We are all born with plenty of things that we did not get any say or choice in, but our names are one thing that we can actually change without totally altering our appearance. But the average person changing a name might not be super important at least legally. Most people who do not like their names just start to go by a different nickname and suffer through the rest. But if your name has a huge link to your professional career in the way that it does for celebrities, changing it for good is a pretty often choice. Here are 15 celebrities who hate (or did hate) their name. Some of them changed their names to something better, some of them changed their name professionally and still do not like their name, and some of them just are not thrilled about the nicknames that their fans have given them.
15 Judy Garland
Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm and started out performing with her sisters, but everyone laughed when they were announced as "The Gumm Sisters." (Things must have been more mellow back then, it is hard to imagine that getting a laugh these days.) But we do have to admit that her original name is a little lame and doesn't scream Hollywood. One veteran of vaudeville named George Jessel suggested that they change their names. Frances chose the name Judy after a Hoagy Carmichael song. The origin of the last name is not totally known, but one story goes that George called the sisters "prettier than a garland of flowers." Another story is that they chose the name to flatter a critic named Robert Garland, or that they chose it based on the character Lily Garland in the movie Twentieth Century. Either way change their names they did, and Judy went by Judy Garland from there on out.
14 Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson doesn't hate her real name, but she does hate her media-given nickname ScarJo. The actress has spoken out against the nickname multiple times. In 2012 she said, "People can't actually say the whole name? It's just bizarre... so Cate Blanchett is not, like, 'CaBla'? Why is that? Why do I have to get stuck with [ScarJo]?" And then again in another interview, she said "I associate that name with, like, pop stars. It sounds tacky. It’s lazy and flippant. And there’s something kind of violent about it. There’s something insulting about it.” Yikes! Sounds like she would prefer to be called by her full name, thank you very much. She has also talked about her dislike of being stuck at a certain age to her fans: When I made Lost in Translation, I was 17...I think I’ve been ‘in my early twenties’ for, like, over a decade! That’s a normal side effect of being a young actor. You’re captured in a certain time of your life, and it’s hard for people to move past that.”
13 Carmen Electra
Carmen Electra was born Tara Leigh Patrick, and whether or not she felt good about that fact or not, it was actually Prince himself who decided that she should change it. Carmen was out one night as a teenager in Los Angeles when a woman came up to her and said that Prince wanted her to audition for a girl group that he was producing. When he finally contacted her said "I think you should be your own artist and not back up anyone else. I’m going to write you a song, and if you like it, you can record it.” The song was called "Carmen on Top" and Prince convinced her that she wasn't a Tara, that she was more of a Carmen. She went with it and had a short-lived singing career as under contract with Prince's Paisley Park Records. After that ended she moved onto posing in Playboy and acting in and hosting TV shows.
12 Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice is another celebrity that doesn't like their nickname, but in this case, he still uses it professionally. No word on whether he likes his real name Robert Matthew Van Winkle. Vanilla Ice said that "Back when I was 13 or 14 I used to spin on my head on cardboard and break dance, and I had a bunch of black friends and they just labeled me Vanilla Ice." He has said that he just hates it, despite sticking with it for so many years. The name "Vanilla" started when he was 13, and then when he started rapping for a while his friends called him "Vanilla MC." The "Ice" part came around from a breakdancing move that he did with that name. He started dancing in a breakdance group with that name and then started a breakdancing troupe called The Vanilla Ice Posse. He wrote the song "Ice Ice Baby" when he was only 16, so his career took off pretty quickly, to begin with.
11 Dita Von Teese
Dita Von Teese was born Heather Renee Sweet but she had no intentions of holding onto that. (She also used to be a very different looking blonde.) She started to call herself Dita after the German silent film actress Dita Parlo and wanted to skip the last name entirely. However she was forced to use a last name when she modeled for Playboy, and since she didn't want to go by Dita Sweet she randomly chose a name out of the phone book. The name that she chose was actually Von Treese but Playboy spelled it wrong. Turned out she liked the spelling on Von Teese better anyway and has used the name ever since. That Playboy shoot also got her some respect... from her family. Dita had a really strong calling to head into the career that she did. She has said that "As soon as I was of legal age I wanted to take my clothes off and be photographed recreating old pin-ups."
10 Nikki Sixx
Nikki Six was born Frank Carlton Serafino Ferrana, Jr but that wasn't edgy enough for his rock and roll career. He started calling himself Nikki London when he joined a band called London, but then he quickly realized that he should probably choose a different last name. The name Sixx was actually stolen from another musician named Niki Sixx. Nikki had a girlfriend who had dated the original Niki Sixx when he was in a band called Jon and the Nightriders. "I stole his name. I just liked it." Perhaps even stranger than the fact that Nikki stole his name is that this woman dated a man named both Niki Sixx and Nikki Sixx. He has also said the name change was “a long road battling a guy who walked away from me, named Frank Serafino, who was my father, and me saying 'F— you, I am gonna reinvent myself, you weren’t there for me, and I am gonna become a man, called Nikki, (and) create my own family.'”
9 Olivia Wilde
Olivia Wilde was born Olivia Cockburn, which not surprisingly she wasn't too stoked about. Supposedly it's pronounced Co-burn but still. However, part of the reason that she changed her last night might have had to do with building a career apart from her parents. Both of Olivia's parents are well-known journalists who have worked for 60 minutes and made documentaries. She comes from a long family of successful writers that include Lord Cockburn, Claud Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn, and Patrick Cockburn. She chose the last name Wilde when she was in high school after she played the role of Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Olivia got married at the young age of 19 to a prince named Tao Ruspoli but she didn't take his name. They split when she was 27 and she admitted that she after the divorce she finally felt like her career was starting.
