Hollywood stars' surprising real names - including the 'hated' moniker Elton John abandoned

The legendary musician chose his stage name in 1967, borrowing it from Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and singer Long John Baldry. In January 1972, he officially changed his legal name to Elton Hercules John, taking his middle name from the horse in the classic sitcom Steptoe and Son.

Opening up on Good Morning America about why he made the decision, he explained that his original name felt outdated: "Reginald is a really old-fashioned name. It's shortened to Reggie, which I hated. I just didn't like it, and as soon as I could, I changed my name. I was very clever, I thought, 'No one's really called Elton, so I'll be Elton, and I'll be the only Elton.'"

Although he changed his name, he admitted he could not escape his past: "I wanted to leave my childhood and that persona behind, and that caught up with me. I realised I put everything into my work and my art, my recording, and there was nothing underneath there. I was just a void. I left little Reggie behind, but little Reggie was still inside of me."

It took Emma a few tries to finally settle on her stage name. When she was 16, she had to ditch her first name Emily after joining the Screen Actors Guild and discovering there was another girl who shared her name.

Speaking to W magazine, the Oscar winner said: "To ask a 16-year-old to pick a new name is really an interesting process because I was like, 'I'm going to be Riley. My name is going to be Riley Stone.' And so my name was Riley Stone for about six months, and I did a guest spot on Malcolm in the Middle and one day they were like, 'Riley, Riley,' and I had no idea who they were talking to, and they were like, 'Hey, hey come on we need you on set.' And I was like, 'Oh I'm not Riley, I can't be Riley'." The actress finally settled on Emma because it was "closer to Emily".

The actress was born to Kathleen 'Kitty' Alexandrina Eva Matilda and Vasily Petrovich Mironoff. Helen's father anglicised the family name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren.

The Duchess of Sussex's first name is the same as her character on the popular legal drama Suits - Rachel! The Duchess portrayed the paralegal Rachel Elizabeth Zane on the show from 2011 to 2018, when she left the show to marry Prince Harry.

The singer was born to Pentecostal pastors Mary Christine (née Perry) and Maurice Keith Hudson, but for her stage name, Katy chose to adopt her filmmaker uncle Frank Perry's last name.

The chart-topper got her stage name from one of her producers, Rob Fusari. Rob texted her the Queen song 'Radio Gaga', but somehow 'Radio' was autocorrected to 'Lady'. The rest is history!

On her birth certificate, the singer is Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, but Dido has made it clear that it is now her real name and not simply a stage name. It derives from the mythical Queen of Carthage.

During an interview with The Observer, she explained: "To be called one thing and christened another is actually very confusing and annoying. It's one of the most irritating things that my parents did to me. ... Florian is a German man's name. That's just mean. To give your child a whole lot of odd names. They were all so embarrassing. ... I thought it was cruel to call me Dido and then expect me to just deal with it."

The actress derived her stage name from Irish author Oscar Wilde. She changed her surname at high school, choosing to honour the writers and journalists in her family, many of whom use pen names.

A little-known fact about the actress – Reese is actually her mother's maiden name!

The actor, who passed away in 2020 at age 103, grew up as Izzy Demsky but legally changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the United States Navy during World War II. His actor son, Michael Douglas, takes his name.

The actress adopted her current name at the age of 15 when she wanted to reinvent herself. Portia came from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

Bono got his nickname after his neighbourhood hearing-aid store Bonavox, which is Latin for 'good voice'. His friends started calling him Bono as a teen, and it's stuck ever since.

The Treasure singer was named after his father, Peter Hernandez, but was nicknamed Bruno from a young age after his dad remarked that he looked like professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino.

Bruno added Mars to his stage name when he was pursuing a musical career in California. "I felt like I didn't have [any] pizzazz, and a lot of girls say I'm out of this world, so I was like I guess I'm from Mars," he explained.
 

The actor was named after his father, Thomas Cruise Mapother III.

The 'Man! I Feel Like a Woman! singer was born Eilleen Regina Edwards. She legally took her stepfather's surname Twain after she was adopted by him at a young age, when her mother remarried.

Unsurprisingly, the name Whoopi was taken from a whoopee cushion. "If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from," the actress has said.

Of her surname, she said: "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name, it's part of my family, part of my heritage. Just like being black."  

The Fancy rapper took her stage name from the name of her childhood dog, Iggy, and the street she grew up on, Azalea Street, where her family lives to this day.

The Walk the Line actor was born Joaquín Rafael Bottom, but for a period of time he was known as Leaf Phoenix.

The Wizard of Oz star was named after her dad Francis and her mum Ethel. There are several stories around the change of her name. She is said to have picked Judy after being inspired by a popular Hoagy Carmichael song, while Garland came from Carole Lombard's character Lily Garland in the film Twentieth Century.

The actor adopted his stage name after claiming that people became suspicious of his birth name. He explained: "Whenever I would call for an appointment, whether it was a job or an apartment, and I would give my name, there was always that hesitation and when I'd get there, it was always gone. So I thought, I got enough problems trying to get an acting job, so I invented Martin Sheen.

It's still Estevez officially. I never changed it officially. I never will. It's on my driver's license and passport and everything. I started using Sheen, I thought I'd give it a try, and before I knew it, I started making a living with it and then it was too late. In fact, one of my great regrets is that I didn't keep my name as it was given to me. I knew it bothered my dad."

The actress' birth name is a lot longer than her stage name!

The actor was named after his father, Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Sr., a fish market porter.