Wanna know how you know Benedict Cumberbatch is talented? He’s risen to the upper echelons of Hollywood with a name like Benedict Cumberbatch.
Imagine how far he could have gone had he been born Flint Steele.
No, instead his parents saddled him with a name so unwieldy, so ridiculous that it spawned an online name generator that spits out Cumberbatch-like monikers with the click of a mouse, including “Budapest Cumplehorn” and “Barbituate Crimpysnitch.”
The tragedy is, had the star of the UK’s “Sherlock” and 2013’s “Star Trek Into Darkness” been born a couple decades earlier, the world might have been robbed of ever hearing the words “Benedict Cumberbatch.” More than likely, he would have changed his name.
These days, however, stage names seem to have become less of a necessity. In fact, the more exotic a name is (to American ears, at least), the more memorable it can be.
Case in point: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, the English actress who stars in the costume drama “Belle,” out today. A few years ago, Mbatha-Raw might have been advised to find a new name.
“I feel that there was a seismic shift this year with the Oscars,” says casting director Joanna Colbert, who worked on 2013’s “Warm Bodies” and 2011’s “Cedar Rapids,” among other films. “Here we are in this climate of actors named Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong’o getting Oscar [nominations]. I feel there’s been a shift of acceptance.
“Ten years ago, could a guy named Chiwetel not have to change his name? Sure, but I think it’s shifted even more,” she says. “Ten years ago, I might have told an actor, ‘You’re new out here, your name is a little hard to pronounce, you might want to think about changing it.’ I don’t do that anymore.”
The success of the Cumberbatches, Ejiofors and Imogen Pootses of the world has no doubt given confidence to up-and-comers that they can make it in showbiz no matter what it says on their driver’s license.
It wasn’t always this way, of course. Performers have been taking stage names forever, often due to racism and anti-Semitism. And so Mel Kaminsky became Mel Brooks and Issur Danielovitch became Kirk Douglas.
Actors have also changed their names for more innocent reasons. Michael Douglas became Michael Keaton because his real name was already taken, while studio chief Louis B. Mayer urged Lucille LeSueur to get a new moniker because he thought LeSueur sounded like “sewer.” A contest was held in Movie Weekly magazine to pick a new name for the actress. The winner: Joan Crawford.
There’s a third reason performers choose stage names and that’s to shape their personal brand.
“Rappers were the vanguard of this,” says Laura Wattenberg, the naming expert behind Baby Name Wizard. “You’re starting to see that more and more. Lorde. Lady Gaga. The Situation. The line between a personal name and a brand name is blurring in the entertainment industry.”
“When you’re creating a brand for yourself, the whole point is to position yourself in the marketplace,” says Nick Nanton of the Celebrity Branding Agency. “There’s value in using a stage name, because by inventing a name, you can pick the name that will resonate the most with the market and one that doesn’t have any brand confusion with it.”
A name like “The Rock” tells you a lot more about what the actor does than “Dwayne Johnson.” Sid Vicious is a much better name for a punk bassist than John Simon Ritchie. Legend has it, Ritchie was bitten by his bandmate Johnny Rotten’s hamster, named Sid. “Your Sid is vicious,” Ritchie exclaimed, thus earning him an alias.
Gary Cooper, born Frank James Cooper, was given a new first name by a casting director from Gary, Ind., who thought “Gary” sounded tough. Not only did Cooper become a huge star, “Gary” suddenly became one of America’s most popular baby names.
“Gary wasn’t considered a first name much at all before that,” Wattenberg says. “You can tell it struck a chord.”
As did “Judy,” after Judy Garland — real name Frances Ethel Gumm. She also sparked a baby-name craze after changing her name, inspired by the Hoagy Carmichael song. (It’s murky where she got “Garland.”)
The worst stage names, Wattenberg says, are those that emphasize youth. Lil’ Bow Wow was forced to become Bow Wow when (shocker!) he grew up. Mickey Rooney (born Joe Yule) chose his stage name as a young boy, and it may have cost him.
“That childlike name combined with his short stature probably didn’t help him move into adult roles,” Wattenberg says.
He should have gone with Crimpysnitch.