How all the pros play the game: you change your name
Norma Jean Mortenson. Archibald Leach. Alphonso D’Abruzzo.
Vincent Furnier. Stefani Joanne Germanotta. Richard Starkey.
Who are these people? They aren’t names you’re likely to recognize…until you discover they’re the birth names of celebrities who went on to great fame using these stage names:
Marilyn Monroe. Cary Grant. Alan Alda.
Alice Cooper. Lady Gaga. Ringo Starr.
Since the dawn of the modern film and music business, hundreds of people in the performing arts have chosen (or been advised) to change their names. Some people do so because their birth name is considered unattractive, dull or unintentionally amusing. Perhaps it’s diificult to pronounce or spell. Maybe a performer wants to adopt a name that’s unusual or flashy or outlandish in order to attract attention.
The world of rock ‘n roll is full of famous musicians who use a different name than the one they were born with. I’ve addressed this topic before here at Hack’s Back Pages, but this time around, I thought I’d make it fun and turn it into a quiz.
Below I’ve identified 15 major recording artists by their birth names and some facts about their upbringing and their career development. From these thumbnail sketches, how many stars can you identify?
The answers, and how they came by their stage names, are featured in the second half as you scroll down. I’ve included a Spotify playlist that includes two songs for each of these artists.
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#1
Steven Demetre Georgiou, born in London in 1948, was the youngest child of a Greek father and Swedish mother who operated a restaurant in the Soho district. Steven developed an interest in piano at a young age, eventually using the family baby grand piano to work out the chords, since no one else there played well enough to teach him. At 15, he became interested in the guitar and began playing it and writing songs. He did poorly in school in everything but art, and considered a career as a cartoonist but instead decided to pursue a musical career. He performed briefly under the name “Steve Adams” in the mid-’60s, then adopted a different stage name and became an international star throughout the 1970s. By 1980, he changed his name again in accordance with his religious beliefs and left his music career behind for 25 years before returning to it again in recent years.
#2
Farrokh Bulsara was born in 1946 to parents from the Gujarat region of British-owned India. He was born in the African country of Zanzibar, then a British colony, and attended a boarding school in Bombay, India, where he learned piano and focused more on music than academics. After returning to Zanzibar at age 17, he and his family had to flee the 1964 revolution there, settling in Middlesex, England. He earned a degree in art and graphic design, but music was his passion, and he became a member of several bands in the late ’60s. By 1971, Farrokh had developed an astonishing four-octave vocal range and a flamboyant stage presence, and when he met a guitarist and drummer from a band called Smile, they added a bass player, and both Farrokh and the band changed their names, and by 1976, they were an international success. Farrokh died in 1991 at age 45.
#3
Walden Robert Cassotto was born in New York City in 1936 to Nina Cassotto, who was only 18 at the time, so Walden was raised to believe his maternal grandmother was his mother and Nina was his much older sister. At age 22, he entered the music business as a songwriter for Connie Francis, then started a career as a singer of originals and covers, having several big hits in the late ’50s and early ’60s. He also earned some recognition as a film actor, and married actress Sandra Dee. In the late ’60s, when Walden learned about the deception regarding his real mother, he felt betrayed and slipped into seclusion and depression. He died in 1973 at age 37 of complications following open-heart surgery.
#4
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner was born in 1951 in Wallsend, England, a major shipbuilding town. Although Gordon was fascinated by ships and thought his future lay there, he became obsessed with a Spanish guitar left behind by an emigrating friend of his father. After leaving school in 1969, Gordon worked as a bus conductor, a building laborer and a tax officer before getting a teaching degree in 1974, then taught grammar school for two years. A lover of classical, rock and reggae, Gordon also followed jazz and spent time in a jazz ensemble. Eventually he became the bassist, singer and chief songwriter of a successful rock trio in the late ’70s/early ’80s and then as a hugely successful solo artist in the decades since.
#5
Marvin Aday was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, by a schoolteacher and policeman. Marvin showed an early interest in music and theater arts, appearing in several high school musicals. He was very close to his mother (who sang in a gospel quartet) and, following her death, he dropped out of North Texas State College and relocated to Los Angeles in 1969 to pursue a career in the arts, as was his mother’s wish. Marvin formed a band that had some notoriety warming up for the likes of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and the Who, and he also took on several acting roles, both on stage an in film. By 1977, he became a rock music sensation when he co-created one of the biggest selling albums of all time. He died in 2022 at age 74.
#6
Malcolm Rebennack was born in 1941 in New Orleans, where his father ran an appliance shop fixing radios and TV and selling records. He was inspired by his many relatives who sang and played piano, and his father’s music industry connections gained him early access to recording studios of jazz and rock artists like Louis Armstrong and Little Richard. At age 14, Malcolm met Professor Longhair, the eccentric artist with flamboyant attire and musical style, and performed with him on guitar and piano, beginning a lifelong career in music. His New Orleans upbringing had spawned an interest in voodoo, which sparked the development of an on-stage persona (and on records) of a spiritual healer with props and costumes, focusing on R&B and psychedelic rock. Between 1968 and his death in 2019, Malcolm released more than four dozen albums.
