Editing Stage name (section)

== Involuntary name changes ==
A performer may also have had their stage name chosen for them by their agent &ndash; such was the case with [[Barbara Eden]], born Barbara Jean Huffman<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eden |first1=Barbara |last2=Leigh |first2=Wendy |year=2011 |title=Jeannie Out of the Bottle |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780307886941/page/56 |publisher=Crown Archetype |isbn=978-0-307-88694-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780307886941/page/56 56]}}</ref>{{Contradictory inline|date=March 2018|reason=Her biography says she was born Barbara Jean Morehead.|Barbara Eden}} &ndash; or, in the heyday of the Hollywood studios, by a movie studio. [[Joan Rivers]] (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky) went one step further and named herself after a former agent, Tony Rivers, after he told her to change her name. In the non-English-speaking world, an example is the Taiwanese [[Mandopop]] girl group [[S.H.E]] (composed of [[Selina Jen]], [[Hebe Tian]], and [[Ella Chen]]), whose members' English names were chosen by their manager after taking [[personality test]]s.

[[Rockabilly]] musician [[Glen Glenn (singer)|Glen Glenn]] (real name Orin Glen Troutman) had an involuntary name change bestowed upon him in 1956; while he originally performed as Glen Trout, he became Glen Glenn.{{Cn|date=June 2024}}

Former child star [[Patty Duke]] (whose real name is Anna Marie Duke) had her stage name chosen for her by her first managers.  Their choice of the name "Patty" was inspired by another child actress named [[Patty McCormack]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Duke |first1=Patty |last2=Turan |first2=Kenneth |year=1988 |title=Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SfhvDwAAQBAJ |publisher=Bantam Books |isbn=0553272055 |access-date=April 23, 2020}}</ref>

[[Cary Grant]] (born Archibald Alec Leach) had his name selected for him by [[Paramount Pictures]]. He had been using the name "Cary Lockwood", but the studio decided against it, deeming it too similar to another actor working at the time. Cary and the studio eventually settled on "Cary Grant" (Grant thought the letters "C" and "G" to be lucky: they had brought previous success for both [[Clark Gable]] and [[Gary Cooper]]). [[Joan Crawford]], born Lucille Fay LeSueur, had her name changed as a result of a magazine poll organised by her studio, [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM]].

[[Gorden Kaye]] (born Gordon Kaye) had one letter in his first name changed owing to a spelling error by the [[Equity (British trade union)|British Actors' Equity Association]]; he preferred the mistake over his original name.