12 Famous People Who Absolutely Made the Right Call to Change Their Names

Yeah, that’s a “special thanks” name, not a leading man. Poster printers the world over are probably thankful to Kirk Douglas for changing it.

Michael Caine rolls off the tongue a whole lot better, as it should — he stole Caine from a Humphrey Bogart movie, The Caine Mutiny.

If your stage persona is going to be a literal demon, Gene Simmons works better than what sounds like a Talmudic scholar.

Yes, Steveland. Though, for all we know, his stage name is still short for Steveland Wonder.

Even if you take Hollywood by storm, you’re probably not outpacing the most famous scientific genius of the modern world. Albert Brooks was wise to forfeit that fight.

Bob Dylan’s music would sound a whole lot less soulful if your iPhone screen read “Rob Zimmerman.”

Forget fame, you’d probably change this one by the third grade if you could. Olivia Wilde also probably saved herself a lot of gross puns with the switch.

You have to feel bad for the Greeks. It feels like any celebrities they can claim, like Jennifer Aniston, have long had to change their name to make it fit on the bottom of a headshot without printing it in landscape.

Yes, the founding father of the WASPiest clothes brand on Earth is a Jewish boy, born Ralph Lifshitz.

Look, if you can ever change your last name to “Cruise” without getting called out on it, you take that. It’s clearly paid dividends for Tom Mapother.

Mark Sinclair isn’t that bad, but every name is impactless dribble compared to Vin Diesel. To his credit, the guy above might be the only person on earth who looks like his name could legitimately be “Vin Diesel.”

Woody Allen is a lot easier to remember, though now it’s for all the wrong reasons.