Celebrities Who’ve Expressed Regret About Using Stage Names

You’ve known Martin Sheen as President Bartlet in The West Wing and many other iconic characters throughout his storied career. But you rarely hear him called Ramon Estévez — his birth name. In 2022 Sheen told Closer that changing his name was “one of [his] regrets.” He added, “Sometimes you get persuaded when you don’t have enough insight or even enough courage to stand up for what you believe in and you pay for it later.”

Thandiwe Newton spent her first two decades in Hollywood being credited as Thandie Newton — without the “w” in her first name. This apparently came about after somebody misspelled her name in her debut screen credit. But by 2021 Newton felt she had enough power to bring the “w” back. “That’s my name,” the actor told Vogue. “It’s always been my name. I’m taking back what’s mine.”

As soon as you find out Michael Keaton’s real name, you’ll understand why he had to change it to become an actor. His birth name? Michael Douglas. In 2017 Keaton told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that he still uses his real name for everything but acting. “I’ll be going somewhere and there’ll be a driver with a sign that says ‘Michael Douglas,’ and then I show up,” he laughed. “They look so confused!”

This is a strange one because Anne Hathaway doesn’t have a stage name — her name actually is Anne Hathaway. The trouble is, she doesn’t like being called Anne. “Everybody, call me Annie, please,” she told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2021. “The only person who ever calls me Anne is my mother and she only does it when she’s really mad at me.”

It might be hard to believe that someone’s ever talked rap star Nicki Minaj into doing something she didn’t want to do. But it has happened — at least once. You see, Minaj’s real name is Onika Tanya Maraj. “Somebody changed my name,” she told The Guardian in 2012. “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.”

If you’ve been following Sean Combs’ career, you’ve probably heard him called by many different names. Puff Daddy was the first one. Then there was P. Diddy and Puffy and Diddy, and maybe there were a few others we’ve forgotten about. “I decided that I am just going to go by the name Diddy,” the rapper said on Ellen in 2022. But he also changed his legal name to Sean Love Combs. Confused yet?

“It’s not the easiest name to grow up with in South East London to be really honest — a blond annoying little boy wanting to be an actor called Jude,” Jude Law explained on The Graham Norton Show in 2016. The actor said he even got assigned to the girls’ dormitory when he joined a theater troupe as a teenager! His real name’s David Jude Heyworth Law.

“No one calls me Katherine,” Katherine Heigl told The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021. But, of course, the public knows the Firefly Lane actor by precisely that name. So what’s the deal? Well, it turns out that Heigl’s really called Katie behind closed doors. “[Katherine] sounds much more sophisticated, like an adult,” she explained. “It helps me separate my work from me. I just have to embrace it.”

The power of the old Hollywood studio system apparently knew no bounds. After MGM head honcho Louis B. Mayer signed Lucille LeSueur, he offered the public $1,000 to come up with a new name for her. “Joan Crawford” was the winner — and a star was born. Apparently, though, the name reminded Crawford of “crawfish” and she wasn’t a fan.

You may already know that Emma Stone’s real name is Emily Stone. But did you know that she harbors some regret about making the change? “I miss Emily. I would love to get her back,” the actor told W in 2017. She was forced to adopt Emma at 16 years of age when she joined the actor’s union — and after a brief stint as “Riley Stone” didn’t work out.

The Weeknd adopted his stage name because he “didn’t love” his real name: Abel Tesfaye. This was around the time of his 2011 mixtape, House of Balloons. Ten years later, though, he told GQ, “I still like [The Weeknd] but I think now it’s easy to take off that coat. I like that I have that as an option to escape Abel a little bit. I definitely loved it more back then than I do now. I love my name now, though: Abel.”

Rihanna didn’t go through too many pains to come up with her stage name. Her real name, after all, is Robyn Rihanna Fenty. But even so, she revealed to Glamour in 2013 that the name’s a barrier between her real self and the world. “Robyn is who I am,” she said. “Rihanna — that’s an idea of who I am.”

Harry Morgan’s famous for playing Sherman Potter in M*A*S*H — but he was better known to his family as Harry Bratsburg. “I wish I hadn’t changed my name, to tell you the truth,” Morgan admitted to the Chicago Tribune in 1983. “I like my name. It sounds like I look.” But Morgan had been convinced to drop the last name for something more American-sounding. The actor’s family hailed from Scandinavia.

Remember when Prince became known as an “unpronounceable symbol” or “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?” It was in that crazy period between 1993 and 2000. “[Warner Bros.] owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince,” the musician explained in 1993. “I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.” He only reverted to Prince after his contract ran out.

This is what happens when you choose your stage name as a young boy — and then garner worldwide recognition. “It’s the worst name in the world,” Kid Rock told Esquire in 2011. “The only person that had a dumber name than me was the Fresh Prince. Hey, it sounded like a cool rap name when I was 16. But it stuck and now it’s me. I’ll be an 80-year-old man — ‘call me the Kid.’”

