11 Shocking Celebrity Name Changes You Haven’t Heard Of!

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10. Portia de Rossi

Amanda Lee Rogers changed her name to Portia de Rossi when she was 15 and struggling with her sexual orientation. “I think it was largely due to my struggle about being gay. Everything just didn’t fit, and I was trying to find things I could identify myself with, and it started with my name,” said de Rossi. “I picked Portia because I was a Shakespeare fan. De Rossi because I was Australian and I thought that an exotic Italian name would somehow suit me more.”

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9. Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon was born Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon. Once she became famous, she dropped Laura and began using her mother’s maiden name Reese instead.

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8. Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Harrison changed her name to Courtney Love in the early 1990s when she was first beginning her music career. In 2010, Love announced that she would prefer to be referred to as Courtney Michelle, as she considers the name Courtney Love to be oppressive.

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7. Charlie Sheen

Carlos Irwin Estevez adopted the stage name Charlie Sheen when he decided to become an actor. His father Martin Sheen also uses a stage name that adopted to honour the Catholic archbishop and theologian Fulton J. Sheen. Sheen chose the name Charlie because it is the English version of his birth name Carlos.

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6. Demi Moore

Demi Moore’s real name is Demetria Gene Guynes. Moore kept the last name of her first husband, Freddy Moore, after their divorce because she was known professionally as Demi Moore.

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5. Winona Ryder

Winona Laura Horowitz adopted the stage name “Ryder” in 1986 when her agent called to ask what name she wanted in the credits for the movie “Lucas.” Winona Ryder’s father was listening to a Mitch Ryder album at the time and the rest of history.

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4. Bob Dylan

In 1962, Robert Zimmerman legally changed his name to Bob Dylan. Dylan, in his memoir, claims that he was deeply influenced by Dylan Thomas’ poetry. In 2004, Dylan had a different explanation for his name change. “You’re born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.”

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3. Olivia Wilde

Olivia Wilde was born Olivia Cockburn, but decided to change her last name in high school to Wilde to honour the writers in her family and, of course, as an homage to the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Many of the writers in her family also used pen names.

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2. Katy Perry

Katy Perry changed her name from Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (Katy Hudson) because it was too similar to that of Kate Hudson, so she decided to use her mother’s maiden name, Perry.

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1. Shania Twain

In 1991, Eileen Regina Edwards changed her name to Shania after moving to Nashville. Shania means “I’m on my way” in Ojibwa, a Native American dialect. It was also the name of a co-worker. Twain was already her last name, as it was the name of the stepfather who had raised her.

Cate

Cate has a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature and has been the Managing Editor of Fame10 for more than 6 years. Despite having a love for the works of Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy and Lord Byron, she also has an intense fascination with pop culture. When she isn’t writing for Fame10, she’s planning her next big adventure in Southeast Asia.