Many of your favorite celebrities weren’t born with the names you have come to know them by. For a variety of reasons, they have taken on stage names, middle names as first names, and different last names. Katy Perry was born Katy Hudson, but she changed her name because she felt it sounded too similar to actress Kate Hudson. Demi Moore was born Demetria Guynes, but shortened her name. Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko to parents who had immigrated from Russia. In order to have a name that she felt would fit better in Hollywood, she shortened her first name and changed her last name. Tina Fey’s real name is Elizabeth Stamatina Fey. She shortened her middle name and adopted it as her stage name.
Nobody knows who Caryn Johnson is, but Whoopi Goldberg is a household name. Goldberg chose Whoopi as her first name due to her farting abilities, and she ended up with Goldberg because her mom thought that having a Jewish-sounding last name would help with her career. Hulk Hogan was born Terry Jean Bollette, but clearly that name doesn’t sound quite as intimidating as Hulk. Frederick Austerlitz took on a more Americanized version of his name, and became who we now know as Fred Astaire. Bruno Mars? He was born Peter Gene Hernandez. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, huh?
Before Marilyn Monroe was a sex symbol in Hollywood, she was little Norma Jean Mortensen, who got picked on in school. Natalie Portman simplified her name by switching out the last name she was born with, Herschlag, to her grandmother’s maiden name. Dezi Arnas’s name is catchy and easy to say, but his birth name wasn’t quite so simple. He was born Desiderio Albert Arnaz y De Acha III. Eileen Regina Edwards became a country icon in the late 1990s and early 2000s as Shania Twain. Shania is quite a bit catchier than Eileen, while Twain is the last name of the man her mother married when she was young.