So what happens with employment contracts, which are often ordered by the court? Michael Rosenfeld, vice president and advisor to The Walt Disney Company, tells us, « Most kids don`t legally change their name to their stage name. Court documents should usually reflect both names, as the official name appears on the birth certificate (or passport or driver`s license) and the contract shows the stage name (and sometimes the legal name). Court documents would usually say something along the lines of « Destiny Hope Cyrus aka Miley Cyrus. » By the way, Miley Cyrus finally made a legal name change after using the stage name for many years. Andy Warhol dropped an « a » from his original name Warhola, while fashion designer Yves Mathieu-Saint-Laurent dropped the first of his two surnames. Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi adopted the stage name Rudolph Valentino, in part because American casting directors found his original last name difficult to pronounce. Singer George Michael (son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur from North London) was born as Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. Standard union employment contracts have places where you can provide your Social Security number, legal name AND stage name. Normally, the contract says something like « Credited as: ». This is where you place your artist name, and it shows up in the project credits. A SAG AFTRA employee tells us: « The business name and the official name are entered into Oracle (the SAG-AFTRA database). The member must use their professional name on their photo and resume, as well as when applying for a SAG job. Residual checks may be carried out either in the name of their company or under their official name. It depends on how the member reports when they work.

In some cases, the person may adopt a stage name to avoid confusion with other family members who have similar names. Actor Mark Harmon (Thomas Mark Harmon) uses his middle name professionally to avoid confusion with his father, Heisman Trophy winner and former commentator Tom Harmon (Thomas Dudley Harmon). An actor may also have chosen his stage name from his agent – as was the case with Barbara Eden, born Barbara Jean Huffman[8][[Barbara Eden#{{{{section}}}|contradictory]]] – or, at the height of Hollywood studios, a film studio. Joan Rivers (born Joan Alexandra Molinsky) went further and named herself after a former agent, Tony Rivers, after telling him to change his name. In the non-English-speaking world, an example is the Taiwanese mandopop girl group S.H.E (consisting of Selina Jen, Hebe Tian and Ella Chen), whose English names were chosen by their manager after personality tests. While the initial interaction with the entertainment industry makes us think that our child`s name should be in bright light for everyone to see, there are some very realistic reasons to forgo this ego-driven perspective. For child performers who have a very unknown future both inside and outside the industry, we hope this article will give you plenty of reasons to consider the somewhat protective alternative of a stage name. If you choose a stage name, Google it to make sure there are no nasty surprises (unexpected associations, use by another famous person, etc.). Check IMDB regularly to see if anyone else has started using it before you get a chance to join the union under that name. Take the time to sit down with the name before committing to it to make sure it`s something you want to live with. Confusion for the child (if they are under 7 years old, it can be confusing for them to have two names to answer). Helen Mirren, born into a family descended from the Russian nobility but deported to England during the Russian Revolution, did not change her name to fit the scene.

Her father did this for her by anglicizing the names of her entire family to better integrate into English society – and trying to avoid anti-Semitism, as he thought the name could be interpreted as Jewish. Bullying can be a problem for actors of all ages, and unfortunately, young actors can be particularly vulnerable. Public folders and the normal posting of school activities, team lists, etc. can tell potential bullies exactly where they might find their goals. If a young actor uses a different name for their personal life than fans would be looking for, they can be much safer living their life off set.