Worst Actor Names (1 Viewer)

[chris winters]

I actually like some of the names people have listed, as they are unique, and have character or convey what they actor wants them too. I would list:


antoine fuqua -his name always kind of bugged me.

conan obrien -when i first heard it, i was dumbsturck, but now
I could never imagine with a different name, and its great.

Dakota fanning -not bad, but a bit pretentious.

ione sky -very strange, but again kind of interesting.

ed bagley jr. -just sounds like an invesntment baker or somthing, or a highschool principle. Fits his character, however.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Malcolm R wrote (post #5):



Queer logic. Think how far "Archibald Leach" would have gone in Hollywood.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

chris winters wrote (post #21):


Except that his name is Ed Begley Jr.. Make any difference? ("invesntment baker" [sic]?)

 

[Richard Kim]

How about Rip Torn? What kinda name is that?

 

[Joey Skinner]

Olivia D'Abo. Seems like something is missing on the last name.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Arnold George Dorsey, as it turned out.

I never liked Salma Hayek's name. For some reason, it makes me think of choking on celery. Weird, huh?

 

[Brad Porter]

Her career has been equally successful as that of her slightly older but somewhat similar looking second cousin Maryam d'Abo, so as far as weird name control group experiments go, there isn't much to be deduced from the d'Abo girls.

Most of the time the name changes from the past were done to eliminate the traces of ethnicity/foreign ancestry. I think Jack Benny was more successful than Benjamin Kubelsky would have been. Kirk Douglas rolls of the tongue easier than Issur Danielovitch Demsky. And Dean Martin probably sounds more mainstream than Dino Crocetti, even though they sing with the same voice. I'm not sure if this still goes on regularly, but actors like Rhys Ifans, Stellan Skarsgård, Djimon Hounsou, and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali seem to be doing quite well in spite of most of us not knowing how in the hell to pronounce their names.

The thing that bothers me the most is the result of what I believe to be a SAG rule that no two persons may register the same name. The end result of this is that there is an abundance of unnecessary middle names and initials used in stage names, to the point where you may feel strange reading these actors' partial names:

Sarah Parker
Sarah Gellar
Lara Boyle
Michael Fox
Jennifer Hewitt
Holly Combs
Anthony Hall


Brad

 

[Matthew Marino]

Yeah Rip Torn was the first thing that came to mind.

 

[Rob P S]

Dick Van Dyke
Harry Groener
Zeljko Ivanek
Swoosie Kurtz
Whoopi Goldberg

 

[Malcolm R]

Fyvush Finkel

Gale Harold

Rue McClanahan

 

[David Galindo]

Macaulay Culkin
Amanda Peet
Will Smith- a very generic sounding name
Madonna, or worse, Esther


Those came to mind right away

 

[Yee-Ming]

I'd hope that as the world gets more "globalised", for want of a better word, non-American, heck non-Caucasian, actors/actresses don't feel the need to change their names just to make things easier for English-speakers (in particular Americans).

Hence my immense respect for Chow Yun-Fat, who has never taken on a Western name and continues to be known only by his Chinese name, no doubt going against his publicist's advice. Likewise Djimon Hounsou.

It's always been "fashionable" in places like Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia for English-speaking Chinese to adopt Western names as well, and indeed many children nowadays are given Western names at birth anyway. But since we have a lot less different surnames, it can get confusing very fast -- just a quick example, there are two Tony Leungs.

 

[Lynda-Marie]

I always felt sorry for Dick van Dyke in this modern age. Especially given that now, for standup comics everything goes. One comic I saw said that he had changed it from his "real" name, Penis van Lesbian. :b The mind boggles.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Ya know, I'm so used to his name -- in the sense that any time I read/hear it I automatically associate it with the man -- that the "connotations" or "meanings of individual words" didn't occur to me until I read this thread...

Likewise Peter O'Toole, but then again "peter" used in that sense is much rarer than "dick".

 

[John Watson]

Actually, I'm sure Rip Torn was a created name, to satirize others like Rock Hudson.

But there may have been a political reason, was the actual man blacklisted at one time. My memory for trivia is failing me

Back to topic : I kinda like Uma Thurmann. Makes me think of Lola Heatherton

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Portia de Rossi and Gates McFadden. In both cases, I'd give them a break if it were their real name, but they actually chose these names.

 

[WayneG]

It is funny when Gates McFadden is followed in the credits by Marina Sirtis.

 

[MarkMel]

Not a star yet but....Apple Paltrow?

 

[Cees Alons]

"Van Dijk" (as it is spelled originally) is still an extremely common Dutch family name. And 'Dick van Dijk' sounds absolutely normal here: we even had a famous soccer player of that name some years ago.
Note that family names starting with "Van" are invariably of Dutch origins. (NOT Van Diesel, though. )
And in Holland it may be commendable to have your finger in a dyke, occasionally.


Cees

 

[Jason Seaver]

My favorite result of that is Michael Keaton, whose real name is Michael Douglas.