Would you change your name?

Which famous actor's name means “Praise God for Beef”?

Image: Ainur Iman

A great name can take you a long way in show business—but alas, not everyone is blessed with a glamorous or even interesting birth name. These 12 talented individuals decided to change their real names to something that—at least to them—sounded better suited for their purposes. Did you already know any of these?

Image: Noah Näf

While it may surprise some that certain celebrities don’t use their real names, others are quite obviously fabricated. Lady Gaga’s parents gave their daughter the more traditional name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.

Her friends later nicknamed her "Gaga," inspired by a lyric from the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga," which reminded them of her musical style—and the name stuck.

Image: ZENG YILI

The West Coast rapper was born Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., but he grew up in a family that called him Snoopy because they thought he bore a resemblance to the animated beagle cartoon character. When Calvin launched his music career, the nickname stuck.

Image: Chase Fade

Back in the early days of rap music, a young James Todd began calling himself LL Cool J —short for "Ladies Love Cool James"— in hopes of making a name for himself. As fame eventually found him, the name became his signature.

Image: Joey Banks

As you might have guessed, Vin Diesel’s parents didn’t name him that way but, instead, Mark Sinclair. Mark began going by his stage name while working as a bouncer at a New York nightclub, wanting a tougher-sounding name for his job.

Image: BRUNO CERVERA

Eric Marlon Bishop decided to change his name to a unisex one upon entering the stand-up comedy business. He thought that women performers got more chances than men, and if his name sounded female, his chances of being called were greater. Right or wrong, the strategy worked, and he became famous in the end.

Image: Johannes Plenio

When Alicia Augello Cook was searching for the perfect stage name, she turned to the dictionary for inspiration. She was drawn to the word "Keys" because it reminded her of her favorite instrument, the piano — and because keys open many doors.

Image: Lisa

Nicolas Kim Coppola changed his name to avoid being associated with his famous uncle, director Francis Ford Coppola. He chose "Cage" as a tribute to two of his inspirations: Marvel Comics’ Luke Cage, a character he admired, and avant-garde composer John Cage.

Image: Janine Robinson

This one is pretty straightforward: the phonetic pronunciation of Marshall Mathers’ initials —"M.M."— is, you guessed it, Eminem.

Image: Madie Hamilton

Granted, the name does sound exotic to begin with—but the real meaning is even stranger. "Shia" means "praise God" in Hebrew, and "LaBeouf" means "beef." So, this actor’s name quite literally means "Praise God for beef."

Image: Gabriel Gurrola

Stevie may be a wonder when it comes to singing and playing the piano, but he wasn’t born with that name. His real name is Stevland Hardaway Judkins. When he signed with Motown in 1961, his surname was legally changed to Morris, an old family name.

He adopted the stage name Stevie Wonder because people were astounded by his talent and called him "a little wonder."

Image: Church of the King

As we’ve seen so far, some names are just too great to be real—and that’s certainly the case with Queen Latifah, who was born Dana Elaine Owens. In her own words, she chose her stage name because "Latifah" means "delicate and very kind" in Arabic, and she liked the juxtaposition of that softness with the boldness of "Queen."

Image: Rosa Rafael

Taylor Swift’s real name is, indeed, Taylor Swift—and it was chosen because her parents were big James Taylor fans. As James himself once said: "It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that. Obviously, it wasn’t her choice; it was her mom and dad, but a great connection, I think."

10 people who should have won the Nobel Prize but didn't

Image: Stefan Kühn, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Throughout the more than 120-year history of the Nobel Prize, several scientists have made remarkable discoveries but were never awarded. From Nikola Tesla to Stephen Hawking, these geniuses weren’t properly recognized due to bureaucratic issues, sexism, bad luck, or even their own bad temper. In this article, we’ll look back at 10 scientists who may have been ahead of their time but still deserve to be remembered for their invaluable contributions to humanity.

Image: BoliviaInteligente

His studies on black holes earned Stephen Hawking the status of genius. He was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, yet the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences never awarded him one of the highest prizes given in physics.

The reason? Simply put, to win a Nobel Prize, scientific theories must be confirmed empirically. Unfortunately, current technology doesn’t allow the British astrophysicist's predictions to be fully verified. His work, although crucial to science, couldn’t be fully recognized while he was alive.

Image: Vedrana Filipović

Dmitri Mendeleev was a 19th-century Russian chemist. Even though he developed the periodic table of elements, a huge advancement for science, he never won the Nobel Prize. Back then, the rules stated scientists could only be awarded for recent discoveries, and Mendeleev's work was considered "old."

