Musical accompaniment: Wild Side of Life by Jerry Lee Lewis

 

Celebrities adopt stage names for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they want something that suits their image better, or their given name is hard to pronounce. They might want to preserve some privacy or conceal their past. There are lots of reasons to do it.

In looking at the names of turn of the century stars through the mid-1930s, some people chose names that weren’t great, but they worked. I fully endorse Joseph Frank Keaton’s decision to become Buster Keaton.

 

Emanuel Goldenberg also has my approval on becoming Edward G. Robinson, though without that G, I would not be enthusiastic.

But what about people who inexplicably chose to adopt a worse name than the one they were given?

I’ll put Sarah Bernhardt in this category. She was born Henriette-Rosine Bernard. Isn’t it odd that she decided to go with a less interesting first name and a last name that was harder to pronounce and more likely to be misspelled?

I don’t at all approve of changing your name from something intriguing like Lucille LeSueur to Joan Crawford.

Florence Lawrence, the so-called first movie star, was born Florence Annie Bridgwood. She probably did have to change her name, but why choose a new last name that rhymes with her first name?

Some people made massive upgrades. Theda Bara is much better than Theodosia Burr Goodman. Her one-time flame Rudolph Valentino decided to ditch Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella. “Can you imagine that on a marquis?” he once joked.

“Hold my beer,” says Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, aka Pablo Picasso.

Incidentally, Valentino was married to someone who also made a great improvement. Natacha Rambova is much better than Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy.

There’s a whole category of people who changed their name without getting any better or worse. Changing from Gladys Louise Smith to Mary Pickford is a lateral move. Ethel Mae Blythe is as good as Ethel Barrymore.

There’s a small group of name changes that I’m ambivalent about, like Jean Harlow aka Harlean Harlow Carpenter. Why not Harlean Harlow? I could’ve supported that.

Mabel Normand, formerly Amabel Ethelreid Normand, is also in the ambivalent category. I understand dropping Ethelreid, but the A in Amabel is interesting.

Lots of people dropped one or more of their names but still used some version of their given name, like William Clark Gable, Florence Evelyn Nesbit, Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden and Harry Sinclair Lewis. All acceptable choices.

I wonder what names the close friends of these people used after they became famous. In some cases, it would be easy. Clark Gable probably always used his middle name. But if your old friend Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy told you, “Call me Natacha Rambova from now on,” that would take some doing. It’s not like she had a nondescript name in the first place.

This is far outside our time range on Old Spirituals, but I’ve always wondered what Axl Rose’s close friends call him. Is Axl his rock star persona or is it who he really is? His given name is William Bruce Rose, Jr. Does anyone call him William or Will or Bill? It’s a mystery. Another interesting thing about Axl Rose: he has a vocal range of five octaves. He sang at a memorial service for Lisa Marie Presley and his voice was so beautiful.

It’s definitely possible to accept a friend’s new name in your mind. I have a good friend who I knew for years by her American name. She’s since returned to her Indian name, and it was surprisingly easy to shift over and think of her and refer to her that way. Maybe easier because I like her given name and it suits her.

I’ve wandered far afield! What are your thoughts on this topic? Maybe you have a different opinion on some of these name changes! I’m curious who you think made a good choice and who ought to have stuck with what they had.

Honorable mention: Lillian Gish’s given name was Lillian Gish.