#7
David Howell Evans was born in 1961 in East London to Welsh parents and was raised in Dublin, Ireland after the family moved there when he was still a baby. David’s parents were enthusiastic supporters of music education, giving him piano and guitar lessons. He and his brother Richard both had proper guitars by age 12 and practiced relentlessly. In 1976, the boys both responded to a notice at their school seeking musicians to form a band. Both were accepted, but Richard eventually left to join a different group, leaving David as the lead guitarist. Their foursome got a record deal in 1980 and were off and running, eventually becoming one of the biggest bands in the world in the late ’80s, 1990s and beyond.
#8
Henry Deutschendorf
Henry was the son of a decorated military man, John Deutschendorf, Sr., who earned a spot in the Air Force Hall of Fame, but the father had little time for his son. It was his mother’s mother who instilled in Henry the love of music and bought him his first guitar. As a military brat, he lived in multiple locations across the southern U.S. His uncle, a member of the ’60s group The New Christy Minstrels, encouraged Henry to write songs and work on his guitar techniques. Henry’s songs were soon recorded by acts like Peter, Paul & Mary, which won him his own record deal, kicking off a hugely successful career throughout the 1970s. He died in an accident in 1997 at age 53.
#9
Ellen Cohen was born in 1941 in Baltimore to Jewish parents who were children of Russian immigrants, and the family struggled there and in Alexandria, Virginia. Blessed with a versatile voice and a knack for stage performance, Ellen appeared in several musicals in New York before becoming part of a successful singing trio called The Big 3 that made appearances on TV and stage. In 1965, she lobbied hard to join another vocal group she admired, and although her heavy-set appearance worked against her, Ellen’s soaring alto voice got her the job. The group was featured on leading TV variety programs and had nearly a dozen successful hits in the mid-to-late ’60s. Ellen followed that with a sporadic solo career that ended prematurely when she died in 1974 at age 33.
#10
Joachim Krauledat was born in 1944 in East Prussia (now a part of Russia), and lived with his mother in East Germany and West Germany under post-war British occupation. He was first exposed to rock and roll while listening to Little Richard on U.S. Armed Forces radio, and by the time he reached age 14, his family moved to Toronto, Canada. In 1963, Joachim moved to Buffalo, New York, where he became a U.S. citizen. He had a congenital defect that made him sensitive to light and legally blind. In 1965, he returned to Canada and reunited with friends in a band called The Sparrows. The band moved to California, changed its name and, with Joachim as lead singer, became one of the pioneer bands spearheading the hard rock/heavy metal genre, with several iconic hit singles as well.
#11
Ernest Evans was born in 1941 in rural South Carolina and raised in the projects of South Philadelphia. By age 11, Ernest formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, he had learned the piano and entertained his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day. One of his part-time jobs was at a poultry martlet, and his boss’s friend arranged for Ernest to do a private recording for “American Bandstand” host Dick Clark, which included a spot-on impression of Fats Domino. Ernest won a record contract and became famous doing songs about various dance crazes of the early ’60s. After decades of being snubbed, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025.
#12
Brenda Gail Webb was born the youngest of eight children in 1951 in rural Kentucky, moving to Indiana at age 4. Her mother recall Brenda sang before she talked, hearing radio hits and singing along. Her older sister became a big country music star, which inspired Brenda to pursue a career in music as well. Her break came when she sang at the Grand Ole Opry in 1967 in place of her sister who had fallen ill, and that led to a recording contract with Decca Records, who insisted she change her name from Brenda because they already had singer Brenda Lee on their label. She ended up with a string of more than 30 Top Ten singles and eight Top Ten albums in the country charts between 1975 and 1990. Now in her 70s, she continues to perform occasionally.
#13
McKinley Morganfield‘s birthdate and birthplace are not conclusively known, but he said he was told he was born in 1913 in an unincorporated community in Sharkey County, Mississippi. McKinley taught himself to play harmonica at age 8, sang in the gospel choir in his Baptist church and bought his first guitar at age 17 for $5. In the 1940s when McKinley was about 30, he began performing on tours with blues legends like Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie, and by 1948, he had been signed to a contract and had his earliest hits on R&B charts. He continued recording and performing well into the 1970s, inspiring new generations of blues guitarists. He died in 1983 at age 70.
#14
Perry Miller was born in 1941 in Queens, New York, to musical parents. His mother was a violinist and singer with perfect pitch, while his father, an accountant. played piano and had a passion for classical music. Perry won a scholarship to study classical guitar but ended up jumping among several different universities in Ohio and New York, eventually moving to Greenwich Village in Manhattan to become a full-time musician. Regarding himself as something of a rebel, Perry led a unique folk-rock band in the ’60s and then went solo in the ’70s, enjoying a modestly successful career in each case. He died in 2025 at age 84.