Years later, the rules changed. Mendeleev was finally nominated in 1906, but he didn’t get it either. Some claim that Svante Arrhenius, one of his rivals and a prominent member of the Royal Swedish Academy, prevented him from receiving the award. The Russian chemist died a year later, so he was never able to receive the prize.

Image: Published on LIFE, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There’s a false assumption that the Serbian-American scientist Nikola Tesla was elected to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 along with Thomas Edison, but that he turned it down because of the rivalry between them. Others claim that he rejected it because he disapproved of Guglielmo Marconi’s 1909 award, whom he accused of having stolen the radio patent from him.

The truth is, there is only one reference to Tesla in the Swedish Academy's historical archives, a 1937 nomination that he didn’t end up winning. Yet, to be fair, Marconi's prize should have been shared with Tesla. After all, he was the first to study radio waves in 1891. Due to administrative issues, it was not until the 1940s that a U.S. court determined that Tesla's work did indeed predate Marconi's.

Image: Anastasia Shuraeva

In the 1930s, American chemist and inventor Wallace Carothers, who at the time worked for DuPont, discovered condensation polymerization. This process was key to the development of nylon, a polymer used as a textile fiber and in countless industrial applications.

By 1936, Carothers had earned a good reputation and even became the first industrial organic chemist to be accepted into the US National Academy of Sciences. Despite his stature, he was not nominated for the Nobel Prize that year. The chemist, deeply depressed, took his own life a year later, ending any chance of ever winning it.

Image: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The name Lise Meitner may not ring a bell, but we owe this Austrian physicist the first studies on nuclear fission. Like other women in science, her pioneering work is rarely mentioned. At the turn of the century, Lise began working with German chemist Otto Hahn, who would later take the credit for her research.

After World War II broke out, Hahn and Meitner had to separate, but continued to exchange ideas via mail. At the end of 1944, Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, yet he never mentioned the thirty years of collaboration with Lise that had improved his research.

Image: Jane Ta

In the late 1980s, American molecular biologist Douglas Prasher discovered the gene that expresses the green fluorescent protein used as a marker in biomedical research to observe processes otherwise invisible to the human eye. Prasher’s breakthrough is now widely used in laboratories around the world thanks to his generous decision to openly share his pioneering work.

In 2008, three scientists who followed up on Prasher's research won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. By then, Prasher had lost his job as a scientist and was working as a bus driver in Alabama, United States, to alleviate his family's financial problems. Fortunately, in this case, the award laureates did thank Prasher in their speeches, and, in turn, the biologist was delighted with his colleagues' achievements.

Image: National Cancer Institute

Despite having developed one of the first successful polio vaccines, American virologist Jonas Salk never received the Nobel Prize. One of the main reasons was that the vaccine was largely based on previous research. Allegedly, Nobel Prizes in Medicine are only awarded to "revolutionary innovations" that introduce new knowledge.

Although the Swedish Academy never recognized Salk's work, it’s important to mention that thanks to his research, on which he refused to receive any profit, millions of vaccinated children in about 90 countries around the world received immunization against the disease. Less than 25 years later, domestic transmission of polio had disappeared in the United States.

Image: digitale.de

British chemist Rosalind Franklin specialized in X-ray crystallography. In the 1950s, while working at King's College London, she developed the technique and instruments that were key to discovering the structure of DNA.

In 1953, the images were released without her permission. When James Watson and Francis Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology for the discovery of the DNA double helix, Franklin had already died of ovarian cancer, probably caused by long hours of exposure to X-rays. Neither of them mentioned her invaluable contribution.

Image: The New York Public Library

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alexander Fleming revolutionized the world of science by discovering the effect of penicillin on bacteria. However, there was still one deadly disease on which penicillin had no effect. Fortunately, in the 1940s, American microbiologist Albert Schatz discovered another antibiotic agent, streptomycin, which could treat tuberculosis.

Yet, it was Selman Waksman, Schatz's supervisor, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1952 for the discovery of streptomycin. Schatz had signed over his commercial rights and was not even mentioned by the Academy. Years later, he sued Waksman and got half of the royalties and was finally recognized as co-author of the discovery. Schatz was never listed in the Nobel Prize but was awarded the Rutgers University Medal in 1994.

Image: Mehdi Mirzaie

Michael Dewar, a professor at the University of Texas, was a major contributor to computational chemistry. Despite the significance of his research, he did not win the Nobel Prize. Many believe this was due to his bad temper.

According to reports, he once called a prominent fellow scientist a "disgrace to science" in front of a large audience. He also had heated confrontations with two influential Nobel laureates, William N. Lipscomb and Linus Pauling, who may have blocked his chances of ever winning the award.