8 Demi Moore
Demi Moore was born with the name Demetria Gene Guynes but she was not super thrilled about it. She shortened her name to Demi and then actually got her last named Moore from her first marriage to musician Freddie Moore. The marriage only lasted a few years, but Demi kept the name anyway. She had already started doing some acting work and probably just wanted to stick with the name she started with. After that, she was engaged to Emilio Estevez, then Married Bruce Willis, and then later married Ashton Kutcher. When she married Ashton she legally changed her last name to Ashton as well, but she kept it Moore professionally because she is well, Demi Moore. Interestingly, Demi became the first actress ever to be paid over $10 million for a film when she signed a $12.5 million contract for Striptease... a film that was definitely considered a flop.
7 Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling is another celeb who changed their name. She was born as Vera Chokalingam but decided to pick a name that was more Americanized when she decided to become an actress and a writer. Mindy is actually her middle name, and the name came from the TV show Mork & Mindy which her mom watched while she was pregnant with Mindy in Nigeria. As for the last name, she just chose that portion out of the middle of her real last name. So technically she did keep her real name, just with some nips and tucks. But just because she chose a great name for herself does not mean she always uses it... Mindy has said that whenever she orders food somewhere she uses the name Peggy. Her reasoning is that if someone knows it's her and hates her show they will do something bad to her food. The name Peggy came from Mad Men since the character worked in a mostly male world just like she does.
6 Elton John
Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight. He started playing the piano at the young age of four and when he was eleven, he got a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music and after a few hit and miss attempts at joining bands he started working with a lyricist named Bernie Taupin and changed his name to Elton John. The name Elton John came from a merging of the names of the blues greats named Elton Dean and Long John Baldry. His career then wildly took off in the 1970s. But that's not all, he also took a new name when he renamed himself, which he chose to be... Hercules. Elton Hercules John. He certainly seemed to set himself up for success with the merger based on the people who he got his name inspiration from. Another interesting thing about Elton and Bernie is that they met at a failed audition for Liberty Records. They don't tend to work directly together, Bernie writes the lyrics then hands off the work to Elton who works on the tune.
5 Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquín Rafael Bottom and it is pretty easy to imagine that a last name like that could get old pretty quickly. When Joaquin was born his parents were a part of a religious group called Children of God, and the rest of his siblings were named River, Rain, Liberty, and Summer. When his parents left the Children of God group and moved from Puerto Rico to the United States they actually chose the last name Phoenix. When Joaquin was four he actually asked to have a name that was more similar in the theme with his siblings and his parents obliged, so when he first started acting he went by the name Leaf Phoenix. But after he did the movie Parenthood he was not thrilled with the child roles available to him and took a break. When he returned to acting he started going by Joaquin Phoenix.
4 Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj. The new name is quite different but she did manage to retain some elements of the old one in there. But whether or not Nicki liked her original name, she actually still doesn't like the last name Minaj. She has said, “Somebody changed my name. One of the first production deals I signed, the guy wanted my name to be Minaj and I fought him tooth and nail. But he convinced me. I’ve always hated it.” She has also admitted that her different names each have different personas and she started living in those fantasy worlds to get away from a difficult upbringing. Her first was "Cookie." When it comes to what she likes to be called, she sticks with the rule that you call her who she was when you met her. So for example, she does not allow her family and old friends to call her Nicki when they knew her as Onika.
3 Portia De Rossi
Portia De Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers but changed her name to something that she felt was a little more interesting. The actress started out early in the industry at the age of 11 when she started booking roles in TV commercials and on modeling gigs. She said that by the age of fifteen she wanted to reinvent herself, so she gave herself the name Portia after a character from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and the last name De Rossi because she wanted it to sound Italian. That was a legal name change that she made at that time. Portia later said that her desire to change her name so young might have had something to do with her struggling with her identity as well. Although these days her name is legally Portia Lee James DeGeneres since she changed it after marrying Ellen DeGeneres, but she still goes by Portia De Rossi professionally.
2 Michael Caine
Michael Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, which doesn't have the same ring to it. He actually was required to change his name when he started acting in London as Michael Scott because there was already a Michael Scott ahead of him. He started going by the name of Michael Caine back in 1954, but he actually didn't legally change it recently because he started having issues getting through airport security. He has said, “An airport security guard would say, ‘Hi, Michael Caine,’ and suddenly I’d give him a passport with a different name on it. I could stand there for an hour. So I changed my name.” The name Caine came from the Humphrey Bogart drama The Caine Mutiny, Humphry Bogart was a favorite actor of his. At the moment when his agent asked him to come up with a new name, he was nearby the Odeon, saw the name, and just went with it.
1 Kat Dennings
Kat Dennings was born Katherine Litwack, which she reportedly didn't think of as super pretty. There's a quote of her saying that her family name is just “a little hideous.” She shortened Katherine to Kat and got a new last name. She has also said that it's helpful to have a name change so that she can test people who claim to know her and see if they really know her real last name. Kat started working professionally full time at the age of fourteen after graduating from her homeschooled education, but she actually started working at age ten when she booked a potato chip commercial. Some people have questioned Kat's decision to change her last name so dramatically since it is a strong part of the Jewish heritage, but she has said that she still associates as a Jew even though she isn't particularly religious. If her parents were ever insulted that she changed her last name they're probably even now, since when she first announced that she wanted to be an actress they thought it was “the worst idea ever.”
