15 Celebrities You Didn't Know Had Fake Names

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or, that's what they say. But it seems some of our favorite celebrities didn't want to take the risk. They decided to say goodbye to their birth names and come up with monikers that would make them stand out in Hollywood. Or at least names that your average person could pronounce. Or at the very least, names that wouldn't get them laughed out of town. Turns out not all of our favorite actors, singers, and other famous celebrities were born with show stopping names. They had to do some work to come up with new names and become known for them. But lucky for you, we have uncovered some of the craziest name transformations. Most of these names you won't even recognize. We're not talking about the Katy Perrys and Blake Livelys of the world who simply decided to trade their dad's surname for their mom's. We're talking about celebs who completely reinvented themselves. We all know that Drake is actually Aubry and Lady Gaga is actually Stephanie. But who else is hiding behind a fake name? If we don't even know their real names, what else are these celebrities hiding? Well, we're about to reveal it all to you. Get ready to meet the real people behind your favorite Hollywood heavyweights.

15 Whoopi Goldberg Is Caryn Johnson

How the heck do you get Whoopi Goldberg from Caryn Elaine Johnson? Those names do not resemble each other at all! Well, the famous comedian has a perfectly solid explanation. She chose "Whoopi" after the infamous gag item, the Whoopee Cushion. She once said, "If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from." We can't imagine willingly naming ourselves after a fart but good for you, Whoopi! And what about Goldberg? Turns out, it was actually a family name. She explains, "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name, it's part of my family, part of my heritage." Rumor has it that Whoopi decided on "Goldberg" to be taken more seriously in the business under a Jewish last name. If she wanted to be taken seriously, why did she choose to be named after a Whoopee Cushion?

14 Lana Del Rey Is Elizabeth Grant

Lana Del Rey is a far cry from Elizabeth Woolridge Grant. The moody singer explains how she made the choice, "I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba - Lana Del Rey reminded us of the glamor of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue." Her managers and lawyers actually made up the name and convinced the songstress to adopt it for the stage. Before meeting them, she had released music under her birth name but bought the rights and got the old music out of circulation. But Lana wasn't always just Lana or Elizabeth. When she was first starting out in nightclubs in New York, she worked under many different names such as "Sparkle Jump Rope Queen" and "Lizzy Grant and the Phenomena." Well, she certainly is one creative lady!

13 Louis CK Is Louis Szekely

Okay, this is actually pretty genius. When we first saw this comedian's last name, Szekely, we had no clue how to pronounce it. But it turns out to just be another joke on us. How do you pronounce Szekely? C-K. That is right! So Louis' stage name, Louis CK, is actually pronounced the exact same was as his birth name. How genius is that? We love that Louis even made his own moniker an inside joke. What else don't we know about Louis? Well, turns out he spent his childhood in his father's native Mexico and actually spoke Spanish as his first language. Once he moved back to the States, he lived in Boston with his mother and sisters. It was there that he attended Newton North High School with fellow funny man and Friends star, Matt LeBlanc. After graduating, Louis worked as an auto mechanic before getting into TV.

12 Joaquin Phoenix Is Joaquin Rafael Bottom

Yeah, we'd change our name too if our last name was Bottom. Joaquin definitely made the right choice here. It took him a while to settle on this choice, though. For a while, he was known as Leaf Phoenix. But Leaf isn't such a stretch when you learn his siblings' names: River, Rain, Liberty, and Summer. Leaf actually fits in with that bunch much better than Joaquin does. Joaquin actually did change his name to Leaf to fit in better with his siblings and to connect to nature. He came up with the idea when raking the leaves with his father. But where did Phoenix come from? Well, that was a family idea as well. The Bottoms belonged to a religious group, The Children of God, for about ten years and traveled all over South America. In 1978, when Joaquin was just four years old, they left the group and moved back to the US. They decided to change their last name to Phoenix after the mythical bird that rises from the ashes to symbolize their new beginning.

