Shakespeare says:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.

But Bollywood stars don't believe in it. Every one wants a good screen name. And if they feel they don't have, they just adopt another one. Stars take stage names for many reasons, often because their real name is considered unattractive, dull, unintentionally amusing, already used, difficult to pronounce or spell ((most common reason)), or projects the wrong image. Sometimes performers wish to adopt a name that is unusual (sometimes even outlandish), memorable, or that complements his/her performing persona; or because they wish to remain anonymous in relation to another sphere of work. 'Kumar' and 'Kapoor' are most attractive names for Bollywood stars and everyone wants to change his name to either Kumar or Kapoor. (Manoj, Kishor, Ashok, Dilip, Akshay).

Johny Lever's real name is John Rao and he adopted Lever from 'Hindustan Lever' where he was working. Mallika Sherawat's birth name is Reema Lamba; she adopted the screen name of "Mallika", meaning "queen", to avoid confusion with other actresses named Reema. "Sherawat" is her mother's maiden name. She uses her mother's name as a tribute to her mother's love and support.

Here is List of some of famious Bollywood actors and actresses who adopted different screen name….

Actors:
Akshay Kumar : Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia
Ajay Devgan : Vishal Devgan
Ashok Kumar : Kumudlal Kanjilal Ganguly
Balraj Sahani : Yudhishthir Sahni.
Bobby Deol : Vijay Singh Deol
Dharmendra : Dharam Singh Deol
Dilip Kumar : Yusuf Khan
Guru Datt :Gurudatt Shivshankar Padukone
Jitendra : Ravi Kapoor
Johnny Lever : John Rao
Lucky Ali : Maqsood Mehmood Ali
Kishore Kumar : Abhas Ganguly
Manoj Kumar : Harikishen Goswami
Mithun : Gouranga Chakraborty
Nana Patekar : Vishwanath Patekar
Raj Kumar : Kulbushan Pandit
Rajesh Khanna : Jatin Khanna
Rajnikant : Sivaji Rao Gaekwad
Sanjiv Kumar : Harihar Jariwala
Sunil Dutt : Balraj Dutt
Sunny Deol : Ajay Singh Deol

Actresses:
Madhubala : Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi
Mahima Chaudhari : Ritu Chaudhry
Mallika Sherawat : Reema Lamba
Mandakini : Janki Roy
Meena Kumari : Mahjabeen Bano
Meenakshi Sheshadri : Shashikala Seshadri
Nadira : Farhat Ezekiel
Nargis : Fatima Rashid
Preity Zinta : Preetam Singh Zinta
Rekha : Bhanurekha Ganesan
Tabu : Tabassum Hashmi
Tuntun : Uma Devi Khatri

John Abraham - Farhan
Madhuri Dixit - Malati Shankar Dixit
Rakhi Sawant - Neeru Sawant

I always wondered if Dharmendra is from punjab and has Sikh religion..........why doesn't he have word Singh as full name or last name..........there u go, the whole family eliminated the word.........



I loved Tabu's real name........Tabasum=smile (farsi)...so sweet.....



Long ago, i posted somethin about Madhu Bala, and a kind member of HF wrote that she married Kishor Kumar who converted, appearantly, to Islam.........is the name Abhas stands for the name after marriage? or it is his real birth name, Azzi?

Kishore Kumar married four times. His first wife was Ruma Guha Thakurta aka Ruma Ghosh. Their marriage lasted from 1950 to 1958. Kishore Kumar's second wife was the famous actress Madhubala, who had worked with him in many films including his home production Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958). They married in 1961, although Kishore Kumar knew that she had major health problems and would die in a few years. Madhubala was a Muslim, and the two had a civil marriage, for which Kishore Kumar reportedly converted to Islam and changed his name to "Karim Abdul".

Awesome!, thank u Muffin