Although, not too many celebrities take on a stage name, but when they do, there’s a pretty good story behind it. So here are 10 stars who changed their name and why they did.
Drake
Drake becoming Drake was as easy as cake. His real name is Aubrey Drake Graham and he simply decided to go by his middle name Drake.
Gigi Hadid
This model was actually born Jelena Nora Hadid. Gigi explained in Vogue how her nickname and now her stage name Gigi came to be. She said her mom was called that by her mother when she was younger.
Also, during her first or second grade, there was a girl named Halina, and “it got confusing with the teacher who had to call out our names until the teacher asked my mom if needed a call Jelena a nickname.” That’s how Gigi came about.
Emma Stone
While some stars have fancy and meaningful stage name stories and Emma Stone is the opposite, but it’s really funny. Although, the actress was born Emily Stone, she changed her first name to Emma because she had a little obsession with the Spice Girls specifically Baby Spice.
So when she learned that her own name Emily Stone was already taken at the Screen Actors Guild by one of the girls on Australia’s Next Top Model, she chose to go with Emma Stone because it was close to her real name Emily and because she loves Baby Spice a.k.a Emma Bunton.
Emma told Jimmy Kimmel: “When I was in second grade, I did ask the teacher on the first day of school to call me Emma because I wanted to be Baby Spice.”
Michael Keaton
Did you know that Keaton was actually born Michael Douglas, but because this Michael Douglas was an actor before him and to avoid all of that confusion, he changed his last name to Keaton?
Halsey
Halsey’s story is even more intriguing. The Colors singer was born Ashleigh Nicolette Frangipane, but then, when she started her musical career, she decided to change things up to something simpler and thus her onstage Moniker Halsey was born. Kind of beautiful right?
Iggy Azalea
Iggy Azalea got her namesake from a beloved childhood friend, well the first part of it at least. The rapper revealed that after a scary accident with a snake and her dog, she got a special nameplate made in his honour and people just sort of started calling her that.
Read: 9 celebrities who got discovered in a weird way.
“Everybody started to think that my name was Iggy, so it kind of became my nickname and I took on board and started rapping with it.” She also revealed that she named her dog after Iggy Pop. That technically means that the first part of her name, she got it from Iggy Pop.
But she chose Azalea because that was the street her mom and family lived and she also revealed that she loved Azalea because it sounds very feminine and would be a perfect combination for Iggy which sounds masculine.
G-Eazy (Gerald Earl Gilliam)
His stage name came to fruition when he was a little young and because he didn’t like the name “Gerald.” He said it felt like an old man’s name. So that’s how G-Eazy came to be.
Calvin Harris
When many celebs choose names that are a slight variation from their real name, Calvin Harris pulled an Iggy Azalea and went like away off.
Everyone pretty much knows the DJ by Calvin Harris, that is until his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift blew our minds and revealed that his real name is actually in fact Adam Wylde. But why the name swap?
Well, he once revealed in an interview that Adam Wylde simply wasn’t racially ambiguous enough. He thought Calvin Harris sounded a bit more racially ambiguous and people might not know he was black or not.
Bruno Mars
Bruno Mars was born as Peter Gene Hernandez. But he got the first part of his famous moniker from his father because as a wee lad, Bruno was a chubby baby and apparently looked a lot like the wrestler Bruno Sammartino. Mars wasn’t added to Bruno’s stage name until much later when he was chatting with label heads.
I guess a bunch of music execs kept telling him that he should focus on Latin music since his last name was Hernandez and he was like “oh hell no my name ain’t determining my music ” So he chose Mars because no one knows what kind of music they listen to in Mars.
Lorde
The singer was given a really long name at birth and she wanted to adopt a stage name to make it easier on the rest of the world. But how does one go from Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor to Lorde? Well, the name change had something to do with Lorde’s obsession with royalty.
The singer told Interview magazine: “When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought Lord was super rad, but really masculine. Ever since I was a little kid I have been really into Royals and aristocracy so to make Lord more feminine, I just put an “e” on the end.”
