17 Celebs Who Were Pressured To “Americanize” Their Names For Hollywood (And If They Refused)
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Using a stage name is common in Hollywood, but there’s a difference between it being a personal choice and something you’re pressured into. Over the decades, many performers have found themselves unable to get work unless they “Americanize” their names. However, some celebs refused to and instead embraced their real names.
Firstly, here are 11 Latine celebs who changed their names for Hollywood:
1.
Rita Moreno’s real name is Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano.
MGM Studios forced her to take a stage name when she signed with them at 18. She told the BBC, “They didn’t know what to do with me because of my name. I didn’t like the name Rita, but they chose it because I liked the actress Rita Hayworth. Moreno was my stepfather’s last name, so I took that.”
2.
Oscar Isaac’s real name is Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada.
Before enrolling in Juilliard, he was already going by Oscar Isaac. He told Esquire, “When I was in Miami, there were a couple of other Oscar Hernándezes I would see at auditions. All [casting directors] would see me for was ‘the gangster’ or whatever, so I was like, ‘Well, let me see if this helps.’ I remember there was a casting director down there because [Men in Black director] Barry Sonnenfeld was doing a movie; she said, ‘Let’s bring in this Oscar Isaac,’ and he was like, ‘No no no! I just want Cubans!’ I saw Barry Sonnenfeld a couple of years ago and I told him that story — ‘I don’t want a Jew, I want a Cuban!'”
3.
Pedro Pascal’s real name is José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal.
He told NBC News, “Be yourself and don’t give up. We’re past the time now where you need to sort of change your name or kind of appropriate yourself to a culture that is not your own… I went through it as a younger person where Pedro, the name Pedro, didn’t really fit with my face in terms of industry standards. But I stuck to it, and I think that your own uniqueness, related to your own culture and your own upbringing, has everything to do with what you have to bring to a part — the very essence of yourself is what people are going to want to see.”
4.
Bruno Mars’s real name is Peter Gene Hernandez.
As a toddler, he earned the nickname “Bruno” because of his resemblance to wrestler Bruno Sammartino. At 17, he moved to LA, where, as he told GQ, people would tell him, “Your last name’s Hernandez, maybe you should do this Latin music, this Spanish music…. Enrique’s so hot right now.” So, he adopted the stage name Mars to prevent being stereotyped.
6.
James Roday Rodriguez, who previously acted under the name James Roday, was born James David Rodriguez.
During his first year at NYU, his successful audition for the lead role in Primal Fear was soured by a casting director who told him, “You’re so great, but I don’t think I can call you back because your last name is Rodriguez. But I can call you back for this four-line role of a gang member.” James told TV Line, “I didn’t look Latino enough. They basically didn’t know what to do with me.”
Three years later, a month before graduation, he auditioned for a series regular role in a TV series. He said, “I auditioned for the pilot, they [signed me to a] test deal, and next thing I know, I’m on a plane to Los Angeles and told in no uncertain terms, ‘You are our guy.’ Their only concern was that the role wasn’t written for a Hispanic or Mexican person. They were worried that casting a white guy with a Mexican name could be construed as their version of ‘diverse casting,’ and there could be a backlash. They said, ‘You might want to give some real consideration to changing your name.’ Now imagine someone giving that advice to an actor out loud today, with the climate and cancel culture. That’s it; they’re done. But this is the late ’90s. It was a different time and, frankly, my first two experiences kind of proved the point that they were making.”
So, he adopted the stage name James Roday, which he “pulled right out of a Chekhov play that [he] was doing at the time.” However, in 2020, he decided to reclaim his real name. He said, “And 20 years later, I realize I essentially perpetuated an institutionalized element of what’s broken about this industry, which is, of course, a microcosm of the world we are living in. I can’t excuse the decision because of youth or naiveté or ambition. The bottom line is, I sold out my heritage in about 15 seconds to have a shot at being an actor…[Now] I want to be the best, most honest ally and amplifier that I can be for my own community and for my friends of color. I don’t think any of us could do that if we’re not even putting the truest versions of ourselves out there.”
7.
Steven Bauer’s real name is Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson.
At first, he acted under the name Rocky Echevarría, but he later switched to the English version of his first name and a non-Spanish family surname. He told Kristina Puga, “Rocky was a gimmicky name. When I became an adult, it didn’t feel real, and no one could pronounce Echevarría. Thirty years later, people can attempt it, but it’s not Garcia or Perez. It was my father’s idea to use my mom’s German side, which is Bauer. In the early days, it also eliminated the problem of ‘he’s Latino.'”
8.
Ritchie Valens’s real name was Richard Steven Valenzuela.
At 16, he joined the band the Silhouettes as a guitarist/songwriter under the name Ritchie Valenzuela. They caught the eye of Del-Fi Records head Bob Keane, who signed Ritchie to a solo deal. However, the exec reportedly felt that Ritchie’s surname wasn’t “radio-friendly” or “American” enough to sell, so he changed it to Valens.
9.
