Needing to keep reputation earned with the original name has long been cited as a reason not to change your name after marriage. How many women have found success with both names?
Victoria Beckham, as Victoria Adams. Cannot think of any others.
Farrah Fawcett for a while went by Farrah Fawcett Majors.
Patty Duke was Patty Duke Astin when she was married to John Astin. She was a child star/Oscar winner who never really became as big as an adult as she was in her teens, but she’s worked steadily. She has said that she saw Astin as very much a father-figure as well as husband and that’s one reason she wanted his name even though she was already famous (and in fact had already been married and divorced twice when she married him). She dropped Astin when they divorced and she remarried but never took her current husband’s name professionally.
Dee Wallace- bka as the mom on E.T. but a very busy actress before/since/still, became Dee Wallace Stone and occasionally Dee Stone after her marriage to Christopher Stone.
Roseanne Barr/Arnold/Barr
Courtney Cox Arquette
Some more not-quite answers:
Shirley Temple -> Shirley Temple Black (maybe double names don’t count)
Jackie Kennedy -> Jackie Onassis (famous under two married names)
There was an episode of Friends in which every actor added Arquette to their name in the credits (Lisa Kudrow Arquette, Matthew Perry Arquette, etc.).
Meredith Baxter Birney was successful under that name, and also as Meredith Baxter after her divorce.
Roseanne Barr became famous under her first married name, was also successful under her second married name, Roseanne Arnold, and then got tired of it all and was successful as Roseanne.
Deborah Hunter had a successful soap opera career under her first married name, Deborah Morehart; when she remarried, she had even more success under the name Hunter Tylo.
Ziggy says 42.9% odds her next professional name will be Meredith Baxter Navritilova.
Rebecca Romijn Stamos
Actress Odette Yustman married David Annable in 2010 and changed her name to Odette Annable.
As Odette Yustman:
Kindergarten Cop
Remembrance
Dear God
Quintuplets (TV series)
South Beach (TV series)
Monk (TV series)
The Holiday
Transformers
Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Cloverfield
October Road (TV series)
Life on Mars (TV series)
The Unborn
Operation: Endgame
You Again
And Soon the Darkness
Brothers & Sisters (TV series)
Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2
The Double
As Odette Annable:
Breaking In (TV series)
House M.D. (TV series)
Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta!
Like Patty Duke and Dee Wallace, Meredith Baxter was first successful under a single name, then added her husband’s name, then went back to a single name.
Which leads me to a related question. Has there ever been an actress who was known first under her married name, then got divorced, took back her birth name, and changed her professional name accordingly?
Robin Wright Penn didn’t have any blockbusters while she went by that name, but she worked plenty.
Jada Pinkett. Jada Pinkett-Smith.
I thought of Meredith Baxter-Birney too.
Is she dating Natrovilova?
Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Babe Didrikson was a pretty good track and field athlete in the 1930’s winning gold medal in Hurdling and Javelin and silver medal in the high jump in the 1932 Olympics.
Babe Zaharias was a pretty good Hall of Fame Golfer, winning at least 48 tournaments
Babe Didrickson was also All-American in Basketball in her spare time.
Same person.
Wasn’t she much better known by the nickname Posh Spice prior to her marriage to David Beckham? I mean, she was certainly a celebrity before she took his name, but I couldn’t have told you what her maiden name was and I’m not even sure I knew her real first name before she married. Someone who actually liked the Spice Girls probably would have known, and maybe her full maiden name was better known in the UK, but over here I don’t know that there was any reputation associated with the name “Victoria Adams” among the general public.
Evonne Goolagong and the Evonne Cawley [AO, MBE] comes to mind.
Pretty famous Aussie Aboriginal tennis player, you know won 7 grand slams, finaled in 18 and all that…
She wasn’t really well-known until she married Bill Clinton in 1975. Although she was successful as a law student and a lawyer, she probably wasn’t known until she was the first lady of Arkansas.
So she’s only really been “known” as Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Marie Blake was a mildly successful supporting actress in the 30s and 40s, enough to have a career. She married Clarence Rock and, using her middle name, she became minor TV icon as
Blossom Rock – Grandmama Addams of The Addams Family.