20 Celebrities Whose Names Aren’t What You Think

Former Disney star Dove Cameron’s unusual name started as a sweet nickname from her father, but it’s now her legal name (though she responds to both Dove and Chloe).

"He called me Dove more than he ever called me Chloe," Cameron told StyleWatch, according to PEOPLE. "He passed away when I was 15, and I decided to legally change it. So it's on my passport – everything legal is Dove."

While many of us already know that she’s dating Harry Styles, a lesser-known fact about actress, activist and director Olivia Wilde is that she was actually born as Olivia Jane Cockburn.

Why Wilde? As she told The New York Observer in 2007, Olivia decided to opt for a pen name when she moved from behind the camera to in front — and “Wilde” is an ode to the writer Oscar Wilde. “At the time, I was doing The Importance of Being Earnest,” Wilde told The New York Observer. “I was so in love with it. Oscar Wilde is someone who I respect for so many reasons — a revolutionary, a comedian and a profound thinker.”

Destined for stardom? Singer Miley Cyrus was born with the name Destiny Hope because, apparently, her parents knew she was meant for greatness.

According to Life & Style, Cyrus explained this on The Voice. "My name was Destiny Hope when I was born because my dad said it was my destiny to bring hope to the world," Cyrus said.

However, young Destiny quickly got the nickname “Smiley,” which morphed into “Miley.” The star made the change legal, changing her name to Miley Ray Cyrus in 2008.

Ontario-born country star Shania Twain is a Canadian icon, but the name “Shania Twain” didn’t become her moniker until the 1990s. As Outsider reported in 2021, she explained the origins of her name on Home Now Radio.

“A lot of celebrities are born with a different name than they end up with as a stage name, and I’m one of those people,” Twain said. “It’s actually a long story. In short, I was born Eilleen Regina Edwards, and then I was adopted and I became Eilleen Regina Twain. Then I became a professional singer and I needed a stage name that sounded a little less like my grandmother’s name, because I’m named after my grandmother, both my grandmothers, Eilleen and Regina.”

Why Shania? “I think, in my mind, I was just not really wanting to be called my grandmother’s name onstage, so I decided to change it to Shania Twain,” she said. “I met somebody with the name Shania, thought it was beautiful, and Shania Twain was born.”

Pirate? Yes, Pirate. Though she goes by her first two names professionally, Eilish explained the meaning and family connections to her name in a 2017 BBC interview.

"[Eilish] is my middle name," she said. "So I'm Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell. Pretty weird, right? Pirate was going to be my middle name, but then my uncle had a problem with it because pirates are bad. Then Baird is my mother's name." O’Connell is her father’s last name. According to Insider, the Pirate part of her name comes from her brother, who was just four years old when Billie was born.

While Billie Eilish goes by her first two names professionally, actress and producer Reese Witherspoon has been doing the opposite — AKA dropping her first two names and going by two last names — since the 1990s, at least.

Born with the name Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon, the Legally Blonde icon uses her mother’s maiden name (Reese) as her professional first name and her father’s last name (Witherspoon) as her last name.

Sometimes, celebs choose stage names because the public already associates their real name with another famous person. It appears this is the case for the pop star we know as Katy Perry — whose real name, Katy Hudson, is super close to the actress Kate Hudson. As The List explains, after releasing a Christian rock album under the name Katy Hudson in 2001, the songstress performed under the name Katheryn Perry (her mother’s maiden name is Perry) before finally settling on Katy Perry in the early 2000s.

As Marie Claire UK reports, Olivia Colman’s shout-out to “Emily” in her 2019 Oscars acceptance speech wasn’t a mistake — she was referring to actress Emma Stone’s real name. Born Emily Jean Stone, the Academy Award-winning actress didn’t stray far from her real name for her stage name. However, since both Emma and Emily are super-popular names and sound so similar, why the subtle swap? It seems that the similarity is the point. The actress changed her professional name as a teenager because someone named Emily Stone was already registered with the Screen Actors Guild. She tried out the name “Riley Stone” for a bit, but found it hard to answer to that name. So, as she told Jimmy Fallon, the actress settled on Emma — which has the same nickname (“Em”) and is also somewhat an ode to Baby Spice, Emma Bunton.

The singer, songwriter and creator of the skincare brand Keys Soulcare chose a stage name that speaks to her musical talent — swapping her last name (a combination of her mother and father’s last names) for Keys.

Speaking to Newsweek, Keys explained her name’s origins. “It's a funny story. I got so desperate I went through the dictionary for something that catches my eye.” After briefly considering “Wild,” the singer settled on “Keys,” saying “...I liked Keys. It's like the piano keys. And it can open so many doors.”

