50 Greatest Actor Names

Features
By published

What's in a name?

Prunella Scales

Sounds Like: Your posh auntie.

Ione Skye

Why We Love It: There’s a melodic beauty to the Say Anything star’s name, which might come from the fact that her Dad is folk guru Donovan, or that she was married to a third of the Beastie Boys.

Not that the latter would have helped pick it out for her.

Sounds Like: An airline.

Skelton Knaggs

Why We Love It: Sometimes a forename and surname come together in such a way that you simply have to sit back and genuflect in appreciation.

Skelton's name really comes into its own when you combine it with his eccentric looks. Scary in every way.

Sounds Like: A pest.

Butterfly McQueen

Why We Love It: It’s wonderful, simply wonderful. Basically you just want to give this name a big, warm hug and never let it go.

It’s so marvellously sweet that half of your teeth rot just mentioning her.

Sounds Like: Steve McQueen’s hippie daughter.

Joy Bang

Why We Love It: Cute and bubbly on a child, slanderously disgusting on an adult, the name Joy Bang could only belong to a quintessential 60s girl.

Any other decade and she would have just been spit out of the bottom of the porn industry.

Sounds Like: A pornographic website.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

Why We Love It: How many syllables do you need in a name? 11? That’s just showing off. Surely this has just been a massive hindrance for the Scarface actress in the long run though? That and starring in The Perfect Storm . BOOM! Take that Mary!

Sounds Lik e: An Italian restaurant.

Fairuza Balk

Why We Love It: Because it’s a ridiculous mouthful that never actually comes close to resembling any name you’ve heard in the past.

Also, you’ve got to admire any mother who’s willing to give their daughter such a convoluted moniker. Or you could just report her to child services.

Sounds Like: A gossip.

Edward Woodward

Why We Love It: Basically because it sounds like you’re saying the word wood three times for literally no reason.

Rumours have it that some unlucky souls have even attracted a splinter-ridden version of Beetlejuice when they were just trying to have a discussion about Hot Fuzz .

Sounds Like: A character from a children’s book.

Scatman Crothers

Why We Love It: You know that the Scatman loves to party. Not now obviously, he's long dead, but in his prime he would surely have visited a number of discotheques and danced the night away.

Of course, there are many other different ways to interpret Crothers' first name that we shall leave only the most vulgar of you to acknowledge.

Sounds Like: A jazz singer.

Whoopi Goldberg

Why We Love It: Just like the portly actress, there’s a boisterous and merry aura surrounding her name. So much so that you can’t help but sound enthusiastic when you pronounce it.

Even if Theodore Rex did make you contemplate suicide.

Sounds Like: A childish prank.