Jsu Garcia previously acted under the name Nick Corri. His real name is Jesus Garcia.
In the book Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, he said, “I’m Cuban, but my agent at the time gave me the name Nick Corri because there were no Latin actors, except for Ricardo Montalban, and he lucked out. It was taboo. No Latin actor was going to make it, nobody with the name Jesus Garcia, certainly. So I was given the name Nick Corri. I was this Italian, fake guy.”
He booked his first role (a guest spot on Fame) under the name Thom Fox in 1982. Afterwards, he was credited as Nick Corri until 1999, when he finally started using his real name as an actor.
10.
Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn’s real name was Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca.
Anthony is the English equivalent of Antonio, but Quinn was his real surname, coming from his Irish paternal grandfather. He told the New York Times, “I was born in Mexico, during the revolution. My mother and father were both young kids fighting in the revolution, and we always lived a Mexican life, even when we moved to Texas. But to be Mexicans with the name of Quinn, that was not a nice thing to do. If your name isn’t Gonzalez or Montoya or whatever, they just don’t acknowledge you as a Mexican… One of the reasons I did all the Greeks and Arab parts I did was because I was trying to identify myself as a man of the world. I lived in Greece, in France, Iran, and all over the world, Spain, trying to find a niche where I would finally be accepted.”
As a child, she started going by her middle name because she felt more comfortable with it. Later, as an actor, she kept her ex-husband James Welch’s last name. Per Us Weekly, responding to a question about if she’d have gone as far in Hollywood with her birth name, she said, “If I was Raquel Tejada, not a chance in hell, no. No way.”
However, Raquel refused to compromise on her first name, denying the request she go by “Debbie.” She told the Associated Press, “People didn’t like my name, and they said it was too ethnic, too difficult to pronounce, too exotic. They wanted to change it, and I was not happy at all. I did really feel like Raquel.”
And now, here are 6 Latine celebs who refused to change their names:
12.
Zoe Saldaña told Entertainment Weekly, “When I did Center Stage, I remember being discouraged by my management at that time to use my name, but their intention was never for me to stop being who I was. They celebrated who I was.”
She continued, “But my manager at the time was a former singer and a ballroom performer, and she did change her name as well, when she was a teenager back in the ’60s, I believe. And she said it’s what everybody does. That was her doing the best that she wanted for me, but I still knew that I liked my name.”
13.
Christina Aguilera told Hola!, “Something that I really embody and understand is that, you know, this is a name that has been tried to be taken away from me on numerous occasions coming up in this business. It’s not the easiest name for everyone to pronounce. It’s been butchered a lot.”
She didn’t want to repeat the “bad names that [she] could have been.” She added, “But I was like, no, I’m Aguilera, I’m proud of where I come from. My father being from Ecuador.”
14.
Francia Raisa told Bustle, “Pursuing this career in general, it’s really tough, and there are things that people told me not to do. For example, I was told one time that I should pronounce my name more Americanized. There were things that people told me to do that, for a second, I was like, I’m not comfortable, but I went off what they told me. Because I was just so desperate to make it, I was willing to do anything.”
“Then at one point, I said no, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to wear tight, short dresses. I don’t want to pronounce my name this way, because it is pronounced with an accent. Because I am Latina, and I’m very proud of it. And I don’t want to make myself seem more white just because that’s what’s more acceptable in society,” she said.
15.
Michael Peña told GQ, “I saw that some people would change their name, and they would get commercials. I just thought it was a slap in the face… Because I did deal with racism as a kid. So it felt like changing my name would be kind of like conforming. I’m not really down for that. I know that my parents, they crossed the border to offer us a great life. And I didn’t want to turn my back on my dad working two full-time jobs, my mom working two full-time jobs, so me and my brother could go to private school. So I never considered it. It could’ve been easier, maybe. Maybe in the beginning.”
He added, “It’s not like I think I’m this self-righteous dude, because I’m not. I wanna be in good stories. And I want other people, people like me, to know that there’s a way out. You know?”
16.
At the start of her career, Teen Beach Movie actor Chrissie Fit had an acting coach who advised her to change her last name to Gutierrez, her mother’s birth name, to make her name sound more Latina. She told People Chica, “I thought about changing it for a second. But then I decided to drop the acting class instead.”
“Just because my name isn’t a typical Latino name doesn’t make me any less Latina. That’s my father’s name, and I love him so much, so I’m glad I didn’t change it,” she said.
17.
And finally, Andy Garcia told HuffPost, “From early on, all the agents that I met when I came to town, first thing they would say is ‘Change your name.’ … I think that the most important thing as an artist is to [have] a very personal connection to who you are. I always felt that in changing the name, I would lose sort of the essence of how I could personalize the work, my point of view. And it would be, in a way, betraying that, betraying my inner self.”
“So, on a personal note, I was just never prepared to go that route. You think about it very strongly because you want to be able to work, but at the end of the day I decided not to go that route. It’s very difficult, I think, when someone asks you who you are and you state your name, and it’s not really your name,” he said.
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