American singer Halsey (whose pronouns are she/they) grew up as Ashley, but changed their name as a teenager while they were recording their first album, Badlands, as a way to start a new persona (if you rearrange the letters in Ashley, you can spell Halsey).

"I think I had the foresight to know that being me wasn’t enough. I had to become somebody completely different," Halsey told Cosmopolitan US . "At the time, I felt that Ashley didn’t deserve to be famous and successful because she wasn’t that special, but if I made Halsey, maybe she could be.”

As Halsey put it, changing their name “gave me the opportunity to create a new persona that wasn’t bound by the expectations I had for myself or the limitations that others placed on me because of my upbringing or my socioeconomic situation.”

"I created a person, and she could do everything. There was no way that Ashley was going to become a king, but I made a new name for myself and took her to paranormal, supernatural heights."

From Never Have I Ever to The Mindy Project to The Office, Mindy Kaling is a multi-talented writer, actress and producer — but Mindy isn’t really her first name.

Kaling has never really gone by her first name, Vera. Since birth, people have called her by her middle name, which was inspired by the 1970s American sitcom, Mork & Mindy. Her professional last name, “Kaling,” is a shortened version of Chokalingam.

While we’ve known her as Lady Gaga since she burst onto the music and pop culture scene in 2008, the singer, songwriter and actress was born with the name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Why Gaga? According to Good Housekeeping, there appear to be a few different accounts of the origins of the name, but in a 2010 interview with Flybe, the singer said that her stage name was inspired by the Queen song “Radio Ga Ga” and came via her music producer, Robert Fusari. “When we were getting ready to really start performing, I decided that I’d been playing under my real name for so long I wanted a new way to reinvent myself. So I said, what about Lady GaGa, because Gaga is sort of crazy and Lady has such connotations,” Lady Gaga said in the Flybe interview.

The star of Thor: Love and Thunder has long been known publicly as Natalie Portman, but her surname was originally Herschlag. As explained in The Independent in 2006, the Academy Award-winning actress adopted her paternal grandmother’s maiden name, Portman, as a stage name for her family’s privacy.

Actress and rapper Awkwafina wasn’t always known as Awkwafina. As outlined in Cosmopolitan, the Crazy Rich Asians star’s name is actually Nora Lum — but even before she had the stage name Awkwafina, it was “Aquafina.”

“When I was 16 years old, it was just Aquafina — like my rap name was just Aquafina,” the actress told Galore, explaining that she eventually changed the stage name to Awkwafina after a video producer suggested using an alternative spelling to avoid getting sued.

Ever since her career hit it big in 2011 with the release of her first single, “Video Games,” Lana Dey Rey has made plenty of headlines — but “Lana Del Rey” isn’t her first (or second, or third) name. According to Vogue, the songstress — born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant — went by the nickname Lizzy Grant, followed by a variety of stage names like Sparkle Jump Rope Queen and May Jailer. Where did the name “Lana Del Rey” come from? As Vogue notes, the singer craved a name that “sounded sort of exotic and reminded me of like the seaside on the Floridian coast.”

Grammy-winning New Zealand-born singer Lorde has a regal stage name, but it’s not her real-life name.

The singer explained her moniker’s origins in 2013. "My name is Ella, that's who I am at school, hanging out with friends," she told Interview Magazine. "But when I'm up on stage, Lorde is a character. My friends actually find that really difficult to digest, separating me from the theatrical character they see on stage; but they're getting used to it."

How did the singer settle on Lorde? "When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought ‘Lord' was super rad, but really masculine,” she explained. “Ever since I was a little kid, I have been really into royals and aristocracy" she said, adding that "...to make Lord more feminine, I just put an ‘e' on the end! Some people think it's religious, but it's not."

Actress Blake Lively’s surname was Brown at birth, but — as explained in Nicki Swift — she now goes by the same last name as her mother, father and siblings. Blake’s father, actor Ernie Lively, also changed his name to Lively from Brown, which is the same last name as Blake’s mother, Elaine Lively.

Born in Bulgaria, Canadian actress Nina Dobrev is well-known for her starring role in The Vampire Diaries. Nina Dobrev, however, hasn’t always been her name — when Dobrev began her acting career, she shortened both her first and last names.

Academy Award winning actress Brie Larson is known for her roles in Room and Captain Marvel, but what about Brianne Desaulniers?

The origins of Larson’s stage name are pretty fun: as Today reported, the actress chose a stage name at the age of nine because people often mispronounced “Desaulniers.” Why Larson? The name was inspired by the American Girl doll named Kirsten Larson, so that “Kirsten can be in our family.'"