What's in a Name?

I was reminiscing the other day with a friend about the "what's your soap opera name?" game kids used to do back in middle school. Remember? You would take your middle name and then add it to the name of the street you grew up on. Or at least it was some variation of that. I would be Michael Redwood. Sounds sexy, I know. And then there was the porn star version: your pet's name plus, hmm...can't remember all the details.

Anyhow, I was reminded of this game because I'm currently reading Jib Fowles' Starstruck: Celebrity Performers and the American Public, a light but somewhat academic study of celebrities and the role they have played in our society throughout history. Fowles writes:

Somewhere along the way, they [the stars] will change their name. In doing so they shuck an old identity ceded at birth and are reborn as the transfigured entertainer.

Fowles goes on to list 46 celebrities who have changed their names to cultivate and raise their star image. Here are a few of the best switcheroos from the classic Hollywood era:

- Frederick Austerlitz (Fred Astaire)

- Lucille Faye LeSueur (Joan Crawford)

- Doris von Kappelhoff (Doris Day)

- Archibald Alexander Leach (Cary Grant)

- Margarita Carmen Cansino (Rita Hayworth)

- Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers)

- Marion Morrison (John Wanye)

- Rodolpho Alfonso Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (Rudolph Valentino)

That's a tongue twister if I've ever seen one, Rodolpho. I'm thinking the birth certificate must have been the size of a billboard. But I'm most surprised about John Wayne's name-change. Though I always pictured him as a 'Marion' to be honest.

On a similar note, Anna Jane Grossman in a recent New York Times article reports on newly married couples who are following these examples and taking on entirely new last names after marriage for a variety of reasons. As if hypens weren't enough.

Check out the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/fashion/weddings/02field.html?_r=1&oref=slogin