Oliver Hardy in north Georgia in the 1905 fall semester when he was 13. He had little interest in formal education, although he acquired an early interest in music and theater. He joined a theatrical group and later ran away from a boarding school near Atlanta to sing with the group. His mother recognized his talent for singing and sent him to Atlanta to study music and voice with singing teacher Adolf Dahm-Petersen. He skipped some of his lessons to sing in the Alcazar Theater for $3.50 a week. Hardy began styling himself "Oliver Norvell Hardy", adding the first name "Oliver" as
Oliver (given name) Oliver (given name) Oliver is a masculine given name of Old French origin; "Oliver" is one of Charlemagne's retainers in the 11th-century "Song of Roland". The name was generally associated with the Latin term/name "olivarius" "olive tree planter", but may have been connected with the Germanic names "*wulfa-" "wolf" and "*χarja-" "army", or the Old Norse" Óleifr" (Ólaf); or a genuinely West Germanic name, perhaps from "ala-" "all" and "wēra" "true", or from "alf" "elf" and "hari" "army, warrior" (in both cases possibly cognate with Álvaro) and Greek name Eleutherios Modern variants include French "Olivier", Hungarian "Olivér", Irish "Oilibhéar" or