11 Olivia Wilde Is Olivia Cockburn

Yup, another example of a real reason to change your last name! We don't fault Olivia with picking a new last name when she entered show business after being born a Cockburn. What we can't understand is why her family didn't change the name sooner! Her parents are both journalists, her uncles are also journalists, she has an aunt who is an author and her sister is a lawyer - and they're all going under the name Cockburn! Seems like Olivia may have been the only sensible one in the bunch. Olivia came up with the name Wilde after famous author Oscar Wilde. She actually changed her name back when she was in high school and said it was in honor of the many writers in her family. Sounds like a good excuse to escape Cockburn to us! In other fun facts, Olivia is a pescatarian but has been both vegetarian and vegan at different points in her life. Her Scottish ancestors were upper class and one even served as the Governor of Hong Kong.

10 Jamie Foxx Is Eric Marlon Bishop

Now, this is a big change! Jamie Foxx completely reinvented himself from Eric Marlon Bishop to the singer, actor, and funnyman we know today. But why did he decide to change his name and how did he pick Jamie Foxx? It all started back in the day when Jamie was trying to get on stage at the Comedy Store's Open Mic Night. He decided to submit himself under the name "Jamie Foxx" because it sounded gender neutral. He thought he might have a better shot of getting picked if he was mistaken for a girl. Well, looks like it worked! Besides doing comedy open mic nights, Jamie also spent his early years playing piano and leading the choir at the New Hope Baptist Church. He also played quarterback on his high school's football team and had dreams of playing for the Dallas Cowboys some day. Wow what a talented guy!

9 Nicki Minaj Is Onika Tanya Maraj

Nicki Minaj is known for her fast-talking raps, crazy clothing, and outlandish makeup. But would it all be the same if she was known as Onika Tanya Maraj? Probably. Onika Maraj is pretty close to Nicki Minaj. So why the change? It turns out, Nicki has wanted to go under the name Nicki Maraj as Nicki had always been her nickname. But then she met Fendi, the CEO of Dirty Money Entertainment, in 2007. Nicki says, "My real name is Maraj. Fendi flipped it when he met me because I had such a nasty flow! I eat b!+ch*s!" We'll be honest. We're not really sure why she had to slightly alter her last night because she had a nasty flow. But we'll go with it! Before Nicki made it big with her music career, she wanted to be an actress in New York. While waiting for her big break, she waited tables and took on a number of other customer service roles. Nicki reveals that she was fired from most of those jobs for discourteous behavior. Must be that nasty flow!

8 Vin Diesel Is Mark Sinclair Vincent

Vin Diesel was born into this world as Mark Sinclair - which seems like a pretty good actor name if you ask us. The "Vincent" was added when his mom remarried Vin's stepfather, Irving Vincent. So how did he get to Vin Diesel? Well, it didn't have anything to do with acting. Vin was working as a bouncer in New York City. And apparently, the best bouncers used fake names. So Vin decided to shorten his last name, from Vincent to Vin, and add "Diesel" because his friends said he was always full of energy. Vin actually got his start in acting by accident. He and some friends had broken into a theater planning to vandalize it, just like Channing Tatum's character in Step Up. But they got caught and the director offered them all roles in the show. In other strange news, Vin Diesel is also an avid Dungeons and Dragons fan. This deep voice action star has been playing D&D for over twenty years and even wrote the forward in a book about the game.

7 Tim Allen Is Tim Dick

Good call on the name change, Tim. And lucky for Tim, changing his name was as simple as dropping his last name because Allen was already his middle name. Phew! Definitely dodged a bullet there. Tim Allen was raised in a house with 9 children; he is one of six kids and when his mother remarried after his father died, her new husband had three children of his own. In other fun facts about Tim: he loves classical piano and studied it in high school. In college, he was very involved in radio and TV production, but also took time to study philosophy and design. And did you know that Tim Allen was once arrested for drug smuggling and possession? In 1978 Tim was arrested at the airport for smuggling over 650 grams of illegal substances. He plead guilty and had to give up the names of the other dealers involved to avoid life in prison. Tim was sentenced to three to seven years in jail but only served two years before getting paroled. And then 15 years later he became the voice of Buzz Lightyear!

