And she’s not the only star who has completely changed her name…
When Queen Elizabeth gave her official consent for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to get married, we had to take a minute. The official document revealed something that threw us for a loop: namely, that Meghan Markle’s name isn’t actually Meghan. Her real name is actually Rachel Meghan Markle, which is a pretty wild coincidence given that her Suits character is funnily enough called Rachel.
And that wasn’t the only big revelation however. It turns out that Prince Harry actually officially goes by ‘Prince Henry’. It turns out that he’s almost always referred to by his nickname Harry and TBH Prince Henry just doesn’t have the same ring to it in our opinion.
They aren’t the only celebrities who have chosen to go by a different name however. There’s a whole host of reasons why a celebrity may decide to change their name, from preferring their middle name, to wanting a shorter, snappier name – or just because they don’t think it’s glamorous enough for an A-Lister.
From Gigi Hadid to Jude Law, Rihanna to Lana del Rey, there’s a whole host of A-Listers who have opted for something completely different, be it their childhood nickname or variation of their actual names.
And would Reginald Dwight have ever been any where near as successful a singer-songwriter as Elton John? We’ll never know, but Elton clearly didn’t think so, and so ditched his real name.
There are probably a lot more celebs in the world who don’t use their real name than you first thought, so we’ve rounded up the most interesting of celebrity name-changers out there…
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Why be called Lizzie Grant when you can reinvent yourself as the exotic sounding Lana Del Rey?
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It might seem odd that this Latino crooner changed his name from the exotic sounding Enrique Martin Morales to the more ordinary Ricky Martin, but the star made the switch due to a family fued. He was estranged from his father – also called Enrique – and couldn’t bear to be known by the same monikor.
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It’s well known that on the verge of stardom Reginald Dwight decided to change his name to Elton John, but did you also know that he also added in a middle name? Introducing Elton Hercules John.
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The quintessentially British actress Helen Mirren was actually born ‘Ilynea Lydia Mironoff’, but as a Russian living in London during the Cold War, her father decided to change it to avoid getting on the wrong side of the law. Very sensible.
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A wise man once told Tara Leigh Patrick to go by Carmen Electra. That wise man was Prince.
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Robyn Rihanna Fenty wanted her fans to be able to chant a catchier name so made the move to lose her first and last names, therefore just goes by ‘Rihanna’.
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This young talent was given a stage name from day one; christened Destiny Hope Cyrus, this little tot was such a happy baby that she was affectionately known as ‘Smiley’, which over time was shortened to ‘Miley’ and stuck as her stage name.
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Lauran Jean Reese Witherspoon sacked off the her first two monikors and a star was born!
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If you ever happened to get your hands on action star Bruce Willis’ birth certificate you’d see that his birth name is Walter Willis.
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Once Natalie hit the big time she decided to ditch her surname ‘Hershlag’ and use her grandmother’s last name ‘Portman.’
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Born and raised Laura Hollins, the supermodel decided on the new name ‘Agyness Deyn’ to help further her career after chatting to her mother’s friend, a numerology expert, who suggested it was lucky.
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We all know the curvacious Burlesque star Dita Von Teese by her cheeky stage name, but the star’s actual monikor is Heather Renée Sweet. When she embarked on her career she chose to go by the name ‘Dita’ to pay tribute to actress Dita Parlo while she picked ‘Von Treese’ was picked at random out of a phonebook but a mistake during her first Playboy shoot meant that she dropped the ‘r’.
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Doctor Who star David Tennant was forced to change his name because there was already a Scottish actor working with his actual name – David Macdonald. The star picked ‘Tennant’ beause he just loved to bop along to the Pet Shop Boys!
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We quite humoured to find out that the golfer’s real name is actually Eldrick. Tiger is just a nickname – given to him by a Vietnamese soldier his father knew – and stuck.
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Actor Ashton Kutcher – originally called Christopher Kutcher – decided to be known as Ashton when he signed to a modelling agency and there was already a ‘Christopher’ working for them.
