Stage name "h" from his original name, Stumph. It was still pronounced "stump," but the change ensured his audience wouldn't think to pronounce it "stumf." Singer Jason Derulo uses the phonetic spelling of his given name, Jason Desrouleaux. Andy Warhol dropped an "a" from his original name, Warhola, while couturier Yves Mathieu-Saint-Laurent dropped the first of his two surnames. Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi adopted the stage name Rudolph Valentino in part because American casting directors found his original surname difficult to pronounce. Singer George Michael (the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur in North London) was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.
George (given name) Saint George (Georgios) was born in Lydda, Syria Palaestina in c. 280 as the son of a Greek Christian nobleman from Cappadocia. After his martyrdom in 303, the name Georgios became used more widely among Christians, as an adopted baptismal or monastic name, throughout the Eastern Empire. By the 7th century, at least 25 bishops in Anatolia and the Aegean had taken the saint's name. The veneration of Saint George is established for the 5th century. In the Western Church, he was canonized by Pope Gelasius I in 496, but the given name "Georgius" was only rarely used. Georgius (Giorgo)