Celebrities changing their name to something less 'foreign sounding'

[800caloriesofwine]

I'm at that point in lockdown where I'm scrolling through lists of stage names on RankerSo many celebrities have changed their surnames to anglicised ones, so many! I mean there's the obvious like Freddie Mercury and Martin/Charlie Sheen, but so many others, why?
Would we really not have gone to see a film with Winona Horowitz in? Or Margarita Cansino? Or Lea Sarfati?
Why do some actors stick to their actual names and some change theirs? The trouble is by taking a Hebrew name and replacing it with something Anglicised is obvious.

Fun to find out Shania Twain is actually called Eileen though

I have a very short and simple name - it's the English spelling of an old Irish name. It's pronounced exactly as it is spelt. Despite that it is constantly mispronounced and spelled incorrectly in the UK and to a lesser extent the USA. I am asked what the English for it is, i receive official letters and emails that butcher it, people seem to use spell check and not check themselves. I can absolutely understand why people choose generic, short, more familiar names

They are often advised to have a name change,as it is supposed to make them more memorable, for their chosen professions.

Going back a bit, but Pricilla White, was advised to change her name to Cilla Black, which is shorter and does sound better for some reason, if you are a singer etc.

Some people changed their names after the war because they wanted to forget the country they came from, my MIL was Russian and came to Britain aged 5 after being set free from the German camps, the family just wanted to be British.

This, although I think privilege also plays a part. My great grandmother fled Russia, arrived in Ireland and changed her name to the closest English equivalent. She then went on to give all her children very solid easy to pronounce names to the disgust of her Irish MiL. Things like Thomas, William, Helen etc. She never forgot where she came from though, she taught my grandfather Russian, he spoke it fluently and worked as a Russian teacher until he died (much too young).

On the other hand at a similar point in time, dh's great grandmother, wife of an English diplomat gave all her daughters very European names, including giving dh's grandmother a Russian name. They didn't need to fit in, in the same way that my refugee great grandmother did.

Boris Johnson’s first name is actually Alexander.

Queen Victoria was Alexandrina.

Lulu is called Marie.

I think Cilla Black waS originally going to be called Cilla White, but someone got her stage name wrong,

It happens the other way too with white celebrities changing their names to seem more exotic like Lana del ray

OP, you obviously don’t have a foreign last name. I do. It’s a pain. I haven’t changed my name when I married, but for day to day stuff I often use my husband’s last name. It saves a lot of frustration and time.

@Yurona no I don't, I often think that if I had taken my dad's last name (Flores) I would have had a slightly different life experience, especially in the English rural town I grew up in!

I actually happen to know a mid-range celebrity (not British) quite closely, and her rationale for using a stage name is that people processing her personal data off-screen do not immediately connect it to her. She has had recurrent miscarriages, and long and painful fertility treatment - obviously not too keen for some new trainee receptionist at her doctor's to get suddenly excited about the discovery and sell the story to tabloids.

Better opportunities

Helps to build a stage persona/identity

Less discrimination

Personal dislike of the name

Pretty Certain Tony Curtis wouldn't have found the same level of fame, if he'd have gone by his real name: Bernard Shwartz.

'Tony Curtis' was thought to be much more appealing to an anti Jewish audience. And to explain away his semitic appearance it was generally accepted that he was 'Italian'.

James Rodriguez changed his to James Roday because there was already a Jamed Rodriguez registered; so he didnt do it to sound more American.

*That’s quite bizarre isn’t it? If my husband had a stage name then I’d be happy for that to be his stage name but for us as a family unit to share his real name with his family!

Nowt so queer grin*

She had her father's real name not his stagename so I guess she must have had issues with that.

It's the way for ethnic minorities to gel in, to suit the crowd. My name is very simple to pronounce I have never had anyone making a mistake in pronouncing it, but one day i looked at my profile on the company HR page and it was shortened on the "LIKES TO BE CALLED AS" section. Why, i was never asked, I never approved of it. my manager thought that's easier to pronounce so just put it there without asking me. I don't mind it but why was it done in the first place... because it suits most of them.

Helen Mirren ( Ilyena Lydia Mironoff), George Michael (Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou), Ben Kingsley (Krishna Pandit Bhanji) changed their names because they didn't think their British audience could handle it. So did a number of other UK actors who changed their names. It's not a US vs. UK thing.

Ilyena is such a beautiful name.

I have a not English first name (my Mum was not English) that people often find difficult to pronounce and get wrong - and then keep getting wrong when I have said how you do say it. I find that quite upsetting, as the way it is often pronounced turns it into something horrible. It’s too late really but if I could change my first name I would. It works in my Mum’s country but not here - I like it in that language, but not how it is butchered here.

When I was married I took on my husband’s also not from here surname for a while, but then reverted back to my own, and one of the reasons was that I didn’t want to lose all of my English identity by having a first name from one country and a surname from another, neither being the UK. Even though my English maiden name is unusual and I always have to tell people how that’s spelled as well .

But identity matters a lot to me as before coming “back” to the UK I grew up in a third country - felt like a foreigner there, was definitely treated like a foreigner in my Mum’s country due to how I speak that language, and while English being my mother tongue helped when we visited my grandparents in England, I was also seen as an outsider due to living somewhere else.

I have now lived in London for 24 years, it is very much my home, and I feel like I belong.

My dc have easy names that you can say in different languages but that work here as well. I wish my parents had given me a name like that too.