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These days, plenty of famous people use stage names. Some of them want to choose a name that's more striking or unique, but for decades, others have been pressured to make the switch. For example, The Handmaid's Tale star Yvonne Strahovski — whose real name is Yvonne Strzechowski — told Collider in 2020, "If it was now, I probably wouldn't have done it. It was part of, I guess, the culture back then. This old Hollywood thinking to anglicize your name a bit more or make it less complicated or less of a mouthful."
As Yvonne noted, this trend was very popular in Hollywood's Golden Age. So, here are 17 interesting stories behind Old Hollywood stage names:
1. Rita Hayworth's real name was Margarita Carmen Cansino. According to Screen Rant, under her initial contract with Fox, she went by Rita Casino. However, when she signed a new contract with Columbia Pictures, they made her conform to an "All-American" image, which involved going blonde and ditching her Spanish-sounding name.
Hayworth was her mom's last name before marriage.
2. Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano. According to PBS, when she arrived in Hollywood to begin her seven-year contract with MGM, Bill Grady, a casting agent, told her that changing her name would be necessary.
She named herself after Rita Hayworth. She also took her stepdad's last name.
3. Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson. According to an autographed photo procured by TIME, when she signed with 20th Century Studios, Ben Lyon, one of the studio execs and an actor, gave her the idea of changing to her now-famous stage name.
On the signed photo, she wrote, "Dear Ben, You found me, named me, and believed in me when no one else did. My thanks and love forever. Marilyn."
When they were coming up with her stage name, the actor reportedly suggested Monroe because it was a name from her mom's side of the family. The executive suggested Marilyn after his Her Majesty, Love costar Marilyn Miller.
4. Joan Fontaine's real name was Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland. She told the Hollywood Reporter that her sister, Olivia de Havilland, became an actor first, so their mother forbade Joan from signing to Warner Bros. because it was "Olivia's studio." She also said that she wasn't allowed to use her real name because "two de Havillands on the marquee would be too many."
So, Joan used her stepdad's last name.
5. Judy Garland's birth name was Frances Ethel Gumm. Per Refinery29, as a child, she performed with her sisters, and when she was 12, they renamed themselves the Garland sisters.
One prevailing theory is that she chose the name Judy after the song "Judy" by Hoagy Carmichael.
6. Merle Oberon's birth name was Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson. According to Britannica, early in her career, she adopted her stage name at the suggestion of director/producer Alexander Korda, who cast her in her breakout role as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII.
In order to get work as an actor, she also hid her Sinhalese and Māori heritage. Likewise, according to BBC, Tasmania was publicly listed as her birthplace instead of India, where she was actually born.
7. Mickey Rooney was born Joseph Yule Jr. In 1940, he told Adelaide's the Mail that, as a child actor, he booked the role of Mickey McGuire in a series of short comedies, and he took on the character's name as his stage name. However, when his contract ended, he wasn't allowed to use the stage name anymore, so he changed his professional surname.
8. Mary Pickford's real name was Gladys Louise Smith. According to PBS, she took up a stage name at the behest of theatrical producer David Belasco, who thought she needed a moniker with more star power.
Hating her actual middle name, she lied and said it was Marie. So, Marie was changed to Mary. Pickford was one of her mom's family names.
He legally changed his name to Michael Caine in 2016 because of issues he had at airport security when guards would recognize him by his stage name before seeing a different name on his passport.
10. John Wayne's real name was Marion Robert Morrison. According to Far Out Magazine, director Raoul Walsh "discovered" the actor while he was working as a stagehand on the Fox studio lot and wanted to cast him in a leading role. However, the director didn't think he had a name worthy of a movie star.
So, Raoul and studio exec Winfield Sheehan teamed up to come up with a new name for the actor. They took inspiration from American Revolution general Anthony Wayne.
11. Debbie Reynolds's real name was Mary Frances Reynolds. However, when she signed a contract with Warner Bros., the studio decided her first name sounded a bit too old-timey (per the LA Times).
She reportedly said, "I didn't want to be called Debbie, but that's the name Jack Warner gave me."
12. Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur. According to the Guardian, after she signed a contract with MGM, the studio heads decided her surname sounded too much like "sewer." So, her stage name was decided via a magazine competition.
The actor disliked it because, as she told the New York Times, it sounded too similar to "crawfish."
13. Barbara Stanwyck's real name was Ruby Catherine Stevens. According to Britannica, one prevailing theory is that, when she was cast as a cabaret dancer in The Noose on Broadway, someone — either impresario David Belasco or the show's producer — suggested the name change.
14. Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer Jr. He adopted a stage name at the suggestion of his agent, Henry Willson (per Harper's Bazaar).
His first name was inspired by the Rock of Gibraltar, a promontory in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar in southwest Europe. His last name came from the Hudson River in New York.
16. Fred Astaire's birth name was Frederick Austerlitz. He and his older sister, Adele, started using the last name Astaire when they began their vaudeville careers as children (per the Omaha World-Herald).
One theory is that their shared stage name was borrowed from their relatives in Alsace-Lorraine, a former German Empire territory that's in modern-day France.
17. And finally, Cary Grant's birth name was Archibald Alec Leach. When he signed with Paramount Pictures, the studio decided he needed to change his name to something more befitting a leading man (per Britannica).
Nine years later, he legally changed his name to Cary Grant.