Singer-songwriter Steven Demetre Georgiou took on the name Cat Stevens when he began playing concerts. But in 1977 Stevens converted to Islam, adopted the name Yusuf Islam — and stopped playing music. “I felt a responsibility to my fans but I would have been a hypocrite. I needed to get real,” he explained on Desert Island Discs in 2020. These days, the star goes by Yusuf Cat Stevens.

In 2010 Courtney Love told NME that she’d wound down the clock on her stage name. “We’ve all decided we don’t like her anymore,” the musician said. “We love her when she goes onstage but I don’t need her in the rest of my life.” Love added that she wanted to be known as Courtney Michelle from that point onwards. Her real name’s Courtney Michelle Harrison.

“I basically chose Lorde because I wanted a name that was really strong and had this grandeur to it,” Lorde revealed to ABC News Radio in 2014. “I didn’t feel that my birth name was anything special. I always liked the idea of having, like, a one-named alias.” But she also confessed, “I much prefer being called Ella.” The singer’s birth name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor.

The Screen Actors Guild seemingly has a lot to answer for when it comes to stage names. Julianne Moore’s another actor who was forced into adopting a fake name because her real one — Julie Smith — was taken. But she didn’t take the stage name legally. “I mean, everyone calls me Julie — everyone,” Moore told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015.

Olivia Wilde’s real name is Olivia Cockburn and she followed her family tradition of using a different name in public when she became an actor. She went for Wilde because she was a big fan of the playwright Oscar Wilde. “I had all these reasons — but what I didn’t foresee is that people would think of it as a sexy adjective,” Wilde told The New York Observer in 2007. It was too late to go back, though.

For the briefest of times there, Snoop Dogg changed his name to Snoop Lion. This was in 2013 when Snoop claimed to have reinvented his life under Rastafarianism. And his new reggae-inspired style required a new name. “I don’t think it could have worked through rap because of my branding,” the star told The Guardian at the time. The very next year, though, Snoop was back to being called Snoop Dogg.

Even The Doctor can’t escape the rigid rules of the Screen Actors Guild. But David Tennant was only 16 years old when he needed to come up with a stage name after finding out his real name, David McDonald, was a no-go. What did he do? He went through a magazine and found an interesting alternative. “Asking a 16-year-old to change their name…” the actor lamented on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2018. “I could have been anything. Bojangles McDuff!”

In 2008 Kat Dennings seemed to express that she’d done some growing up since she chose her stage name. “I didn’t want to use my family name because I thought, A, it was a little hideous, and B, I wanted to know when someone really knew me or they didn’t,” she told Philly Mag. Her real last name’s Litwack. The actor added, “I used to be really touchy about it but I couldn’t care less now.”

In 1991 Carmen Electra was still going by her real name, Tara Patrick — but then she met Prince. The superstar signed the young singer to his record label and told her that she should take on the name Electra. She wasn’t convinced at first, though. “I thought it sounded kinda like a superhero type of name, which actually it is,” she told The Yo Show in 2014. “So I was hesitant but it just sorta grew on me.”

“[The name] came about ten years ago now,” G-Eazy explained to Interview magazine in 2012. “Times were different then. The name probably sounded cool to me when I was 13, [like G-Unit]. The climate has definitely changed since: the fashion trends, the style of music I listen to.” The rapper’s stuck with the stage name now, though. His real name’s Gerald Earl Gillum.

“I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I’ve been going by Yasiin since ’99,” Yasiin Bey told GQ in 2012. “At first it was just for friends and family but now I’m declaring it openly.” The star had previously said to MTV that it was “time to expand and move on” from a name that he felt he’d “done quite a bit with.”

When Lil Xan started out, his stage name and his music seemed to embrace the use of Xanax. But as time has passed, his attitude’s changed — and so has his name. He declared to the world in 2018 that “it’s official” that he’d be known as Diego from that point onwards. Diego’s his real name, by the way, so we can’t see him suddenly changing his mind about that one!

You know her as Fannie Flagg from The New Dick Van Dyke Show — but her family probably calls her Patricia Neal. She came up with the stage name at the age of 18 because another actor was using her birth name. The “Fannie” part was suggested by her grandfather and the “Flagg” came from a pal. “So I went with that, never dreaming I would be stuck with it,” Flagg explained to The Sacramento Bee.

Third time’s the charm! First, there was Lil’ Bow Wow, then there was just Bow Wow, and now… it’s back to his birth name, Shad Moss. “We made a lot of history as Bow Wow,” Moss stated on Instagram in 2014. “Now it’s time for the next chapter and challenge. Bow Wow does not fit who I am today. I’m a father, businessman, TV host, actor, and rapper! Time for Mr. Moss to take over!”

Not everyone hits on their rap name right out of the gate. For the first few years of his career, J. Cole went by the name “Therapist.” “I realized Therapist sounded like a wrestler’s name,” Cole told MTV’s When I Was 17 in 2011. “You know, like an alias. It didn’t feel real.” And it was only after he dropped it in favor of J. Cole that the hip-hop star found fame and fortune.