is the union rule that stops two performers using one name. Then plain confusion, which is why David Jones became David Bowie with Davy Jones already in the Monkees. And then the ones who wanted a character rather than a person, which covers most of the music list.
Is there really a rule against two actors having the same name?
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Yes. No two members of the American actors union may work under the same professional name, first come first served. It is why Emily Stone is Emma Stone, why Michael Douglas is Michael Keaton, and why Julie Anne Smith went through two rejected versions before arriving at Julianne Moore. Diane Hall took her mother's maiden name for the same reason and became Diane Keaton, which is where the title of Annie Hall came from.
Which famous names are the real ones?
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More than people expect. Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Chuck Berry, Bruce Springsteen, Ariana Grande and Dwayne Johnson were all born with the names on the poster. Some are so unlikely that the assumption runs the other way, which is why this list only includes people who genuinely changed something, rather than anyone with a name that sounds invented.
Did Prince really change his name to a symbol?
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He was born Prince Rogers Nelson, which is why the quiz never asks for him. In 1993, in a fight with his record label over who owned his work, he replaced his name with an unpronounceable symbol, and the press settled on the Artist Formerly Known as Prince because there was nothing to say out loud. He took the name back in 2000 when the contract ran out.
Do stage names get changed legally, or only used?
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Both. Elton John made Reginald Dwight legal in 1972 and added Hercules while he was there. Cher registered the single name in 1978. Michael Caine gave in decades later because his passport did not match his ticket. Lew Alcindor made Kareem Abdul-Jabbar legal in 1971, three years after he converted to Islam. Martin Sheen never filed anything, still signs Ramon Estevez, and has said he regrets not using it professionally.
Which names were chosen by the studios rather than the actors?
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Most of the pre-1960 screen entries. Marion Morrison was renamed John Wayne in a meeting he was not in. MGM ran a magazine competition to name Lucille LeSueur and landed on Joan Crawford, which she said sounded like crawfish. Columbia gave Margarita Cansino a new surname, red hair and a raised hairline by electrolysis, and released her as Rita Hayworth. The agent Henry Willson built a whole roster of names in that style, of which Rock Hudson is the one people remember.
How do modern performers pick a name?
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Less committee, more accident. Post Malone and Childish Gambino both came out of name generators. Halsey is an anagram of Ashley and a subway stop. Avicii added a second i because the username he wanted was taken, and The Weeknd dropped an e because another band held the spelling. The one constant across a century is that almost nobody chooses the name they end up famous under with any idea it will last.
Why the name changed in the first place
The quiz asks what someone was called before. The reason is usually more specific than wanting a better name, and often nothing to do with the person at all. These 13 of the 153 cover the four reasons that come up again and again, starting with the one that is pure paperwork.
Somebody else already had it
American actors cannot register a name another member is working under. Three of the best-known names on the list exist because of a directory rule, not a decision about image.
- Emma Stone was Emily Jean Stone
- Emily Stone was already taken at the actors union, so she went with the name people called her at home anyway.
- Michael Keaton was Michael John Douglas
- There was already a working actor called Michael Douglas, and a Michael Keaton in the union directory would at least be his own.
- Diane Keaton was Diane Hall
- Diane Hall was taken at the actors union, so she used her mother's maiden name. The character Annie Hall was named back the other way.
Changed because other people could not say it
Sometimes the family did it a generation early, sometimes a station manager did it minutes before a shift, and in one case casting directors kept putting the phone down.
- Larry King was Lawrence Harvey Zeiger
- Minutes before his first radio shift the station manager said Zeiger was too hard to say, saw an ad in the open newspaper for King's Wholesale Liquor, and that was that.
- Helen Mirren was Helen Lydia Mironoff
- Her father, a Russian emigre living in London, anglicised the family name in the 1950s.
- Enya was Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin
- Enya is roughly how Eithne sounds in Irish, spelled so the rest of the world would get it right.
- Martin Sheen was Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez
- Taken from the broadcaster Fulton J. Sheen when casting directors kept hanging up on the real one. He never changed it legally and has said he regrets using it at all. His son Emilio kept Estevez.
Picked by accident
A jumper, a song a producer would not stop texting about, a cinema marquee seen from a phone box, a typesetter dropping a letter, and a dead mouse in a computer.
- Sting was Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner
- From a black and yellow striped jumper he wore in a jazz band, which made him look like a wasp.
- Lady Gaga was Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
- From Queen's Radio Ga Ga, which a producer kept texting her about until it became what everyone called her.
- Michael Caine was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite
- He needed a name from a phone box and looked up at a cinema showing The Caine Mutiny. He made it legal decades later, to stop airport security holding him up over the mismatch.
Made it legal, eventually
Most performers never bother. These four went to the trouble, and the gap between using a name and owning it runs to decades in places.
- Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jeane Mortenson
- Baptised Baker. Monroe was her mother's maiden name and Marilyn came from the stage star Marilyn Miller. She only made it legal in 1956, ten years after she started using it.
- Mr. T was Laurence Tureaud
- He changed it legally so that anyone addressing him would have to start with Mister.
- Meat Loaf was Marvin Lee Aday
- A childhood nickname that stuck. He disliked Marvin enough to change that half legally, to Michael.