25 celebrities whose real names will surprise you

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – MARCH 04: Emma Stone attends the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Emma Stone (Emily Stone)

Some celebrities change their names for a more interesting stage persona or because they were worried their name sounded too foreign. Something a lot of people don’t know, however, is that a lot of actors change their name because of the Screen Actors Guild.

The rules of the Screen Actors Guild state that no two members can have the same name. This is why some stars, like Emma Stone, choose to tweak their name ever so slightly. Emma Stone’s name is actually — gasp — EMILY!

“My real name is Emily Stone, but when I started acting, that name was already taken by another actress, so I had to come up with a different one,” she told W Magazine.

That’s right. We’ve been calling her by a slightly wrong name all these years! When she got into acting, “Emily Stone” was already a registered name in the SAG (by an Australia’s Next Top Model alum). After experimenting with names like Riley, she settled on Emma, since friends called her “Em” anyway.