10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

1. Joseph Stalin

One of the most-famous dictators in history, Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR for more than 30 years - and ordered the murder of up to 50million people.

But, although he is now known as "Stalin", the Soviet leader's original name was actually Ioseb Besarionis dze Jugashvili - a Georgian name he was given after being born in Gori in December 1878.

However, taking inspiration from Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, Jugashvili decided to begin using an alias from around 1910 - using the pen name "Stalin" in his writings.

"Stalin" roughly translates as "man of steel" - a nickname by which he became associated with during his time as leader of the USSR - and, as well as attempting to further cement the hardline image he was creating for himself in 1910, the revolutionary also hoped to hide his true identity from the police while he plotted the downfall of the Russian Empire.

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

2. Che Guevara

The most-famous figure of the Cuban Revolution, and who has appeared on countless posters and T-Shirts since - Che Guevara was actually Argentine, while his family hailed from Ireland, and that is why his original name was "Ernesto Guevara Lynch".

Born in June 1928, he was named after his father - and it was not until the mid-1950s that he was given the title "El Che" or "Che" ahead of his surname of Guevara.

Having moved to Guatemala City in order to become a revolutionary, he linked up with Fidel Castro in 1953 and acquired his famous nickname of "Che". Strangely, this derived from his repetitive use of the Argentine interjectory term "che" - which is similar to the term "bro, "eh" or "innit".

It was from this unusual speaking habit that one of the most-famous revolutionaries in history acquired his famous name of "Che Guevara".

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

3. Pelé

Arguably the greatest footballer ever to play the beautiful game, Pelé won the World Cup three times (1958, 1962, 1970) and is estimated to have scored more than 1,000 goals throughout his glorious career.

Brazil's leading all-time goalscorer with 77 strikes in 92 games, he was actually named Edson Arantes do Nascimento - supposedly after the American inventor Thomas Edisonm but with the "i" removed, although his name was incorrectly spelt as "Edison" on his birth certificate.

Originally nicknamed "Dico" by his family after his Uncle Jorge decided to call him it, he then became known as "Gasolina" after a Brazilian singer, before finally being nicknamed "Pelé" - the one he adopted.

Although there have been claims that it is Gaelic for football, or that a Turkish immigrant called him it as a derogatory term, he was actually given the name "Pelé" during his schooldays after he mispronounced the name of his favourite Vasco de Gama star, goalkeeper Bilé.

Pelé may be Hebrew for "miracle", but in Portuguese it had no meaning until Edson Arantes do Nascimento mispronounced the name of a footballer - and now it means arguably the greatest player to have ever ever graced a football pitch...

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

4. Vladimir Lenin

The leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that brought about the formation of the Soviet Union and the implementation of Communism in a nation for the first time, Vladimir Lenin was born in Simbirsk in April 1870.

Baptised as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, it was not until December 1901 that he adopted the pseudonym of "Lenin" in order to write his politically-motivated pamphlets having been exiled to Siberia in the far corner of Russia.

It is likely that the name "Lenin" was inspired by the River Lena in Siberia, and it was under this name that he published a political pamphlet named "What Is To Be Done" in 1902.

From this point on, "the father of the USSR" decided to use Lenin as his Bolshevik name - and it was by this that he was referred to by other members of his party.

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

5. Harry Houdini

Perhaps unsurprisingly, illusionist and stunt performer Harry Houdini - who was famed for his incredible escape acts - decided to change his name for his performances from "Erik Weisz".

Born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary in March 1874, Houdini's family then moved to the US in 1878 - changing their name to the German spelling of "Weiss" and his own first name to "Ehrich" when they arrived in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Although he began performing as a trapeze artist at the age of nine, Houdini originally called himself "Ehrich, the Prince of the Air". It was only when he became a professional magician in 1890 that he changed his name to "Harry Houdini", in honour of the great French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin.

Interestingly, the escape artist would claim in later life that the first part of his new name was a reference to Harry Kellar, a 19th-Century American magician who he admired, although it appears it was just an easier name by which his friends could refer to him as.

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

6. George Orwell

The man who brought the world the dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and the allegorical story "Animal Farm" actually used a pen name when he did so - that of "George Orwell".

Orwell, who was born in British India in 1903 but spent time England, Burma, France and in Iberia during the Spanish Civil War, was actually named "Eric Arthur Blair".

Famed for introducing many concepts into the English language - including "cold war", "Big Brother" and "Room 101" - Blair used the pen name of "George Orwell" to avoid embarrassment to his family due to the fact he had spent time as a tramp on the streets in Paris and London.

Other pseudonyms he used included "PS Burton", "Kenneth Miles" and "H Lewis Allways" - although "George Orwell" remained his favourite. It was for this reason that he adopted this name officially because, as he termed it, "it is a good round English name".

10 Famous Historical Figures Who Changed Their Name

7. Genghis Khan

Born as Temüjin in 1162, Genghis Khan was supposedly originally named after a Tatar chieftain named Temüjin-üge, who his father had just captured.

Yet the man who would go on to conquer almost all of Asia and rule over close to 25% of the world's population, starting from his base in Mongolia, would not become known as "Genghis Khan" until 1206.

By this year, Temüjin had managed to unite or subdue the tribes of the Merkits, Naimans, Mongols, Khereids, Tatars, Uyghurs and other smaller groups under his rule - with the new collective empire known as the "Mongols". At a council of the Mongol chiefs in 1206, he was then referred to as "Genghis Khan" for the first time - due to the fact he was now considered as "Khan" of all the tribes - and this is why we know this fearsome ruler by this name today.