Yahoo music compiled a Top Ten List of Famous Musicians that has staged names revealing their real names.
Check it out here:
While it is an okay list, they are still missing a lot of very important ones.
Musicians like:
David Bowie – (real birth name: David Jones)
Slash – (real birth name: Saul Hudson)
Billy Joel – (real birth name: William Joseph Martin)
Ozzy Osbourne – (real birth name: John Osbourne)
Marilyn Manson – (real birth name: Brian Hugh Warner)
Madonna – (real birth name: Louise Ciccone)
Bono of U2 – (real birth name: Paul David Hewson)
The Edge guitarist of U2 – (real birth name: David Howell Evans)
P. Diddy or whatever names he comes up with – (real birth name: Sean Combs)
Kid Rock – (real birth name – Robert James Ritchie)
Not only famous musicians change their real names to cool stage names, there’s a lot of unsigned local musicians that do it too.
Why do musicians change their real name to a cool stage name? It’s not that they got something to hide. They are not trying to play music anonymous, that’s not the case. The point in changing the name is that it catches on the media’s attention, period.
Do you think Ozzy would be big and huge today if he never changed his name? No. Ozzy would have never gotten no where with his music if he never changed his name. Staged names are just a better name to remember you by, if you’re real name sounds silly and dumb and not proud to be performing under your real name, think of a good stage name that people will remember you.
Like my staged name, Kev Brock is not my real birth name, it’s just a fun little staged name I came up with after friends and family started calling me that, so I figure, hmmmm, that be a perfect staged name for my music, and blam, just like that, I’m suddenly well known in this local area of music under that Kev Brock name. I wasn’t well known in this area before people started calling me by that name, it seems to pick up everywhere. I was thinking the Kev Brock name wouldn’t work, that people would ignore it and find it silly but I guess that name is working. While my real last name is Brockway, everyone calls me Brock, that’s how I came up with the stage name. Stage names are cool and fun, and there is nothing wrong with musicians using them.
If you don’t want to be well known and get marketed under your real name in your music, go ahead and change it, change it to something cool that would definitely pick up on the media.
Kev
K'Brocking 
Billy Joel’s real birth name is William Martin Joel. Period.
Billy Joel’s real birth name is William Martin Joel. Period.
Jupiter is right about Billy, and Madonna’s first name is really Madonna.
Jupiter is right about Billy, and Madonna’s first name is really Madonna.
Bowie had to change his name cause there was already a famous Davy Jones in the Monkees an he didn’t want people to think he was the guy in the Monkees cause at that time the Monkees were more famouser than him. Them other guys is right, Billy Joel and Madonna use their real names. Marilyn Manson had to change his name cause Marilyn is a more better name for a queer than Brian, which is a man’s name, and Saul Hudson sounds too Jewish to rock. You really think Ozzy wouldn’t be famous if he were called John? I guess no one told that to John Lennon or that John Fogelberg of CCR! Cause them guys were famous! OK now I’m bustin on ya but it’s OK cause we’re buds and your right 99% of the time. I wonder what that guy Fleas real name is? He sure can play a bass real good.
Bowie had to change his name cause there was already a famous Davy Jones in the Monkees an he didn’t want people to think he was the guy in the Monkees cause at that time the Monkees were more famouser than him. Them other guys is right, Billy Joel and Madonna use their real names. Marilyn Manson had to change his name cause Marilyn is a more better name for a queer than Brian, which is a man’s name, and Saul Hudson sounds too Jewish to rock. You really think Ozzy wouldn’t be famous if he were called John? I guess no one told that to John Lennon or that John Fogelberg of CCR! Cause them guys were famous! OK now I’m bustin on ya but it’s OK cause we’re buds and your right 99% of the time. I wonder what that guy Fleas real name is? He sure can play a bass real good.