#15
Roberta Joan Anderson was born in 1943 and raised in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, Canada, Roberta showed an early interest in the arts, specifically painting, poetry, piano and guitar. An early bout with polio weakened her left hand, which necessitated her devising different guitar tunings she could successfully play. She embraced folk music but always showed a deep passion for the experimental nature of jazz. Roberta relocated to Toronto at age 18 and began performing and writing her own songs. Her early marriage to an American didn’t last but she remained in the US to pursue her musical dreams, eventually winning a record contract and beginning a highly respected career as a songwriter, performer and recording artist that continues to this day.
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ANSWERS:
#1
Steven Demetre Georgiou is Cat Stevens (later Yusuf). As he began his career at age 18, he thought his birth name might be difficult to remember, so he chose the stage name Cat Stevens, partly because a girlfriend said he had eyes like a cat, but mainly because “I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for ‘that Steven Demetre Georgiou album’. And in England and, I was sure in America as well, they love animals.”
#2
Farrokh Bulsara is Freddie Mercury. While attending boarding school in India, Farrakhan started calling himself “Freddie” to avoid being ostracized by his classmates. Years later, as his band Queen was developing their debut LP, he wrote lyrics to the song “My Fairy King” which included the line “Mother Mercury, look what you’ve done to me,” allegedly about his own mother. He soon decided Mercury would be a much better stage name than Bulsara, and Freddie Mercury was born.
#3
Walden Robert Cassotto is Bobby Darin. As a child, he always went by a form of his middle name (Bobby) instead of Walden. At 18, he chose to pursue an acting career on Broadway, hoping to later become a recording artist as well. As legend has it, he chose “Darin” after seeing a neon sign for a Mandarin Restaurant where the letters “MAN” were burned out.
#4
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner is Sting. He gained his nickname during his time with a jazz group when bandleader Gordon Solomon remarked that Sumner’s habit of wearing a black-and-yellow striped jumper made him look like a wasp.
#5
Marvin Aday is Meat Loaf. When he formed his first band in LA, Marvin chose to name it after his mother’s favorite Saturday night dish. As the group’s beefy front man, he eventually decided to adopt the name for himself as well.
#6
Malcolm Rebennack is Dr. John the Night Tripper. As a young man, Rebennack developed the idea of the Dr. John persona for an old friend, based on the life of a man who called himself Dr. John, who was a prince, herb doctor and spiritual healer from Senegal. When Malcolm’s friend dropped out of the music scene, Malcolm decided to take over the role (and identity) of Dr. John.
#7
David Howell Evans is The Edge. Early in U2’s career, Evans was given the nickname “the Edge” by members of the Lypton Village street gang to which Bono belonged. The nickname was believed to be derived from the angular shape of Evans’ head, but Evans has said it had more to do with his preference for being more of an observer, not fully involved, and therefore remaining “on the edge” of things.
#8
Henry John Deutschendorf is John Denver. When his musician uncle suggested he change his name to something easier and less ethnic, he decided to adopt the name of the capital city of his favorite state (Colorado), pairing “Denver” with his middle name.
#9
Ellen Cohen is Cass Elliot. When she was dreaming of a career in the performing arts, she started calling herself “Cass,” a shortened version of the Greek mythological figure Cassandra. She later adopted Elliot as her last name in tribute to a friend who died young.
#10
Joachim Krauledat is John Kay. At age 14, Joachim’s family moved to Toronto, where teachers apparently had trouble pronouncing his name correctly, and he became known simply as John K. He fleshed it out from “K” to “Kay” when he turned 18 and joined his first band, The Sparrows, who later became Steppenwolf.
#11
Ernest Evans is Chubby Checker. Ernest was indeed an overweight kid, and his boss at the poultry market where he worked after school took to referring to him as “Chubby.” Ernest didn’t seem to mind, and when he started doing impressions of Fats Domino and other musicians, Domino’s wife suggested he become Chubby Checker, in reference to Domino’s obsession with the board game.
#12
Brenda Gail Webb is Crystal Gayle. When her label insisted she lose the name Brenda, she decided to use her middle name Gail instead, changing the spelling to Gayle. It became her last name when sister Loretta Lynn saw a Krystal fast-food restaurant and said to her, “That’s your name! Crystals are bright and shiny, like you.”
#13
McKinley Morganfield is Muddy Waters. His grandmother gave him the nickname “Muddy” when he was about four because he loved playing in the muddy creek that ran behind her house, and the name stuck throughout his life.
#14
Perry Miller is Jesse Colin Young. He liked the idea of an outlaw stage persona, so he shed the nondescript Perry Miller and instead combined the names of Wild West bad boys Jesse James and Cole Younger, along with iconoclastic Formula One design engineer Colin Chapman.
#15
Roberta Joan Anderson is Joni Mitchell. She never much cared for her given name and chose to call herself Joan from a very young age. At age 22, she married a man named Chuck Mitchell, who liked to call her Joanie, which soon enough morphed into Joni. The marriage dissolved in less than two years, but she’d begun performing as Joni Mitchell, so she left it alone.
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Honorable mentions:
Paul Gadd is Gary Glitter; James Osterberg is Iggy Pop; Brian Hines is Denny Laine; Chaim Witz is Gene Simmons.
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