Many B-Town folk have changed their names mid-way due to various reasons. Does it work in their favour?
Model-turned-actress Urvashi Sharma who made her debut in Abbas Mustan’s Naqaab in 2008 has been rechristened as Raina. After her marriage to Azaan actor-producer Sachin J Joshi, she also joins the list of actor’s wives who have turned producers like Twinkle Khanna, Gauri Khan and others.
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Says a source, “It was her decision to change her name as well as due to astrological reasons. In the promos of her hubby’s upcoming film her name as producer appears as Raina Sachin Joshi.”u00a0Raina explains, “In my side of the family all the women change their names after marriage. So it is just that I am following the family tradition. My mother had changed her name too after marriage. I liked the name Raina so I opted for it.”
About her new role as producer she says, “It is extremely different being on the other side of the camera. I have been an actress, yet it was a novel experience for me but it was great fun.”u00a0Though she had Bobby Deol and Akshaye Khanna as her co-stars in Naqaab, her career did not exactly take off. She went on to forgettable films like Baabarr and Chakradhaar. After her marriage to Sachin in February this year, she decided to look after the production aspects.
They changed too…
Vikram Bhatt changed the name of his 1920 heroine from Twinkle Bajpai to Tia Bajpai. He felt there was already a Twinkle in the industry (Akshay Kumar’s wife) and ‘twinkle’ denoted something that goes on and goes off!
Ram Gopal Varma’s discovery Nisha Kothari went back to her original name Priyanka Kothari after she no longer remained Ramu’s muse. He had given her the name of Nisha when he cast her in his production James
Anita Hassandani adopted the screen name of Natasha for her small screen outings as well as Bollywood. But she went back to her real name as she felt that was the name her parents had given her.