6 Michael Caine Is Maurice Joseph Micklewhite

Well technically, it's Sir Michael Caine. This British acting icon has been in over 115 movies, won two Academy Awards, and was knighted by the Queen in 2000. But before he could start any of that Maurice Micklewhite had to make it through WWII, finish school, and then complete his two years of national service with the British Army. When he first broke into the acting world with stage plays in the 1950s, Michael went by the stage name, Michael Scott. In 1954, Michael headed to London and changed his name once more when his agent told him another Michael Scott was already in the business. During a phone call with his agent and looking out from the phone booth, Michael saw that The Caine Mutiny was showing at the cinema across the street. And poof! He became Michael Caine. In other fun facts, Michael was good friends with John Lennon and had a half-brother he didn't know about until his mother passed away.

5 Charlie Sheen Is Carlos Estevez

Oh Charlie Sheen. Of course, he's on a list where celebrities have to lie and make stuff up. Besides the chaos of his personal life from about five years ago, there's a lot more to the infamous actor. Charlie first got interested in acting in his high school years. He used to make movies with actor friends and fellow classmates, Rob Lowe and Sean Penn. But just before he was due to graduate, Charlie was expelled from school for bad grades and attendance. So Charlie decided to take that as a sign that he should pursue acting professionally. He adopted the last name his dad uses for his stage name, Michael Sheen. Michael has revealed that Sheen is in honor of Catholic archbishop and theologian Fulton J. Sheen. Charlie was simply the English version of his birth name, Carlos. In other fun news, way back in 1990, Charlie accidentally shot his then fiancee Kelly Preston. Blame it on the tiger blood, we guess.

4 Portia de Rossi Is Amanda Lee Rogers

Now this is another big name transformation. Portia de Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Australia. Portia changed her name when she was only 15 years old and breaking into the modeling and commercial world. She picked Portia, after a character in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." And she decided on de Rossi because she wanted something that sounded Italian. Well, we guess it worked since Portia went on to star in both Ally McBeal and Arrested Development. And she's currently on Scandal, so Portia is clearly doing something right. Portia de Rossi may be her stage name but in 2010, two years after her wedding to Ellen Degeneres, Portia legally changed her name to Portia Lee James Degeneres. When she's not busy acting or changing her name, Portia is a huge fan of horses and often rides in equestrian competitions. Oh and she gets to spend her days laughing with Ellen and all their rescue pets, which we're super jealous of.

3 Natalie Portman Is Neta-Lee Hershlag

The Star Wars and Black Swan star we all know as Natalie Portman was actually born as Neta-Lee Hershlag in Jerusalem. Neta-Lee was a traditional Hebrew name given to Natalie from her Jewish family. Natalie and her family moved back to the United States, where her mother was originally from when she was three years old. Natalie decided on Portman as her stage name to protect her family's privacy. Natalie has always been a brainiac. She famously skipped the premiere of her Star Wars movie in order to study for her high school exams. Natalie got her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and then took graduate courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Big brain, big acting career, and she's big on her involvement with political and philanthropic causes. And she still makes time to be a wife and mom of her son, Aleph, and a second child on the way!

2 Stevie Wonder Is Steveland Hardaway Judkins

Now that's quite a name! We would have put money on the fact that Stevie was short for Steven. Who knew Steveland was even an option? But it makes sense that a unique name should belong to such a unique talent. Stevie Wonder was born six weeks premature, which resulted in a condition that led to his blindness. Stevie received his stage name when he was only 11 years old. He auditioned for Motown and after signing to their Tamla label, he was given the name Little Stevie Wonder. Because he was so young, his earnings were held in a trust and he was given a weekly allowance to cover his expenses. That allowance, way back in 1961, was only $2.50 per week! But it has all paid off. Stevie is now the proud owner of 25 Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for Best Song. In addition to singing, Stevie plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bongos, organ, melodica, and Clavinet. Now that's talented!

1 Meg Ryan Is Margaret Hyra

We can't imagine Meg Ryan as anyone other than Meg Ryan. And her full birth name is quite the mouthful: Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra. We're not quite sure why her parents wanted to give her three middle names. It's not like she was their only daughter. Meg has two sisters and a brother, so lots of naming opportunities to go around. Meg went with Ryan as a last name when she joined the Screen Actor's Guild, using her grandmother's maiden name. Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid were married for ten years and are parents to young actor, Jack Quaid. In 2006, after her marriage to Quaid, Meg adopted a daughter from China named Daisy True. In recent years, Meg has also gone behind the camera and taken on roles in production and directing. But we love her best as our favorite heroine in her 90's films Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail.