Bollywood stars real names

By Rashmi

Updated on Apr 12, 2007 | 08:18 AM IST | 2.8M

• Akshay kumar :Rajeev hari om Bhatia
• Ajay Devgan : Vishal Devgan
• Bobby Deol : Vijay Singh Deol
• Dilip Kumar : Yusuf Khan
• Johnny Lever : John Rao
• Lucky Ali : Maqsood Mehmood Ali
• Kishore Kumar : Abhas Ganguly
• Nana Patekar : Vishwanath Patekar
• Rajesh Khanna : Jatin Khanna
• Rajnikant : Sivaji Rao Gaekwad
• Sanjiv Kumar : Harihar Jariwala
• Sunil Dutt : Balraj Dutt
• Sunny Deol : Ajay Singh Deol
• Mithun : Gouranga Chakraborty
• Madhubala : Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi
• Mahima Chaudhari : Ritu Chaudhry
• Mallika Sherawat : Reema Lamba
• Mandakini : Janki Roy
• Meena Kumari : Mahjabeen Bano
• Rekha : Bhanurekha Ganesan
• Jiah khan – Nafisa

Stars prefer to have short and catchy names.

Did you know the director Subhas Ghai renamed Ritu to Mahima as he considers letter M lucky?.

JohnnyLever got his name because he worked in Hindustan Lever.

Madhubala, Dilip kumar were asked to change their muslim names as the directors felt their names would not sell in India which is predominantly a Hindu country.